NBC Rescues Jessica Lynch Again, Critics Pounce (but Reagans gets pulled)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The same day CBS pulled its controversial miniseries "The Reagans" claiming that it was not balanced, rival network NBC on Tuesday proclaimed the accuracy of its upcoming TV movie about the rescue of U.S. soldier Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital.

snip

When news of Lynch's rescue first surfaced in April, the mission was described as being a daring nighttime raid. Lynch was also reported to have been wounded as she battled attackers. It later emerged that the rescuers were unopposed and that Lynch was injured when her vehicle crashed.

snip

The screenwriter of "Saving Jessica Lynch," John Fasano, told Reuters that he went through about 20 drafts as more details of the raid emerged "and all the way I had to prove everything. ... Everything in this had to be vetted."


Unfortunately, the truth may have gotten in the way of a good story. Entertainment Weekly labeled the film as "bland," while Time said it was "dull."

more
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=638&ncid=762&e=1&u=/nm/20031105/en_nm/leisure_lynch_dc

In one scene from the film's final script, Reagan says of AIDS (news - web sites) patients, "They that live in sin shall die in sin." But there is no evidence he ever expressed those views.

isn't this what these consevatives believe? what's their problem with Saint Raygun maybe having said this?

for the xian right?

assholes

if it's a joke its sick, if it isn't it is even sicker.

They want to make an issue of gay marriage in the 2004 election. They need the Christian right to feel fully justified in their hatred and intolerance of gays. To link this type of hatred of gays to a republican icon like Reagan may make the Christian right feel guilty or question their views on gays.

Believe their hideous psudo-religious lies, but never pay the political price of losing a few votes over it.

They are the very definition of Biblical Hypocrites.

is irrlelevant...it's a made for TV movie for crying out loud. Plus, we all know that REAGAN IGNORED THE AIDS OUTBREAK IN THE 1980S FOR A VERY LONG TIME after thousands of citizens died in this country....His white back then was saying it was an issue for the gay community to deal with!

They are thinking about electoral politics and keeping their extremism secret.

stinks of fiction. What about the three "rescuers" who have died under extremely weird circumstances, that sounds like a more compelling story. Anyone hear anything about that in the corporate media? The DNC ought to demand to review and correct the script to this film along with that horrible "9/11" work of fiction.

help me out.

...FOUR of her rescuers have died under mysterious circumstances.

1) - killed in one car accident
2) - shot in the back in Afghanastan
3) - shot in backyard as a result of drive-by shooting
4) - committed suicide

All seems a little weird.

I always thought it was members of her company at the time she was "taken prisoner" that were being offed.

I was aware of the car accident and the backyard shooting... but does anybody have a link for the other two?

outlines the whole affair, I believe this was the one linked to from here(DU)the other day

http://karmakat.typepad.com/picasso_dreams/2003/10/anatomy_of_a_ru.html

It's a bit lengthy, so I'll have to check it out later but I do appreciate the link.

the Today Show this morning? They had James Salin's (the guy who plays Raygun????) manager on and he was totally BASHING the rethuglicans! He stated we live with censorship which goes against the first amendement. He used the example of the mini-series and the hiding of the coffins. It was a pretty exciting moment for the Today Show. There was (I believe) a historian who stated that CBS totally caved to the conservatives because they were afraid of them and they would be fools not to be considering they have to get federal licenses. Maybe some unlikely people will start to think.

That's what motivated CBS to pull Raygun's.

Money, money, money -

Shrub will have $200 million next year to throw around. The GOP threatened to pull ad dollars from CBS, & every Infinity radio station in the country - nothing motivates broadcasters more than money.

*

not being pulled kind of lends a false sense of truth depiction.

JAMES BROLIN is the guy playing Reagan. Barbra Streisand's husband. Josh Brolin's dad. Diane Lane's future father-in-law. And, most importantly, Dr. Kiley from Marcus Welby, MD!

Anyway ... it all stinks. Plenty of bad true-life TV movies come out -- playing fast and loose with the facts. Pulling this one, letting the rest of them air, is just B.S. That Jessica Lynch movie has "bag of gas" written all over it!

Maybe the Repugs haven't forgiven James Brolin for so PERFECTLY skewering George W. Bush on "The West Wing" ... playing the dumb, disengaged Republican candidate who ran against Jed Bartlett. It was so clearly modeled on Dumbya, it wasn't funny. And Brolin was WONDERFUL in that role.

. . And secondly, and maybe more poignant,

. . These two "stories" can't be any less tasteful, or inaccurate than the "stories" the DOD or the WH is giving us all about Junior's war(s) against terrorism - past present and future??

Jus a Dumm Canuck's Observations

I think NBC is just hoping that viewers will tune in based on the existing publicity surrounding Lynch

(sorry - no link)


NEW YORK (AP)--The top networks are suffering through a lackluster fall season
partly because "some of the programming just sucked," NBC's entertainment chief
said on Tuesday.
NBC's Jeff Zucker, who has already canned two high-profile new series, said
while networks question some of Nielsen Media Research's (NMR.XX) numbers this
year, TV executives need also look in the mirror.
NBC is a unit of General Electric Co. (GE).
"Our programming is not that good and the Nielsen sample is bad. End of
story," said Zucker, speaking to the International Radio & Television Society
Foundation.
During the first week of the important November sweeps period, CBS was the
only one of the six major broadcasters to draw a bigger audience than the same
week last year, Nielsen said. CBS is a unit of Viacom Inc. (VIA).

Zucker cited NBC's "Coupling" - already canceled - as NBC's biggest mistake of
the season. Another series the network had high hopes for, Rob Lowe's "The
Lyon's Den," has also been taken off the air.

Here is a great movie about the start of the AIDS epidemic and it is a great indictment of Reagan and his administration who did basically nothing. If you have seen this movie how could you possibly forget the real documentary film ending scenes of the candlelite vigils, the aids quilt, a collage of those who have been lost all shown while Elton John's hauntingly beautiful song "The Last Song" plays in the background.

I think we ought to contact CBS and ask them to show this movie instead.

then " Brazil".

Looks like at least one star out there is thinking about her choices about the network she will work for in the future. Nice to see that the buck doesn't exactly stop with the RW advertisers. If the stars stay away, then the networks will have to think about these decisions a little harder.

"People. People who need people..."

http://barbrastreisand.com/statements.html