Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. My guests today are two
Speaker 1: people using media to inspire, inform, and transform civic engagement
Speaker 1: in America. Robert Greenwald is the founder of Brave New Films,
Speaker 1: a nonprofit whose goal is to educate and mobilize the
Speaker 1: public on social issues like the prison system and voter suppression.
Speaker 1: Greenwald was a director of television and film, with projects
Speaker 1: ranging from the ambitious but poorly received musical Xanadu to
Speaker 1: the critically acclaimed Burning Bed. The filmmaker then pivoted turning
Speaker 1: his talents into real political action. But first, I'm talking
Speaker 1: to civil rights attorney Scott Heckinger. He's the founder and
Speaker 1: executive director of Zealous, an organization harnessing the power of
Speaker 1: storytelling for social justice. Scott Heckinger believes that inaccurate narratives
Speaker 1: on crime and policing help shape perception and policy, and
Speaker 1: he's working to change that. Zealous works with public defenders
Speaker 1: and advocates on campaigns that aim to change a broken
Speaker 1: criminal justice system and push for true public health and safety.
Speaker 1: Before Zealous, Heckinger was a public defender where he saw
Speaker 1: firsthand the many flaws in our system of mass criminalization.
Speaker 1: He uses this background to inform media campaigns and get
Speaker 1: the word out in mainstream outlets like The New York Times,
Speaker 1: Washington Post, and The Atlantic. A recent article by Heckinger
Speaker 1: in the Nation critiqued the coverage of crime in a
Speaker 1: post pandemic world, citing both NPR and The New York
Speaker 1: Times as culprits of sensationalist journalism. With his extensive background
Speaker 1: within the criminal justice system, I asked Scott Heckener if
Speaker 1: support for defund the police, bail reef form, and public
Speaker 1: defenders is largely drawn over racial lines. I mean, one
Speaker 1: of the things that I think is perhaps most misunderstood
Speaker 1: is that not just black leaders, but black communities are
Speaker 1: right now or at a place where they don't want police,
Speaker 1: and they are, you know, championing decarceration and eager to
Speaker 1: support less policing, less prosecutions, less prisons as a way
Speaker 1: to get to public health and safety. So I think we,
Speaker 1: as kind of folks in the movement assume that if
Speaker 1: you're black, even living in over criminalized and over police communities,
Speaker 1: you're just you're gonna be supportive of greater funding for example,
Speaker 1: for public defense. Um, you're going to be supportive of
Speaker 1: these kind of policies that I think are important to
Speaker 1: get us to a better place. But it's just not
Speaker 1: the case. Why Why, Well, I think black community members
Speaker 1: are getting messages from their church. They're getting messages also
Speaker 1: from the same places where white liberal progressives are getting
Speaker 1: their formation. That's New York Times, that's CNN, that's New
Speaker 1: York Post, that's you know, media, which is painting a
Speaker 1: picture of public safety and justice and crime and punishment
Speaker 1: as good and evil. And they're hearing sensational cases about violence,
Speaker 1: and they're feeling deeply fearful. And also they too are
Speaker 1: a product of a popular culture in the United States
Speaker 1: that paints deeply misconceived, inaccurate picture of justice, which is
Speaker 1: that police prevent and solve crime, that prisons keep us safer,
Speaker 1: that there are good people and evil people, that everyone
Speaker 1: gets their day in court, that people have trials and
Speaker 1: juries that render a verdict. So you're saying that an
Speaker 1: interesting number of people of color they are viewing things
Speaker 1: the same way white people do. Yes, So there's a
Speaker 1: system that's there, and they support that system and view
Speaker 1: that system in the same way. Yes. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of compounded by the fact that a lot of folks
Speaker 1: in black and brown communities that are over policed, overcome lies,
Speaker 1: are literally facing violence. I mean, violence is real. They're
Speaker 1: hearing gunshots, they feel less safe, they feel less safe,
Speaker 1: and because of the culture in which they've grown up,
Speaker 1: like white folks, and the culture and the media that
Speaker 1: they read, there's kind of a universal lack of imagination
Speaker 1: for what an alternative could look like. And that, mixed
Speaker 1: with fear, makes it so that we continue to want
Speaker 1: to invest even despite all the evidence, the countrary that's
Speaker 1: not working, that's not working in police, more police, more prosecutions,
Speaker 1: more prisons, even though we spend more on this stuff
Speaker 1: than any other society in the history of the world.
