TheOtherView
Decision shows bad precedent and censorship

CBS’s rash decision last week to scrap airing the four-hour miniseries “The Reagans” can only be considered a weak-willed submission to Republican political censorship.

This self-censorship sets a dangerous precedent, not just for docudramas and television programs exploring the ins and outs of presidents’ administrations, but for any televised or written criticism of political figures’ actions.

Detractors of “The Reagans” claim it was unbalanced in its portrayal of former president Ronald Reagan as uncaring about AIDS and passive about his job. While the program in its entirety has been viewed by few, bits and pieces of the script have been leaked and have offered up enough meat for the Right to sink its teeth into.

For example, according to a newsobserver.com article, in one scene Nancy Reagan pleads with her husband to start fighting the mounting AIDS epidemic, only to have him reply, “They that live in sin shall die in sin.”

Reaganites insist he never said such harsh words, and that’s probably true. However, there was a bit of truth tangled up in it — Reagan’s administration was in fact slow to act on AIDS initiatives.

How Reagan’s perceived performance in office got translated to harsh quotes in a made-for-TV movie should be no surprise to anyone on either side of the political spectrum: The most important thing is to get viewers’ attention, and to do that, it requires dramatized, stepped-up storylines.

Movies aren’t documentaries of everyday life — their primary purpose is to entertain, then inform. It’s not a justification, it’s just the way it is, especially with television dramas. NBC’s “Saving Jessica Lynch,” which aired Sunday, wasn’t exactly true to life, either.

So why was the “exaggeration” of truth deemed inappropriate in “The Reagans”? It certainly didn’t stop makers of movies about John F. Kennedy from dramatizing historical events.

The suppression of any information regarding presidential administrations should be widely available to the American public, no matter who it’s about or how dramatized it is. All the cancellation of “The Reagans” does is support the elimination of our right to decide for ourselves what we will believe by censoring our informational sources.

This is a staff editorial from the Iowa State Daily at Iowa State University.
This editorial was distributed by U-Wire.