Knocking on the Devil's Door and Death By Medicine BOTH Win Silver Prizes for Documentary!

This past weekend, at the 2011 California Film Awards, both Knocking on the Devil's Door and Death By Medicine continued their blazing run in the worldwide film festival circuit. This is totally unprecedented, for a single director to win for two separate documentaries in the same year, so I am humbled by this fantastic news! 

If you haven't yet seen these films, be sure and go to my online store, where you can order either or both multi-award winning documentaries for over 50% off TODAY!

Information about the recent Festival:

California Film Awards recognizes and celebrates important world cinema that represents the forefront of aesthetic, critical and entertainment standards in contemporary independent filmmaking and screenwriting. The California Film Awards honors new and cutting-edge American and foreign independent films in several competition categories.  Partnering with notable film industry companies, film educators, directors, producers, and writers, the California Film Awards provides a forum for talented filmmakers to be recognized for their work, creativity, and achievements.

Osama and the Hijacking of New York's Grief

By Alison Rose Levy

""The shock, grief and loss were overwhelming."How should we understand this latest and most troubling insight into the reality of our media ecology? In the aftermath of the resolution of the Great Birther bash-up, even as President Obama tried to lay the issue at rest by producing the document that showed, proved, verified, documented, and validated his birth in one of the great states of our disunion, it was said that its release would only fuel more debate, and convince no one. In other words, in the end, this long debated fact didn’t matter. Facts no longer seem to matter on other issues, too, as articulated in the now infamous memo issued by retiring Senator Jon Kyle whose office, when confronted with evidence that he misspoke on the matter of how much money Planned Parenthood spent on abortions—he claimed 90%, the truth was but 3%, issued an advisory that said, “The statement was not meant to be factual.” In other words, in the end, this long debated fact didn’t matter.

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WHY FACTS NO LONGER MATTER IN THE MEDIA DISCOURSE

By Danny Schechter

""No matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as the truth."How should we understand this latest and most troubling insight into the reality of our media ecology? In the aftermath of the resolution of the Great Birther bash-up, even as President Obama tried to lay the issue at rest by producing the document that showed, proved, verified, documented, and validated his birth in one of the great states of our disunion, it was said that its release would only fuel more debate, and convince no one. In other words, in the end, this long debated fact didn’t matter. Facts no longer seem to matter on other issues, too, as articulated in the now infamous memo issued by retiring Senator Jon Kyle whose office, when confronted with evidence that he misspoke on the matter of how much money Planned Parenthood spent on abortions—he claimed 90%, the truth was but 3%, issued an advisory that said, “The statement was not meant to be factual.”

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Poll: Trust in Fox News in Sharp Decline; PBS is Most Trusted

PBS the most trusted name in news Raleigh, N.C.- As its affiliated Republican Party's fortunes rose in the last year, Fox News' have declined. In January 2010, PPP showed Fox as by far the news outlet most trusted by American voters. In this month's poll, Fox is still relied on by more than some other competitors but is far behind PBS, tested for the first time. PBS is the only group trusted by a majority and distrusted by fewer than 40%.

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The Media in America: Selling Views, Calling it News

America's journalists are not "newshounds." They are nothing more than salesclerks, hocking the products their employers want to sell. The pretty faces that now function as most television news anchors are no different than the pretty models used to sell other products. The American "free" press is comprised of nothing more than a number of retail outlets which sell stories slanted to please their target audiences. As such, they exist merely to sell snake oil.


Sometime in the 1960s, I took part in a university symposium along with three other faculty members—a political scientist, a historian, and a journalism professor. The topic was Freedom of the Press—Good or Bad.

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