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Peoples Video Network's Letter to 20/20 Regarding its Segment on Mumia Abu-Jamal
Harry Phillips Phu Nguyen
20/20 ABC
Dear Mr. Phillips,
You and your assistant Ms Nguyen contacted the Peoples Video Network to ask us for permission to use our footage of an original interview with Mumia Abu Jamal to put into your 20/20 segment. You claimed that you tried to get permission from the prison authorities to interview him directly but that your efforts were in vain. Therefore, you desperately needed our footage, otherwise Mumia's voice and point of view would not be heard and your piece would be biased against Mumia. You told me repeatedly that if we denied you use of our footage, this bias would be our fault as you were really trying to present a "balanced" picture.
First of all, your attempts to interview Mumia were a sham. In your letter to the prison authorities for a request to interview him, you said you were "working closely with the FOP and Maureen Faulker" and wanted the interview with Mumia in order to present a more balanced point of view. Not surprisingly, the prison authorities cooperated with your real intentions which was to not have a balanced point of view. It was apparent that you had already edited our footage into your piece and were calling us at the last minute to ask permission to use it in order to cover your behinds. In several phone conversations I had with you and Ms.Nguyen, I categorically told you that you did not have permission to use our interview footage and suggested that you should put off airing the piece. I followed this up in writing in a letter to both you and Ms. Nguyen. You even went so far as to offer us money for the footage by saying, " Of course, we wouldn't be so crass as to offer you money". Nevertheless, despite our written and verbal agreement that you would not use our footage, you proceeded to go ahead and use not only the interview footage, but much of our other footage including marches and demonstrations taken over the last few years.
The threat that our refusal to let you use our footage would leave Mumia's point of view out is so hypocritical, it defies the imagination. The pieces of our interview that you did use (calculatingly and totally out of context) you used to serve your purposes--to try to make Mumia appear as a dangerous and irresponsible character that only fringe elements and duped brain dead automatons could admire. So much for your dedication to truth, honesty and investigative journalism.
Your treatment of the Peoples Video Network is just another example of your overall arrogance and lack of scruples which was so glaringly clear in your 20/20 piece on Mumia. You lie as a way of life, but in the service of your masters, the rich and powerful. Everyone else can be stepped on like ants. Thanks for your consideration in calling us up in the first place. You will be hearing from us again.
Ellen Andors
Peoples Video Network
To: People Video Network Homepage
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