PBS: 'Finding Your Roots' Affleck episode violated standards

[alp227]

Source: AP

LOS ANGELES (AP) — PBS put its "Finding Your Roots" series on hold Wednesday after determining an episode that omitted references to Ben Affleck's ancestor as a slave owner violated its standards.

The public television service said it is postponing the show's third season and delaying a commitment to a fourth year until it is satisfied with improvement in the show's editorial standards.

PBS launched its investigation after it was reported that Affleck requested the program not reveal his ancestor's slave-holding history in the 2014 episode. The Associated Press examined historical documents and found that Affleck's great-great-great-grandfather owned 24 slaves.

The review found that co-producers violated PBS standards by allowing improper influence on the show's editorial process and failed to inform PBS or producing station WNET of Affleck's efforts to affect the program's content.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/dc206cac9ee64d15bae60d52d95293ae/pbs-finding-your-roots-affleck-episode-violated-standards

[randys1]

1. When will they learn the cover up always WAY worse than the crime

The crime is his family owned slaves.

But he personally did not, no need to cover it up

[cosmicone]

3. Especially since he could have given it a nice spin

and gotten mileage out of it.

Now he looks like a dork.

[davidpdx]

22. It is always worse

He had to have known going into this that there was a possibility that he'd find out something bad about his ancestors. Just like taking a part in a movie, it is a risk (need I remind anyone of Gigil? Gross receipts $7.3 on a budget of $75.6).

The thing is that everyone knows already, why not just go on the show and do a mea culpa?

[frazzled]

2. Ya think?

The question is who gets the blame. Affleck is obviously the major asshole here. Gates should have done more than write (albeit complainingly) to the head of Sony Pictures to ask what to do about such an unprecedented request. And Sony should not have ...

The tangled webs we weave.

My main question is why Affleck wanted this information scrubbed in the first place. What does your great great great grandfather have to do with who you are? Is he so image bound that he felt even this distant, historical taint would affect the salary for his next picture or his own credibility?

I shrug.

[7962]

4. Yes. He thought it would harm his image

It shouldnt matter at all, but to a LOT of people these days, it does

[MountCleaners]

6. If he truly wants to be unracist

He'd be honest about it. People need to admit their family's history, it's part of coming to terms with it.

I'd respect him more if he were honest about it!

[joshcryer]

7. Was it a request from Affleck himself?

Or his managers or what?

[frazzled]

10. Himself, apparently

From a Chicago Tribune article on the subject:

But in an email exchange between Gates and Sony Pictures co-chairman and chief executive Michael Lynton, Gates asks Lynton for advice on how to handle Affleck's request.

"Here's my dilemma," says Gates in one email, dated July 22, 2014 — "confidentially, for the first time, one of our guests has asked us to edit out something about one of his ancestors — the fact that he owned slaves. Now, four or five of our guests this season descend from slave owners, including (prolific documentary filmmaker) Ken Burns. We've never had anyone ever try to censor or edit what we found. He's a megastar. What do we do?"


Lynton replied that it all depends on who knows that the information was in the documentary already.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/ct-pbs-finding-your-roots-affleck-episode-violated-standards-20150624-story.html

[joshcryer]

12. Yikes!

[Gore1FL]

8. Affleck is afraid of offending anyone.

What's funny to me is that he is an offensive jerk in that effort.

[csziggy]

21. I think it was Anderson Cooper whose ancestor had slaves

And he discussed how uncomfortable it made him with Henry Gates. I thought that put a good light on Cooper to see his very real upset at the thought. If I remember correctly, most of his lineage was from the North so he had not had the expectation of a Southern slave holder.

Affleck could have handled it better and it disappoints me that he was so shallow to ask to cover it up. He should have faced it, dealt with it and everybody would have just moved on.

[hedda_foil]

24. Well for heaven's sake, Anderson Cooper's family are the Vanderbilts. Yes, THOSE Vanderbilts.

But the slave owning relative apparently got her comeuppance according to a commenter on the show site.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/blog/anderson-coopers-family-tree/

David Wilson
7 months ago
Anderson Cooper had another relative who was killed by her slaves. Elizabeth Boykin (Witherspoon) died in 1861. She was descended from William Boykin and Margaret Burwell, Several descendants were named Burwell Boykin. Mary Chesnut was a cousin of Elizabeth Boykin and mentions her death in her famous diary

[MADem]

5. Well, I hope they don't cancel the show. I enjoy it. Skip Gates is the Man! nt

[Justice]

26. Agreed. If anything, Gates brings out the point that we are all more alike/related than

we would think today. Really fantastic weaving of history and genealogy.

[cstanleytech]

9. So what? Everyone on the planet probably has some ancestor who owned slaves so

I am not sure why he would want them not to mention it.

[Exultant Democracy]

31. Almost every black person descended from slaves in the west has slave owning ancestors.

Rape was an economic force multiplayer. If you rape half your slaves the half white babies they have will be worth four times as much as the slaves you don't rape who have black babies.

