| WASHINGTON
- March 25 - In its broadcast of the Oscar ceremony and the long-awaited Elia Kazan
protest, ABC chose to offer millions of TV viewers a distorted view of what happened.
Blacklist victims had encouraged attendees not to applaud, or at least
not to stand, for Mr. Kazan, who was given a special lifetime achievement award. According to observers in the auditorium, the protest
was quite successful in that half or more of the audience did not stand and applaud -- an unprecedented response to a recipient of such an
award.
Liz Smith reported (Newsday, 3/23), "most of the audience did not
applaud." According to film critic Roger Ebert, "only 40% of the audience stood up and clapped." Daily Variety's Army Archerd reported
(3/22), "Although those who approved were vocally audible, the silence of those who did not far outweighed them...only about 20% of the
audience stood." Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times reported (3/24) "three-quarters of those in attendance remained seated."
But TV viewers got a very different view of what happened from ABC's
highly-selective presentation, which gave the impression of overwhelming support for Mr.
Kazan. Beginning with reaction shots of actor Karl Malden (who'd helped arrange the Kazan award) rising to applaud and the
standing Warren Beatty, ABC's cameras focused approximately 85 percent of their crowd shots on people standing to applaud --compared to only 15
percent on people who were not applauding.
ABC and the Academy served up this sanitized presentation despite prior
claims that "the show is a news event, and we will show what happens." (producer Gil Cates in USA Today, 3/19).
"It's ironic," says FAIR program director Janine Jackson, "that in
covering a protest of the Cold War hysteria that led to blacklists of dissenters, ABC seems to have resorted to the Soviet-style practice of
trying to erase dissenters from the picture."
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