Reclaiming Citizenship, History, and Faith

Or just flat out lying...

How can anyone at any news outlet defend airing a so-called documentary that is biased as hell and sorely lacking in truth?

Talk To Action | Reclaiming Citizenship, History, and Faith:

Recently I wrote about PBS's decision to carry a Religious Right pseudo-documentary attacking the concept of church-state separation.

PBS's ombudsman, Michael Getler, devoted a column to the controversy on June 15.

There is good news and bad news. Getler admits that the show, 'The Wall of Separation,' is clearly slanted toward opponents of the church-state wall.

The bad news is he defends its airing anyway.

Getler writes, 'The interviews in the film, in terms of time on screen and numbers, seemed to me to tilt clearly in favor of those who see a danger in the 'wall of separation' metaphor used by Jefferson....' He points out that the narrator 'time and again, conveys the theme of this film - that God is the necessary foundation of society's law and government.' Getler even calls the treatment a 'heavy-handed hammering away by the narrator.'

Getler goes off the rails when he tries to defend the program. 'My sense,' he writes, 'is that people can take from this film whatever they wish. It can be a useful reminder of the context of our founding documents and a way of looking at that context - and at the intent of the framers of the First Amendment as assessed in the dominant view of this film - that challenges the more common view....Or it can be viewed as sophisticated propaganda, as some critics already have...