As I write this, I realize I am about to do something that, for the most part, is never done. I am going to criticize a critic.
Filmmakers are never supposed to respond to a critic about their work. It’s an unspoken rule of engagement. But in this case, I feel compelled.
I am going to criticize Alessandra Stanley, the TV critic for the New York Times. I am not going to criticize her on the basis of what she may not like about my recent film essay “Poliwood,” but I am going to take her to task for her blatant inaccuracies. For her inability to view the piece for what it was.
It may be true that I am overly sensitive to her critical writings ever since reading a review she wrote some time ago about a Walter Cronkite documentary that was part of PBS' “American Masters” series. I had nothing to do with that project other than to see it and to read her review, which began, “There will never be an anchorman like Walter Cronkite. And thank heaven for that.”
It was a shocking opening line -- an assessment that I would certainly disagree with -- but nevertheless, she is allowed to express her own opinion.
However, the line that really caught my ire for its blatant inaccuracy was what she said about Cronkite informing the nation about the assassination of President John Kennedy: “He informed and consoled the nation with stoic grace. But it’s hard to imagine that anyone in that chair at that moment, wouldn’t have been just as memorable, simply because he was there.”
Anyone in that chair! Anyone? The impression you get from Ms. Stanley is that there was only one network and one person reporting this event back then. Is she suggesting that Walter Cronkite was the only reporter informing us about this assassination?
The reality is there were three networks and they were all reporting the event, and Walter Cronkite is the only one we remember.
Why do we remember Cronkite as he took off his glasses on that tragic day and reported that the young president had just died? According to Ms. Stanley, it had nothing to do with Cronkite’s unique ability as a newsman or his special ability to connect with an audience. It was because he was the only one there, reporting.
To defend her thesis she had to carefully eliminate two networks from history -- and two chairs.
Yet this is what Ms. Stanley does: She alters reality to fit her thesis. It is blatantly inaccurate and deceitful. It is a bogus sentence, illogical and fraudulent.
That is not valid criticism, and should have no place in such a respected paper as the New York Times. But it was written, and it was printed.
Now I come back to “Poliwood.”
Ms. Stanley states, “In politics, the only thing worse than no access, is too much access.” She goes on to say, “At its core the film is a screed about everything that was wrong with politics and media during the 2004 election, carried over and misapplied to the 2008 campaign.”
