WMD" screens at LOWES THEATRE E-WALK - 8th Ave & 42 Street during Republican convention - August 31 - 7 p.m.
CONTROVERSIAL IRAQ FILM EXPOSES ROLE MEDIA PLAYED PROMOTING IRAQ WAR - Was the Press Selling or Telling?
NEW YORK, NY (PRWEB) August 28, 2004 -- With mass media focused on Michael
Moore's new film bashing President Bush, another feature-length documentary
titled, WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception) is rousing as much controversy as it
takes on the media itself, and its role in promoting the Iraq war in the guise
of covering it. WMD screens by invitation - AUGUST 31, 2004 - 7 P.M. - LOWES
THEATRE - E-WALK - AT: 8th Ave. and 42 Street, NYC. Contact Globalvision for
more information.
Directed by Emmy Award Winning Danny Schechter, “The
News Dissector, “a former ABC and CNN producer. WMD investigates collusion
between the military, giant media companies and the government. It reports on
the "media war" as central to the larger conflict.
The filmmaker is the
author of six books on media issues including his latest EMBEDDED, about the
reporting from Iraq published by Prometheus Books. WMD - Weapons of Mass
Deception, Schechter brings an outsider's perspective and an insider's
experience in turning the cameras on the role the news networks played in
distorting news and treating the military campaign as "mili-tainment."
Schechter's film includes never before seen footage from Iraq, insider
information about Pentagon information warfare strategy and a report about
torture at Baghdad's notorious Abu Grab prison that predates the US network
stories by eight months. The film investigates the embed program, infiltrates
Fox News and takes a global approach to analyzing coverage. A year in the
making, WMD represents guerilla filmmaking without any backing from major media
on agglomerates. Academy Award winner Tim Robbins narrates a trailer which can
be seen online at: www.embeddedwmd.com
or www.WMDthefilm.com
As
timely as today's headlines, WMD comes on the heels of an admission by the New
York Times that its pre-war coverage was deeply flawed and contributes to a
growing debate within the news business about its own role that many
commentators described as totally different from the coverage seen around the
world.
"We have heard a lot of "chatter" about "intelligence failures"
and "policy failures," says outspoken Director Schechter, an Emmy award-winning
investigative reporter and former Nieman Fellow in Journalism: "Now it's time to
look at media failures because The Administration could never have won support
for its deceptive policies if the media was not complicit."
The
hard-hitting expose’ has been screened to acclaim and sold out theatres in a
number of festivals in Nantucket, Dallas, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, on
American campuses and in several cities in Europe and Brazil with more being
scheduled nationally and internationally in the months to come.
For more
information about Danny Schechter's work, see: http://www.newsdissector.org/Dissectorville or write e-mail
protected from spam bots. You can call Schechter for an interview at (212)
246-2677
NOTE: CHICAGO FILMGOERS FLOCK TO WMD
There was a line around
the block outside Three Penny Cinema on Thursday August 19th, at the Chicago
Underground Film Festival's first screening of WMD. Organizers at the festival
reported that the show was their first sell out. The film was greeted with
applause from a packed theater, and a lively discussion ensued. It screens again
Tuesday evening at 7:30
Director Danny Schechter took part in a panel
Saturday morning on politics and film at the theater.
That night, Chicago
Media Action hosted a filled screening at the No Exit Cafe in the Rogers Park
neighborhood. The small venue was packed. Eager viewers waited even when
screening equipment was late in arriving. The screening had been plugged in an
earlier radio broadcast by Chuck Mertz on the "This is Hell" show on WMUR
Radio.
The Chicago Reader which gave WMD a "critics' choice carries a
letter this week by Danny Schechter challenging some of the claims in its
original review.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/8/prweb152897.htm