- Here is how PJ Productions bills itself:
-
- "At PJ Productions we believe quite simply that
the best television is challenging television. Smart television. Television
that makes you think, whether it is about history, or politics, or religion,
or popular culture, or sports. Our goal, as journalists and film-makers,
is to serve the public interest, to encourage public discourse in a way
that is entertaining in the best sense."
-
- Uh...'challenging'....'makes you think'...'to serve the
public interest'...'to encourage public discourse'
-
- After the UFO and earlier JFK Specials, the above descriptors
are essentially laughable.
-
- PJ Productions top staff consists of: Jennings, Tom Yellin,
Katherine Freed, and Gabrielle Tenebaum. Mr. Jennings is married to Ms.
Freed. Ms. Tenebaum produced both the UFO and the JFK Specials.
-
-
- Comment
- From Gary J.
- 2-27-5
-
- Hi Jeff - The way this UFO Special 'Investigation' was
presented - and the reaction to it - are a mirror image of the Jennings
ABC special on the JFK assassination which aired in November.
-
- Promo from ABCNews.com:
-
- "ABCNEWS will air a two-hour special, Peter Jennings
Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination " Beyond Conspiracy, on Thursday,
Nov. 20. "
-
- Here is one review of the special. Does it sound just
a little bit...familiar?
-
-
- The ABC/Peter Jenning's Special on the JFK
Assassination:
- A Repeat of Discredited Lone-Gunman Arguments
- By Michael T. Griffith
-
- I've received many e-mails asking me about the Peter
Jenning's special on the John F. Kennedy assassination on ABC. Basically,
the program did little else but offer a rehash of old, discredited lone-gunman
arguments. The special essentially ignored the mass of new evidence that
has come from the files that were released by the Assassination Records
Review Board in the 1990s. It also ignored the work of the House Select
Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) regarding Jack Ruby, his Mafia ties,
and his suspicious actions before and after the assassination. The program
relied heavily on the spurious computer animations of Dale Myers and on
the biased, problematic research of Gus Russo and Gerald Posner. Even people
who knew little of the JFK case when they watched the show have commented
to me that it was obvious from the outset that the program was very one-sided.
-
- To read more of this review:
http://ourworld-top.cs.com/mikegriffith1/abcjfk.htm
-
- Here's another withering condemnation of the Jennings/Tenebaum
JFK special. Again - Does it sound just a little bit...familiar?
-
-
- 40 Years Later And We're Still Stupid
- By Joey Dauben
- November 21 2003
-
- Peter Jennings should be fired.
-
- After taking two hours worth of the Jennings/Warren Commission
propaganda show called "The JFK Assassination -
- Beyond Conspiracy", I've come to the conclusion
that not only was Thursday night's ABC special a complete loss of credibility
for any news organization (I'm 22 and have never seen the blatant lies
on network TV like I did with this show), but the American people must
be stupid.
-
- Typically, you will be able to catch the questionable
"facts" the Big Three - Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Jennings - will
throw out each night on the nightly news, but never in my entire life (or
short journalism career) have I seen such blatant disregard for any shred
of ethical standards such as the JFK special.
-
- We all know the "official" story: a lone Marxist
nut, Lee Harvey Oswald, angered by the U.S. government's attempts to rid
the world of Fidel Castro, taking refuge on the sixth floor of a textbook
warehouse in downtown Dallas, only to fire three shots in less than nine
seconds, killing President John F. Kennedy.
-
- You could have plastered the television screen Thursday
with the word "Bullshit" and it would have been the same thing.
The ABC show came out with their irrefutable proof that Oswald acted alone
and killed Kennedy, then briefly highlighted some notable explanations
from conspiracy theorists on the matter, including Oliver Stone, who directed
the 1991 blockbuster JFK.
-
- A majority of Americans, according to Jennings and many
of the Warren Commission-supporting "experts" he interviewed,
believe the killing of our 35th president was a conspiracy.
-
- Many of those, Jennings later pointed out, believe our
own government carried out the conspiracy.
-
- Indeed, a secret pact with the major networks and major
daily newspapers like the New York Times and a CIA agent is reason enough
to become highly suspect; the accord, according to the actual government
document [link: http://www.jfkmurder.com] states journalists, to abide
by the government's official word, could "write book and movie reviews"
to discredit the conspiracy theorists; and, it continues, a good way to
character assassinate a non-conforming member of the media profession -
or any profession really - is to describe them as "Communist propagandists."
-
- Real document. That in itself explains the entire reason
for the Jennings special, but a lot of what his show left out is completely
amazing.