Speaker 1: And my god, are we not the healthiest and safest.
Speaker 1: What would you say in the modern world in your lifetime?
Speaker 1: What have you noticed? Does it really go back in
Speaker 1: my mind as it go back to Juliani, broken windows, Bratton,
Speaker 1: that whole thing here in New York or even across
Speaker 1: the country. When did it begin where we needed to
Speaker 1: paramilitarized the police departments? Oh boy, My initial gut is
Speaker 1: it goes back to slavery. And I don't say that
Speaker 1: like lightly or facetiously. Um, modern day policing was born
Speaker 1: out of slave patrols. Riker's Island, just as an example,
Speaker 1: is named after Richard Riker, who was a famous white
Speaker 1: slave catcher. Um, you're kidding me. No, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Now he was the comptroller and
Speaker 1: he was a famous like northern slave catcher who would
Speaker 1: like catch slaves and seldom down back down south for
Speaker 1: for bounty. Um. Yeah, that's the place where now thousands
Speaker 1: of predominantly black and brown people are caged pre trial,
Speaker 1: presumed innocent only because they cannot afford to buy their freedom.
Speaker 1: This is it's baked like racism, harshness, all that stuff
Speaker 1: is baked into American society in New York is no
Speaker 1: different policing though in prisons, so it was always there.
Speaker 1: I do think though, that over the last half century
Speaker 1: we've seen this combination of politics, media, and and fear
Speaker 1: kind of jumble together to create this formula in favor
Speaker 1: of greater harshness. It's driven by power. It is driven
Speaker 1: by prison interests, is driven by prosecutors, is driven by
Speaker 1: police and they're talking points. It's enabled by popular culture,
Speaker 1: all too willing to just repeat these popular narratives, and
Speaker 1: a media that in the best cases just kind of
Speaker 1: falling on bad habits and practices and relationships that they've
Speaker 1: built with police and prosecutors as easy sources and kind
Speaker 1: of being lazy in worst case, really actively affirmatively trying
Speaker 1: to help this narrative, but it's put out there and
Speaker 1: people then they see and they feel like our current
Speaker 1: system is inevitable, the mass incarceration is inevitable, that imprisoning
Speaker 1: two point three million people is inevitable, and it isn't
Speaker 1: and it shouldn't be. And we're at this point where
Speaker 1: we need to topple this imbalance of power and control
Speaker 1: over criminal policy and media because that control over it
Speaker 1: and that narrative and that reinforced message is influencing people's
Speaker 1: basic intuitions. How does zealous try to change this narrative?
Speaker 1: In a lot of ways, so we support public defenders,
Speaker 1: local organizers, people a direct experience locally to harness a
Speaker 1: range of advocacy skills that public defenders didn't learn in
Speaker 1: law school and organizers didn't either. So around just social
Speaker 1: media advocacy, traditional media, new media advocacy, but also kind
Speaker 1: of more fundamental stuff like just how to talk about
Speaker 1: systemic issues in a way that is not legal ease
Speaker 1: um that actually can reach more people, how to talk
Speaker 1: about issues in ways with language and words that don't
Speaker 1: um further entrenched the status quo. One of the things
Speaker 1: about public defenders in public defense, so like Brooklyn Defender
Speaker 1: Services where I practice for close to a decade still,
Speaker 1: people who have represented were who were convicted. Those convictions
Speaker 1: came from guilty please, And the reason for that was
Speaker 1: just the range of laws and practices that intersected to
Speaker 1: kind of course silence essentially like against the truth. And
Speaker 1: and our advocacy tools in court were so limited, right,
Speaker 1: We were limited to an audience of a judge and
Speaker 1: a prosecutor who were already predisposed to kind of status
Speaker 1: quo cruelty. We were limited terms of the media that
Speaker 1: we were able to use. It was oral advocacy or
Speaker 1: written advocacy were limited terms and messenger was us doing
Speaker 1: the talking and language. And so what might it look
Speaker 1: like to do advocacy to leverage your perspective and expertise
Speaker 1: in partnership with communities to tell more compelling stories and
Speaker 1: more compelling ways to shift the narrative long term about
Speaker 1: crime and punishment. Well, wait, when you talk about the
Speaker 1: media's role in that narrative. The New York Times they
Speaker 1: need clicks and now they have a pretty good subscription base,
Speaker 1: they're making money, and they were poor crime in what
Speaker 1: I would consider a more popular way. When you wrote
Speaker 1: the article about the Times, what was the lead up
Speaker 1: to that? What was happening? What were you noticing? I
Speaker 1: was noticing more of the same. The FBI came out
Speaker 1: with data about most unusual year in all ways, leading
Speaker 1: with a once in a hundred year global pandemic, and
Speaker 1: the headline was homicide spike, violent sores around the country.
