Ken Burns: Student of History—or Left-Wing Gasbag?

Accuracy in Media ^ | December 16, 2016 | Arne Steinberg

[MarvinStinson]

Ken Burns claims, “For nearly forty years now, I have diligently practiced a conscious neutrality in my work.” This “neutrality” includes the following: In 2008, the Democratic National Committee chose Burns to produce the introductory video for Senator Edward Kennedy’s Democratic National Convention speech, which, according to Politico, presented Kennedy as “the modern Ulysses bringing his party home to port.” When Burns endorsed Barack Obama for the U.S. presidency in December 2007, he compared Obama to Abraham Lincoln. In 2012, Burns wrote, “Like FDR, Obama has walked us back from the brink. He averted a depression, ended one war and put us on the path ending the other, rescued the auto industry…Obama has deployed the shrewd combination of speaking softly and using a big stick. Ask Bin Laden.”

Burns hammers at left-wing mantras in his documentaries, using standard and easily recognizable left-wing media techniques. He omits the long racist history of Democrat politicians in his documentary “Congress,” presenting the period just before the Civil War to the post-Reconstruction era without ever identifying a single pro-slavery congressman or senator as a Democrat. He omits the strong anti-abortion views of Susan B. Anthony in his suffrage movement documentary “Not For Ourselves Alone,” since that did not fit the left-wing ideology he was pushing. When a white shooter killed black churchgoers in 2015, Burns said, “As most Americans were, I was stunned, shocked, reduced to tears by what had happened in Charleston and felt like all the old ghosts were all still present in American life.” But when a Muslim terrorist killed 50 gays in Orlando, Florida, in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, Burns said of Donald Trump’s advocating a temporary halt to Muslim immigration to America: “Do not think that the tragedy in Orlando underscores his points. It does not.”

[easternsky]

Mail

[LucyT]

Got it.

Thanks!

[a fool in paradise]

The most shocking thing I learned from the PBS documentary series was that the Civil War was funded by a grant from Exxon-Mobil. I didn’t even think Big Oil existed at the time of the Civil War.

[PGalt]

Thanks for the ping. thread; posts. I’ve never seen any of Ken Burns’ stuff.

[Candor7]

Ken Burns: Student of History—or Left-Wing Gasbag?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Left Wing gas bag.

Or in the alternative term: A utopian fascist propagandist.

Joseph Goebbels is his hero.

[bgill]

No wonder kids grow up not knowing the truth of real history

I saw revisions in school textbooks 25 years ago. When I taught, I'd point out the lies. It gets worse every day.

[TWhiteBear]

Is this a trick question??
TWB

[GOPJ]

Like turning his ‘Baseball’ documentary into a Mario Cuomo campaign commercial?

Ken Burns rides the success of his Civil War documentary.... and inhabits a world that only exists in his mind. ALL of us wish liberal were like the hype they put out - and NOT like the goons and thugs they've shown themselves to be. Maybe Ken Burns can do a special on democrats paying violent street people to rough up Trump supporters WHILE feeding the press 'fainting couch' stories about 'violence'...

[Candor7]

Is this a trick question??>>>>>>>>>>>

Two words:

Revisionist history.

Lies, lies, lies.