This story is highly unsettling and will only reinforce the view of many of us that public broadcasting is tilted intolerantly toward the p.c. left. The documentary 'Islam vs Islamists" airs the critical divide of our time - between fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist faith. There's every reason to be careful about such a program, but the evidence in the press suggests to me that the institutional bias against the program was deeply political:
Among Burke's examples of tampering:
A WETA manager pressed to eliminate a key perspective of the film: The claim that Muslim radicals are pushing to establish "parallel societies" in America and Europe governed by Shariah law rather than sectarian courts.
After grants were issued, Crossroads managers commissioned a new film that overlapped with Islam vs. Islamists and competed for the same interview subjects.
WETA appointed an advisory board that includes Aminah Beverly McCloud, director of World Islamic Studies at DePaul University. In an "unparalleled breach of ethics," Burke says, McCloud took rough-cut segments of the film and showed them to Nation of Islam officials, who are a subject of the documentary. They threatened to sue. "This utterly undermines any journalistic independence," Burke wrote in an e-mail to WETA officials.
In an interview, McCloud said she showed a single video frame to a Muslim journalist who was not a Nation of Islam representative. However, in a January e-mail, McCloud told Crossroads producers that she had spoken with Nation of Islam representatives and "invited them over to view this section." She also wrote that they were outraged "and will promptly pursue litigation." Stewart, the WETA executive, said McCloud was admonished for "inappropriate" conduct.
The appropriate word for that kind of behavior is sabotage.