Speaker 1: And so most people don't read beyond the headlines. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't just New York Times doing this, was MPR,
Speaker 1: it was watching the Post. It was New York Post.
Speaker 1: And why headline cell right, You know, you want to
Speaker 1: get the clicks. It's a cessational. But I'd also don't
Speaker 1: think it's that interesting because the reality is the more
Speaker 1: interesting stuff actually is if you dig below and what
Speaker 1: was actually happening. But the data showed was that homicides
Speaker 1: were increasing everywhere universally around the country. Number one in
Speaker 1: places that had bail reform, places that which were very
Speaker 1: few and most places that didn't. And a in blue states,
Speaker 1: places that had police protests against police violence, in places
Speaker 1: that didn't, rural areas, cities blew what it read, etcetera.
Speaker 1: The lead should have been this undermines the data that
Speaker 1: just came out undermines years worth of effort by police
Speaker 1: and prosecutors and prison interests across the country to convince
Speaker 1: us that any minor modest changes in a direction away
Speaker 1: from them actually was causing crime because it was universal
Speaker 1: in places that had some changes in places that didn't. Instead,
Speaker 1: we hear homicides up. We also don't hear about the
Speaker 1: fact that in historical context they're still at historic lows.
Speaker 1: We also don't hear about the fact that across all
Speaker 1: other major types of crime, those numbers were universally down.
Speaker 1: But instead we get this kind of sensational headline and
Speaker 1: this kind of mealy mouthed like kind of two sides
Speaker 1: speculation about the potential causes of the increase in homicides,
Speaker 1: and they allow, despite all of the evidence to the contrary,
Speaker 1: police and sometimes anonymous police sources to say, well, it
Speaker 1: could be this It could be bail reform. It could
Speaker 1: it might be low police morale because of protests against
Speaker 1: them killing people. Policy debate inside of a new straight
Speaker 1: news story, yes, yeah, but but when there's when you know,
Speaker 1: a there's not really debate. I mean, I get the
Speaker 1: fact that people want to know answers they and this
Speaker 1: is a key piece, like people do want to know,
Speaker 1: and I get that instinct. Why is crime up? The
Speaker 1: thing that's unbelievable. You have police out there and then media,
Speaker 1: very smart journalists from the New York Times and other places,
Speaker 1: taking their word for it and allowing them to like
Speaker 1: speculate about the causes of crime going up, and yet
Speaker 1: no one kind of addresses this key point of Okay,
Speaker 1: wait a second, we're paying you in New York City
Speaker 1: eleven billion dollars a year, the most of any police
Speaker 1: force in the country, more than most I would say,
Speaker 1: countries armies. And there's still crime at all, let alone
Speaker 1: rising violence. And you're deflecting to something that just started
Speaker 1: two years ago that actually had been wildly successful, which
Speaker 1: I can talk about bail reform. It's this incredible slight
Speaker 1: at hand. Scott Heckinger, if you like conversations with dedicated advocates.
Speaker 1: Check out my interview with Ingrid new Kirk from People
Speaker 1: for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. We went to the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice, to the Attorney General's office, and we
Speaker 1: had very carefully, painstakingly documented how Ringling had allowed this
Speaker 1: lion to burn to death basically in the Mahave desert.
Speaker 1: So we went to the d o J and we said, look,
Speaker 1: Ringland gets away with this all the time. So that
Speaker 1: resulted in the biggest fine in US history against a circus.
