August 19, 2007

Unbalance at WNPT, PBS

PBS is scheduled to broadcast nationally Tuesday night a biased documentary about a gold-mining project in Romania. The PBS series Wide Angle, titled "Gold Futures," in which the ongoing controversy over the proposed gold mine in the village of Rosia Montana will follow the anti-mine perspective promoted by a variety of European environmentalists who don't live in the village, an effort now backed by leftwing American financier George Soros.

(Wide Angle airs nationwide on PBS at 9 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, August 21. In Nashville, it airs at 8 p.m. on the PBS affiliate WNPT.)

The documentary portrays the controversy as a David and Goliath battle with the poor residents of Rosia Montana trying to defend themselves against a giant mining corporation. The truth, however, is much different. The majority of villagers actually support the project, which would involve a Canadian mining company cleaning up the environmental damage left behind after decades of mining by old and now-closed mine that had been run by the former communist government of Romania.

Their story is told in the moving and entertaining documentary Mine Your Own Business I have written more than a dozen posts about or referencing MYOB, which you can see here.

PBS - and, locally, WNPT ought to show MYOB in addition to "Gold Futures" in order to give viewers a balanced look at the issue.

Gheorghe Lucian, a Rosia Montana resident, has some more discussion of the PBS documentary on his blog, Report from Rosia.

For a more detailed look at this story, see my post Monday at NewsBusters.org.