-
- I mean, we really must be stupid.
-
- In 1979, the House of Representatives found that there
had been a conspiracy. This was the government! The government, though
not revealing too much, came out publicly with the conclusion, yet ABC
News holds on to the "Americans are really just that stupid"
line.
-
- Kennedy, with his private life aside, was a man of the
people before he was executed. His orders to abolish the Federal Reserve,
the CIA, and withdrawal of our men from Vietnam did not sit well with many
government officials.
-
- He cautioned of a "great threat that I must warn
the American people about."
-
- The man who dared to stand up publicly against plans
for a future world government could not be left in power. The government
conspired to kill Kennedy. That is a fact. It's documented [link: http://www.prouty.org].
It's well-known.
-
- As much as Peter Jennings, ABC, and the mainstream media
would like to think, we are not in fact stupid.
-
- Thursday night's show was the most despicable program
I have ever seen in my 22 years of life. Not once have I ever seen such
lies, the attempts at character mischaracterization and cover-up.
-
- Journalists everywhere - if they have any dignity or
integrity - should be ashamed. Ashamed that our profession's duties once
responsible for being a watchdog on government...are now a fourth branch
of the government.
-
- - Joey Dauben is a reporter for The Ellis County Press,
an independent weekly newspaper based 20 miles south of Dallas, Texas.
His website is http://www.joeydauben.com.
-
- _____
- So, had we just refreshed our memories with the Jennings/Tenebaum
ugly joke of a special on JFK, we would have had far more realistic expectations
of their UFO 'investigation.' Nearly a year in production, with a vast
number of hours of interviews taped with many of the best in ufology and
Tenebaum produces another rehash mix of often discredited data and misdirection.
A crucial interview with John Mack never saw the light of day but two
of his Harvard critics were given carte blanche to trash his work. There
are many, many glaring and grievous deficiencies in the Tenebaum-produced
UFO Special...which are clearly pointed out in the flood of disgust coming
from UFO researchers, eyewitnesses and untold millions of intelligent Americans.
Ms. Tenebaum couldn't even be bothered to type in 'Nuclear Physicist'
in front of Stanton Friedman's name in the narration, instead choosing
to bludgeon and dismiss him as basically a Roswell book hustler. With the
amount of interviews and data Ms. Tenebaum gathered in close to a year
of research, for her to have produced such a UFO debacle suggests firmly
that she is either an arrogantly biased anti-UFO proponent...or was following
an agenda. Or both. And Peter Jennings, of course, signed off on the whole
thing just as he did with the JFK assassination sellout. Both programs
have 'conditioning' and 'propaganda' stamped all over them. (The only other
choices would seem to be terminal negligence and stupidity..)
-
- _____
-
- If you are interested, here is how PJ Productions praises
itself as a guardian of the truth for the American people:
-
- At PJ Productions we believe quite simply that the best
television is challenging television. Smart television. Television that
makes you think, whether it is about history, or politics, or religion,
or popular culture, or sports. Our goal, as journalists and film-makers,
is to serve the public interest, to encourage public discourse in a way
that is entertaining in the best sense. Tom Yellin, the president of PJP,
and I have worked together for more than 20 years at ABC News. We have
produced more than 50 documentaries, several town meetings, a number of
children's programs, and numerous breaking news specials. Much of what
we are doing today at PJP continues to be broadcast by ABC. We are joined
in this adventure by some of the most creative and original reporters and
documentary-makers in the business. We are very proud that they are with
us.
-
- These days in network television, where we've all spent
many years and where we were mostly trained, there is less time for our
kind of documentary. We decided to create this little company in order
to do more. We are very excited. Peter Jennings
-
- Peter Jennings is the anchor and senior editor of ABC's
World News Tonight. He is the network's principal anchor for breaking
news, election coverage, and special events.
-
- Peter has reported most of the pivotal events of the
last 40 years: the civil rights movement in the United States during the
1960s and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa during the 1970s
and '80s; Berlin in the 1960s when the Berlin Wall went up, and in the
'90s when it came down; the Vietnam War in the 1960s, and Cambodiaís
killing fields in the 1980s. He has consistently put complex and difficult
issues on the agenda.
-
- Peter led ABC News' coverage of the September 11th attacks,
anchoring more than 60 hours that week, ABC's longest continuous period
of news coverage ever. And on Millennium Eve, he anchored "ABC 2000"
ñ 25 consecutive hours of live television, watched by over 175 million
Americans.