Speaker 1: Here more of my conversation with Ingrid new Kirk at
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Scott Heckinger
Speaker 1: breaks down the repercussions of electing former police officer Eric
Speaker 1: Adams as mayor of New York City. I'm Alec Baldwin,
Speaker 1: and you're listening to Here's the Thing. In New York
Speaker 1: State attempted bail reform, a legislative effort that lasted just
Speaker 1: weeks before the law was changed. I wanted Scott Heckenscher
Speaker 1: to help explain bail reform and the criticisms that led
Speaker 1: to its diminishment. Pretend that you don't know anything about
Speaker 1: bail reform and you're a legislator, just put yourself there
Speaker 1: and I'm coming to you to talk to you about
Speaker 1: a policy. I'm proposing a policy, and I'm telling you
Speaker 1: that I can guarantee the following result that in the
Speaker 1: next eighteen months and three thousand people who otherwise would
Speaker 1: have faced jail will be free, will be back with
Speaker 1: their families, will be in their jobs, will be able
Speaker 1: to wake up in their own bed, will be able
Speaker 1: to fight their case, have a shot justice, shot at justice. Okay,
Speaker 1: so go start there. On top of that, we'll save
Speaker 1: taxpayers over six fifty million dollars. On top of that,
Speaker 1: I can guarantee that of the people who are released
Speaker 1: who otherwise would have faced bail reform will not be
Speaker 1: rearrested for any crime of violence, and even less for
Speaker 1: a crime involving any kind of use of a gun.
Speaker 1: My gut is you'd look at me like you're overpromising
Speaker 1: and you're being ridiculous, and no where you're out of
Speaker 1: your mind. That's what it is. That's what bail reform is.
Speaker 1: Bail reform in New York is this enormously successful change
Speaker 1: for justice, for fiscal responsibility, for fairness, against racism that
Speaker 1: keeps folks productive, and yet people think it's a disaster.
Speaker 1: There's no tie to violent crime, there's no tied any
Speaker 1: and stuff. And here's the the thing that's amazing about
Speaker 1: is our leader and our leaders. Governor hokel admitted it
Speaker 1: was admitted it was success. The same week she proposed
Speaker 1: rollbacks that would put forty five more people on the
Speaker 1: path to jail. She wrote it up ed that laid
Speaker 1: out exactly what I said. It's been enormous success end
Speaker 1: because essentially of politics, because of the narrative that's out there.
Speaker 1: Bail folks need to understand, first of all, it ain't
Speaker 1: it's not a punishment, it's incentive. It's an idea. You
Speaker 1: pay money to court, you're supposed to then be out.
Speaker 1: It's incentive to come back to court no matter what happens.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, you pay the money back.
Speaker 1: What we know is that people come back to court
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly without bail. We know that's true, so we know
Speaker 1: it's unnecessary. In reality, though bail is a punishment, most
Speaker 1: people who have bail set can't afford to pay it
Speaker 1: and they're locked up. And what does jail do in
Speaker 1: addition to separating you from all the things bills, you know,
Speaker 1: bills piling up people in need of caretaking. What does
Speaker 1: it do. It actually increases the likelihood that you are
Speaker 1: going to get rear sit upon release. It's actually, there's
Speaker 1: this fancy term criminogenetic. It's just basically here, here's the reality.
Speaker 1: The primary characteristics of jail in prison are the exact
Speaker 1: same as the prime drivers of violence itself, isolation, shame,
Speaker 1: economic deprivation, and violence. And so we wind up throwing
Speaker 1: a solution at a thing that actually winds up making
Speaker 1: the thing even worse. I was someone who I was
Speaker 1: so supportive of the police, even though I have my
Speaker 1: own criticisms of the police. I view the police force
Speaker 1: as a group of men and women who buy in
Speaker 1: large are doing the job for the right reason, and
Speaker 1: that like a lot of organizations political parties in the
Speaker 1: country today, the leadership of the police department is the issue.
