BRAVE NEW FILMS – In The Media

This OPED by Rep. Alan Grayson and Robert Greenwald originally appeared in The Hill. 

Three years ago last week, a U.S. drone strike hit the small town of Datta Khel in Pakistan. Local business owners and leaders were in the midst of a two-day tribal council meeting, called to address a dispute regarding a chromite mine in the area. Local authorities had been notified about the meeting, which is a traditional forum employed to resolve community conflicts.

Robert Greenwald discussed the cost of war in Afghanistan with Ed Schultz on the Ed Schultz Radio show on Wednesday, March 19th. 

By Tavis Smiley for Huffington Post.

Join me tonight on PBS for my conversation with award-winning filmmaker Robert Greenwald. He has exec-produced and/or directed more than 50 TV movies, miniseries and feature films. Through his company, Brave New Films, he also makes political video shorts and full-length documentaries -- substantive investigations of social issues, told through personal stories, and creatively distributed through such outlets as the Internet and social media. His latest film, Unmanned: America's Drone Wars, investigates the impact of drone strikes both here and abroad.

In the clip above, Greenwald shares his thoughts about President Obama's "kill list" and why he is getting a pass on drone strikes.

By Jeffrey Fleishman for the Los Angeles Times. 

In an old, whitewashed motel, where folklore has it studio executives once brought their secretaries for "lunch," Robert Greenwald, a mercurial man trailed by insults and death threats, leads a small band of filmmakers dedicated to unnerving political and corporate powers with righteous anger and quick-cut editing.

By Eric Benson for New York Magazine. 

Outfoxed director Robert Greenwald, ten years on. 

Why did you feel like you needed to make Outfoxed?
In 2004, many observers had already concluded that Fox News wasn’t “fair and balanced.” I remember a lot of people back then, including many liberals, would say, “Yeah, Fox News has one or two biased commentators, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, but as a news station they’re legit.” And what we set out to do was to show that, in fact, the entire Fox News was not a news organization. The goal was not just to change that narrative but to change the impact that Fox News often had on legitimate journalists. Editors and reporters would say, “Well, Fox has done four or five stories about this thing or the other thing; I guess there must be something there.” Our job in showing that they had a political bias was to take away that impact from them. 

This segment originally appeared on November 19th on MSNBC's The Ed Show. 

By Rick Kisonak for Seven Days

Remember George W. Bush? Your memory might be hazy. He doesn’t come around much anymore. During the last election, the Republican National Committee kept him locked in a room. These days he likes painting childlike self-portraits in the tub. And Lord knows that brush on his Crawford ranch isn’t going to clear itself.

By Lynn Elber for the Associated Press. 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Laura Poitras' skill and boldness as a documentary filmmaker have gained her Oscar and Emmy nominations, Sundance Film Festival honors and a public TV showcase, even if her work fell short of making a "Super Size Me" splash.

By Dan Froomkin for the Columbia Journalism Review. 

Despite the recent blockbuster leaks about spying on the phone records of millions of Americans, and President Obama’s stated willingness to discuss the issues they raise, a front-page New York Times article on Tuesday asserted that “legal and political obstacles” make a vigorous public debate about surveillance and civil liberties highly unlikely.