-
- He co-authored with Todd Brewster the bestselling book,
The Century, and anchored the 12-hour ABC series by the same name. The
two collaborated again on In Search of America, which was published in
2002 in conjunction with a television series also broadcast on ABC.
-
- Peter joined ABC News in August, 1964, and anchored ABC
Evening News from 1965 to 1968. In 1972 he helped put ABC News on the
map with his live coverage of the hostage crisis at the Summer Olympics
in Munich. He became chief foreign correspondent and established the first
American television news bureau in the Arab world when he moved to Beirut,
Lebanon, where he lived for seven years. In 1978 he became the foreign
anchor of World News Tonight, based in London. He has been sole anchor
and senior editor of WNT since 1983. Peter is passionate about making documentaries.
His documentary series for ABC News, Peter Jennings Reporting, began in
1990. Its mission has been to cover challenging issues in-depth that might
otherwise be ignored by primetime television: the search for Jesus, the
threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan, the conflict in Bosnia,
gun control policy, the politics of abortion, tobacco, drugs, the JFK assassination
ñ the list goes on.
-
- In numerous news specials for young people, Peter has
tried to speak directly to children ñ and to listen. Subjects have
included growing up in the age of AIDS, prejudice, and war. After the
events of September 11th and again on the first anniversary he anchored
town hall meetings for children and their parents entitled "Answering
Children's Questions."
-
- Peter's work as an anchor and reporter has been honored
with many important journalism and broadcasting awards, among them numerous
Emmys, and several Peabody, duPont-Columbia and Overseas Press Club awards.
-
- Tom Yellin
- President and Executive Producer
-
- Tom Yellin brings to PJ Productions 15 years of experience
as an executive producer at ABC News and almost three decades in network
television. Tom has been executive producer of Peter Jennings Reporting
since its inception in 1990. He was also the executive producer of numerous
award-winning programs and series, including The Century and In Search
of America, "ABC 2000" ñ a 23 hour broadcast marking the
millennium ñ and several of Peter's children's programs, town meetings,
and breaking news specials.
-
- From 1992-1995, Tom was the executive producer of the
prime time news magazine Day One, which he created and which, under his
direction, broadcast a landmark series of investigative reports on the
tobacco industry.
-
- Tom first came to ABC News in 1980 as a New Yorkñbased
producer for Nightline, followed by two years as Nightline's senior producer
in London. He returned to New York and was a senior producer for World
News Tonight with Peter Jennings until 1985, when he became the senior
producer of CBS News' weekly series West 57th. He moved back to ABC News
in 1989.
-
- Tom's programs have won many prestigious broadcast and
journalism awards, among them the duPont-Columbia, the Peabody, the Emmy
and the Polk.
-
- Katherine Freed
- Vice President
-
- Katherine (Kayce) Freed joined PJ Productions after 20
years at ABC News. Most recently she was a producer at the prime time
news magazine 20/20, where for seven years she worked with anchor Barbara
Walters and correspondents Lynn Sherr, Deborah Roberts, Bob Brown and others.
A native New Yorker, Kayce joined ABC News in London in 1982, where she
first worked with Peter Jennings and Tom Yellin. She was a researcher,
assignment editor, and then for three years an associate producer for Nightline,
covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In 1986, she relocated to
ABC News' Atlanta Bureau as a producer, assigned primarily to cover the
southern United States and the Caribbean. Two years later, when World
News Tonight With Peter Jennings launched its ground-breaking daily segment,
"The American Agenda," Kayce was one of its pioneering producers,
focusing almost exclusively on social policy issues. The work received
numerous awards. She moved back to New York City in 1989 and, in 1993,
re-joined Tom as a producer on his news magazine Day One, where she worked
until its run ended and she moved on to 20/20.
-
- Kayce is married to Peter Jennings.
-
- Gabrielle Tenebaum
- Producer
-
- Gabrielle Tenebaum has been instrumental in launching
PJ Productions, helping to set up and organize the company. She was a
producer on the two-hour "Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy"
ñ and has been the coordinating producer on several other PJP documentaries.
-
- Gabby joined ABC News in 1998 as an associate producer
on The Century series. She continued working with Tom and Peter on several
Peter Jennings Reporting hours, including "Dark Horizon: India, Pakistan
and The Bomb" and "Family Business." She also was part
of the team that produced the series In Search of America.
-
- Prior to joining ABC, Gabby was an associate producer
on the award winning American Masters "Don Hewitt 90 Minutes on 60
Minutes" and American Experience "Gold Fever," both for
public television.
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