Speaker 1: Defund the police is just miserable. You want police, you
Speaker 1: need police, all those cliches, you hate the cops until
Speaker 1: you need one or whatever. So I think the defund
Speaker 1: the police was a miserable narrative. It was a miserable slogan.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll say, I actually think it's too soon
Speaker 1: to say that that was a bad that was a disaster. Frankly,
Speaker 1: like it was incredible that for any period time it
Speaker 1: could have been a day, but that for a period
Speaker 1: of time, legislators and legislatures around the country, we're actually
Speaker 1: talking about divestment and reinvestment in different things outside of
Speaker 1: the police. It's an important conversation to have, and I
Speaker 1: think the most interesting models actually are in places like Eugene, Oregon,
Speaker 1: where they have this program called Cahoots where social workers
Speaker 1: are actually sent without armed police. It isn't actually pairing
Speaker 1: the two because here's the reality. When you have someone
Speaker 1: a mental health crisis, perhaps and I would say even
Speaker 1: offered someone who has dealt with the police before because
Speaker 1: of their mental health issues, when a police officer shows up,
Speaker 1: whether they are the most well meaning, well trained, like
Speaker 1: the perfect police officer, the one who is not going
Speaker 1: to use violence, a police officer is by their nature
Speaker 1: they're triggering. They represent a series of really harmful consequences
Speaker 1: and solutions which include arrest, handcuffing, all the things that
Speaker 1: you described. It includes, in the best case scenario, potentially
Speaker 1: an alternative to incarceration with forced mental health treatment or
Speaker 1: with the threat of prison. And so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of studies that look at the fact that a police
Speaker 1: officers showing up at all, even with a social worker
Speaker 1: is problematic, and Eugene Oregon, the Cohoots program shows that
Speaker 1: social workers showing up who are unarmed is enormous successful
Speaker 1: and in very rare cases do they ever have to
Speaker 1: call for backup And it doesn't lead to more violence,
Speaker 1: it actually decreases it. So when a police officer became
Speaker 1: the mayor of New York, I thought, this isn't the
Speaker 1: best idea. I don't think that the person who's a
Speaker 1: police officer should be the mayor. What do you think
Speaker 1: about that it's becoming mayor? Oh God, is it? I'll
Speaker 1: tell you it felt like a bit like Trump becoming president,
Speaker 1: where I knew it was going to be bad, like
Speaker 1: really bad, and it's still far exceeded my expectations in badness.
Speaker 1: I mean, days before Eric Adams officially became mayor, he
Speaker 1: announced that the first thing he was going to do
Speaker 1: that was the number one priority for him was bringing
Speaker 1: back even though it was still there, but like bringing
Speaker 1: back and reinforcing solitary confinement on Breaker's Island. The second
Speaker 1: thing he did, actually the first thing he did as
Speaker 1: as mayor was then reject the opinions of over a
Speaker 1: majority of the city council who challenged the fact that
Speaker 1: he was going to be bringing back solitary and said,
Speaker 1: come back to me if and once you've become had
Speaker 1: the experience of being a police officer. So he cast
Speaker 1: aside the opinions of the majority of city council because
Speaker 1: they they had not previously served as police. He has
Speaker 1: pushed for the appointment of two different people for high
Speaker 1: level positions in his administration who have deep, long backgrounds
Speaker 1: with ho A phobia. He has reinstituted a deeply violent
Speaker 1: and racist arm of the police force, which one it's
Speaker 1: supposedly set up to try to get guns off the street,
Speaker 1: but what they wind up doing is terrorized black and
Speaker 1: brown neighborhoods, making it feel like you're literally imprisoned in
Speaker 1: your own neighborhood. And they have a long history of violence,
Speaker 1: but he reinstituted that. It's carcerealism, it's hyper policing, it's
Speaker 1: Juliani is Um all over again. And what he's done
Speaker 1: is he's jeopardized his because you have your article you
Speaker 1: say the police state is failing officers too. That was
Speaker 1: in the nation, the police state is failing officers too.
Speaker 1: I cannot more wholeheartedly endorsed that idea. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that a police officer can't be a good mayor.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's essential that we get that on the air.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that a police officer can't be a
Speaker 1: good mayor. But sure enough, he comes in there and
Speaker 1: he does what all modern day politicians do, which is
Speaker 1: he just shoves a whole bunch of money towards his friends.
Speaker 1: He gives the police department a huge budgetary increase and
Speaker 1: seven hundreds You reported seven hundred and fifty million dollars
Speaker 1: in overtime this year, which I think you're reported was
Speaker 1: a seventy three percent increase in what was budgeted for
Speaker 1: this year, seven fifty million to overtime. The mayor of
Speaker 1: this city is somebody who needed to come in and
Speaker 1: figure out how we're going to spend less money. The
Speaker 1: city is in a financial crisis. The city has been
Speaker 1: in a financial crisis. Its expenses are higher and its
Speaker 1: income is lower than has been since the seventies. The
Speaker 1: budgets around eleven billion dollars a year. In the wake
Speaker 1: of that, the horrible shooting in the subway station where
Speaker 1: where there was no police to be found, to where
Speaker 1: they were, they were calling nine. It was just a
Speaker 1: completely disaster. We already have police in the subways at
Speaker 1: a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars every year
Speaker 1: to fail to prevent something like that. And he then
Speaker 1: was like, we need five hundred more police in the
Speaker 1: subway or a thousand, But if policing or any other
Speaker 1: administrative agency, it would have been defunded decades ago. It's
Speaker 1: the reality. What I do know is modern day policing
Speaker 1: the way that we see it right now, it's not
Speaker 1: helping anyone Like numbers show that. I'll just say my
Speaker 1: position is this, I don't hate police. I hate that
Speaker 1: we continue to actually invest in a failed policy solution
Speaker 1: proven over half a century. We keep thinking that it's
Speaker 1: not just investing more, but even the conversation around like
Speaker 1: training them to somehow like do better. We've tried that out.
