ITVS responds to New Yorker story about documentaries on Koch

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The Independent Television Service on Tuesday posted a statement in response to what it calls “the rising flow of misinformation surrounding Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream and Citizen Koch” stemming from a lengthy New Yorker piece last week.

“As a matter of policy,” the statement reads, “ITVS respects the privacy of filmmakers and our negotiations. We therefore declined an interview request from The New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer for a May 20, 2013, article she was framing around two documentaries with storylines on [billionaire conservative] David H. Koch. In the days after its publication, we continued to decline interview requests from other outlets.”

As part of its statement, ITVS says it “initially recommended the film Citizen Corp for production licensing based on a written proposal. Early cuts of the film, including the Sundance version, did not reflect the proposal, however, and ITVS eventually withdrew its offer of a production agreement to acquire public television exhibition rights. The film was neither contracted nor funded.”

It concludes: “Public broadcasting is a complex set of mostly independently operating entities, including PBS, broadcast stations, and a variety of producing organizations. ITVS is unique in this ecosystem. We hope the important conversation about corporate influence will continue, within not only public broadcasting but also the broader media, and stay grounded in facts and substance.”

One thought on “ITVS responds to New Yorker story about documentaries on Koch

  1. David H. Koch Wait he is mentioned as a Sponsor for the PBS distributed show WGBH Produced show NOVA as of 2013. Look at the ends of NOVA Show he is listed there as a major sponsor along with defense contractors. But the problem with KOCH is that he is simply dismissed as some boogeyman that ED Schultz of MSNBC came up with.

    But Wait PBS affiliates has aired controversial documentaries before but they were doing a bio on Mitt Romney and President Obama for Frontline sponsored by WGBH and they showed both Romney as a flip-flopper in the 1960’s and President Obama Struggling in his 20’s.

    If PBS, APT, NETA, PBS affiliates and ITVS agree not to air the Koch Documentary then let Pacifica Radio, Free Speech TV and LinkTV run with that doc about Koch Brothers.

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