Repeat for a few generations and you have yourself a octoroon. There was no slave more valuable than a female Octoroon, but the males were worth a pretty penny too.

[cstanleytech]

32. Ya and so is everyone in else in the world because slavery

dates back thousands of years all over the globe and it spanned many civilizations and even today there some areas of the world where its still practiced.

[tishaLA]

11. Holy Streisand Effect, Batman!

If the point was to keep the world from knowing some unsavory things about the family history, this would have to go down as an epic fail.

[sybylla]

13. I don't get why entertainment programming has editorial standards

Clearly the programs don't have enough time to air a full history, so there is far more stuff getting left out than shown.

Who gives a rip if they focused on a different aspect of Ben's family? I think PBS is overthinking this.

[FSogol]

15. Seriously. Next they'll complain that Doctor Who isn't using good science or

that Sherlock Holmes wasn't a real person.

[MADem]

27. Probably because the perception exists that he used his "fame" to influence the outcome of the

way the program was presented.

If he had it to do over again, I'll bet he would have gone to Plan "Roll With It And Make It a Lesson!"

I think many Americans who have ancestors who were here during the civil war and previously had some slave owners (and slaves) in the direct family line. The newcomers don't have to deal with that particular legacy, but every family has a skeleton or two. If there's not a horse thief back there somewhere, your people haven't lived. Hell, Michelle Obama is the descendant of slaves and slave owners--it's not a shame on the person who is related, it's a reality of history that we need to own and own up to, if we want to call ourselves Americans--and that includes those of us who didn't have people on the scene here back in those bad old days. We all share our history, and each wave of immigrants adds to it.

[ananda]

29. Yeah, Confederacy and slavery is part of my ancestry too.

And my Texas side of the family is very racist, some being also
crazed fundies.

But most of them are very fun and lovable also. I hope they
also have the potential for personal evolution.

There is no point in keeping this kind of thing secret. It does
no good in any way to hide it.

However, it's hard to overcome if both your parents are that way,
American exceptionalists and racist the way my family is.

The only way my siblings and I escaped it was that my mother
wasn't raised in the south and always made close friends and
connections with everybody she met just about, which included
everybody bar none, including racist conservatives who she
loved to argue with. But even they weren't as crazy and
mean-spirited then as the conservatives are now.

[Skinner]

14. I find this whole story really odd.

Why would Affleck feel the need to keep this a secret anyway? We don't choose our ancestors.

[GeorgeGist]

18. Because he's a narcissist.

[shanti]

20. Exactly

My own paternal background has a slaveowner family, but that's one branch out of many who never owned slaves. He needs to own it.

[Igel]

28. Sounds like you might understand.

You didn't stop at "My own paternal background has a slave-owner family." That's all that's really needed here.

But you continued, because to admit ancestral guilt is
uncomfortable for some people to do,
may make others uncomfortable ("gee, I wonder if your great-great-great-grandcousin Lucy owned my ... great-great-great-great-grandmother?&quot ,
maybe opens you up to some judgment on the part of the hyper-judgmental

Then there's always the intractable reparations argument lurking in the background. "The only reason you have anything today, in spite of numerous depressions in the 1800s apart from the Civil War and its economic consequences, random family reversals, and the Great Depression, is because of the slaves your ancestors owned. You owe me."

So while there's one slave owner family in your background, "that's one branch out of many who never owned slaves." There's ancestral guilt, but it's diluted.

[shanti]

30. not guilt at all,

just stating he facts. this line was the only southern family in my tree, and they were from northern kentucky. on the other side of the ohio river was the Union army, with family members there too, undoubtedly brother against brother/cousin, etc.

[Sunlei]

16. noo, I love "finding your roots" series. we need DNA test shows to see whos got neanderthal dna

[appalachiablue]

19. I love this PBS program, they do a great job & Skip Gates is excellent. I've seen other people with

unsavory characters in their backgrounds, and I believe when Anderson Cooper heard that a slaveholder ancestor died or was killed (CW?) he said "good". Affleck must be really offended more than concerned about his rep. I think, he's solid.

[gregcrawford]

17. Now wait just a goddamned minute!

Standards?!!? I thought PBS abandoned all pretense of standards when they let David Koch deep-six an entire show that wasn't dripping with fawning adulation of him and his brother. EVERY TV show gets edited. Even if Affleck's request was a little tacky, do they have to condemn one of the best shows on their roster because of it? What assholes.

[Marrah_G]

23. I'm not sure why he or the show would want to cover that up

We all have ancestors that did shitty things. Doesn't matter who you are, at some point one of your ancestors was an evil little asshole.

[47of74]

25. And to be honest how many people have slaveholding relatives in their family trees?

Even President Obama has ancestors through his mother's side that had slaves.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/mar/04/uselections2008.barackobama