Speaker 1: We we tried to get you know, police to have
Speaker 1: biased training, to like shoot less people and to be
Speaker 1: more careful. And the reality is modern day policing in America,
Speaker 1: by its nature and by its history is deeply racist, oppressive,
Speaker 1: and violent, and we know that it fails to prevent
Speaker 1: crime based upon their own data. And they're sensationally so
Speaker 1: stupendously all the words bad at solving violent crime as well.
Speaker 1: What's an example of a successful campaign? So early on
Speaker 1: in COVID, we got a call from a public defender
Speaker 1: in Prince George's County, Maryland. There was one court watcher,
Speaker 1: so formally incarcerated woman who was in court filing prosecutorial
Speaker 1: accountability letters to the state's attorney. And this incredible civil
Speaker 1: rights law firm, Civil Rights Corps, filed a powerful litigation
Speaker 1: based on sixty four sworn declarations from people inside the
Speaker 1: Prince George's County jail being held pre trial, describing, at
Speaker 1: risk of retaliation, the horrible conditions that they were facing,
Speaker 1: from no ppe to force, being forced to clean up
Speaker 1: each other's bodily fluids, awful, pay, have to pay four
Speaker 1: dollars for medical care, and the judge dismissed those sixty
Speaker 1: four sworn declarations as quote unhelpful. And we're like, traditional
Speaker 1: advocacy ain't working. What can we do? We brought folks together,
Speaker 1: these these kind of different groups of local organizers formally
Speaker 1: incarceraty people and the folks who were currently in alongside
Speaker 1: defenders and came up with this concept. Actually, now i'm
Speaker 1: talking about it, you were involved in it, Alec. It
Speaker 1: was exceptionally helpful. We worked with Broadway Advocacy Coalition. We
Speaker 1: couldn't get cell phone footage of inside Prince George's County jail,
Speaker 1: but we had their words. So we we in partnership
Speaker 1: with the folks on the inside, and all of these
Speaker 1: organizers conceived of this idea of kind of reconceptualizing the
Speaker 1: lawsuit altogether and in drawing out those words and breathing
Speaker 1: life into those words. And so we had a range
Speaker 1: of social justice advocates, public defenders, organizers, people with platforms
Speaker 1: who were amazing enough to take part. You included Jesse Williams,
Speaker 1: Fiona Apple, singer songwriter, And within a week, that audience
Speaker 1: of one went to an audience of over four million.
Speaker 1: Within a week, that court Watcher of one turned into
Speaker 1: the largest watching program in the country, which continues today.
