Fake News: A&E Yanks KKK Series After Participants Say They Were Paid to Distort Facts
Oh, you mean to show how "dangerously toxic Trump's America" is?
1.2.2017
11
The mainstream media are now engaged in a concerted effort to denounce "fake news" -- even though they're the ones who coined the term, then elevated it to an art form.
In an effort to throw us all off their scent, the Left is attempting to churn out -- wait for it -- more fake news.
The latest example was the A&E documentary slated for release in January about the current state of the KKK in America. Because, you know, it was going to reveal the dark underbelly of Donald Trump's America -- an incestuous wasteland of bigotry and hate. A fertile breeding ground for the nation's troglodytes.
Too bad the network ended up pulling the series before its debut after it was exposed that producers paid off the documentary's participants to distort facts.
Escaping the KKK: A Documentary Series Exposing Hate in America reportedly paid off Klan members and staged fictional events in order to heighten the drama.
"That's fake episodes of hate," Newsbusters astutely notes. The media watchdog group adds:
A&E's pitch for the show was "This show is not rehearsed or prepackaged." But Variety’s Nate Thayer reports their findings were based on interviews that Variety conducted with over two dozen people involved in the making of the documentary. He found that some were paid and pushed to “distort facts”:“Some KKK leaders divulged that they were paid hundreds of dollars in cash each day of filming to compel them on camera to distort the facts of their lives to fit the documentary’s predetermined narrative: tension between Klan members and relatives of theirs who wanted to get out of the Klan."Ironically, the production company is called This Is Just A Test. That is all the series was.The KKK leaders who were interviewed by Variety detailed how they were wooed with promises the program would capture the truth about life in the organization; encouraged not to file taxes on cash payments for agreeing to participate in the filming; presented with pre-scripted fictional story scenarios; instructed what to say on camera; asked to misrepresent their actual identities, motivations and relationships with others, and re-enacted camera shoots repeatedly until the production team was satisfied.The production team even paid for material and equipment to construct and burn wooden crosses and Nazi swastikas, according to multiple sources including Richard Nichols, who is one of the featured subjects of the documentary series as the Grand Dragon of a KKK cell known as the Tennessee White Knights of the Invisible Empire. He also said he was encouraged by a producer to use the epithet “n*gger” in interviews.”
Of course A&E declined to comment when asked about the allegations, merely stating that it is conducting an investigation.
Now it goes without saying that all people of goodwill openly condemn the KKK and bigots of all stripes, but it was clear to see what kind of hustle A&E executives thought they were going to pull off.
As one can imagine, A&E's latest KKK series is just one example of the endless parade of series and news broadcasts airing manufactured content. This one just happened to get busted, and we're glad for that.
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