Speaker 1: Over two people volunteered to virtual court Watch to hold
Speaker 1: actors accountable. The County wound up settling the lawsuit because
Speaker 1: of the public pressure that came from this campaign for
Speaker 1: basic truth. But one of the real, um real successes
Speaker 1: I think of this, and this is so much a
Speaker 1: part of what Zellis does around the country and what
Speaker 1: we hope to achieve are the partnerships between these key
Speaker 1: allies of defenders, civil rights lawyers, local organizers, community are
Speaker 1: stronger than they have ever been before, and the fight
Speaker 1: for so many other justice issues has grown stronger because
Speaker 1: of this kind of galvanizing moment. We listen, We're very
Speaker 1: grateful to you for doing this. You're someone who the
Speaker 1: work you're doing to help powerless people in a world
Speaker 1: where if you don't have any power, forget about a
Speaker 1: lot of power, even a little power, you just get
Speaker 1: steam rolled. Thank you, Scott, Thank you, Scott Heckinger. My
Speaker 1: next guest. Robert Greenwald is the founder of Brave New Films,
Speaker 1: a nonprofit organization whose focus is investigative documentaries. Brave New
Speaker 1: Films has tackled subjects such as corporate corruption, war and
Speaker 1: government secrets. But Robert Greenwald didn't start there. He began
Speaker 1: his career in theater and made for TV movies and
Speaker 1: found great success, earning two Golden Globe nominations, twenty five
Speaker 1: Emmy nominations, and a Peabody. In four Greenwald directed The
Speaker 1: Burning Bed starring Fara Fawcett, one of the most watched
Speaker 1: television movies in history. Based on a true story, it
Speaker 1: was a raw depiction of abuse that changed public awareness
Speaker 1: and the fight against domestic violence. Greenwald then shifted to
Speaker 1: work that would continue to make a difference, and the
Speaker 1: result was brave new films. Their movies, such as out Foxed,
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism and Iraq for Sale, are
Speaker 1: available online and at free screenings. In an effort to
Speaker 1: engage the public, Greenwald has also lectured at Harvard, addressed
Speaker 1: Capitol Hill, and testified before Congress. He's a filmmaker certainly
Speaker 1: making his mark. I asked Robert Greenwald about his background
Speaker 1: and if school was where he got his start in filmmaking.
Speaker 1: I did not. I studied history, and I studied philosophy,
Speaker 1: and I did go to the High School of Performing Arts,
Speaker 1: so way back then, I am had some connection to
Speaker 1: learning from teachers, but mainly for better or for worse.
Speaker 1: I don't know what your experience has been It's been
Speaker 1: a kind of experiential learning on the job, making huge
Speaker 1: mistakes and hopefully learning from them, and having some unusual
Speaker 1: and varied experiences. When you were at performing arts, was
Speaker 1: it acting you had originally thought about? Was that the goal?
Speaker 1: That was the goal? And I quickly realized that I
Speaker 1: was not made to be an actor in any shape
Speaker 1: or form. So and you left performing arts to go
Speaker 1: where where did you go to college? I went to
Speaker 1: Antioch College for two years, and then I dropped out
Speaker 1: of Antioch College, UH to work in the theater. And
Speaker 1: I also then went to the New School because way
Speaker 1: back then you had to be in school in order
Speaker 1: to avoid the draft. Now, describe some of your first
Speaker 1: experiences in the theater. Were they in New York or
Speaker 1: were they regional? Were you what kind of work were
Speaker 1: you doing originally in the theater in New York? The theater?
Speaker 1: Originally I was a gopher. And for those of you
Speaker 1: who aren't familiar with the term, go for coffee, go
Speaker 1: for tige, go for my script, go for any of
Speaker 1: those things. And I loved every single second of it.
Speaker 1: I worked for a wonderful director named Vannette Carrol, a
Speaker 1: woman who I had known from High School of Performing
Speaker 1: Arts and a show called Trumpets of the Lord, where
Speaker 1: I delivered the paychecks or the actually the cash to
Speaker 1: the actors, and then at intermission I sold albums from
Speaker 1: the show, and then I tore the tickets when people
Speaker 1: came into the theater at one Sheridan Square. And how
Speaker 1: long were you toiling in the theater before you decided
Speaker 1: to go to California. I was probably in the theater
Speaker 1: and having a brutally difficult time of its surviving financially emotionally.
Speaker 1: It was probably three or four years. And then I
Speaker 1: was offered a job at the Mark Tape or Forum
Speaker 1: directing plays, and I will never forget I was offered
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars a week, which I thought was extraordinary.
Speaker 1: It provided financial security, and I went out and bought
Speaker 1: a juice mixer at the time my first extra aus purchase. UM.
Speaker 1: But I was on top of the world, and that
Speaker 1: brought me to California, where I worked for Gordon Davidson
Speaker 1: at the Mark Tape before UM for about two years,
Speaker 1: and then transition to film and television, starting a company
Speaker 1: called Moonlight Productions because my then partner Frank von Zernik
Speaker 1: and I were literally moonlighting from the Mark Taper Forum.
Speaker 1: When do you decide you want to start to pop
Speaker 1: the fence at the studio because apparently you talked your
Speaker 1: way onto a lot of movie sets or movie lots. Correct,
Speaker 1: How did that? I tried? Well, as many things in life,
Speaker 1: as you know, when we look back, we see things
Speaker 1: a little differently. But I did realize as I was
Speaker 1: at the Mark Taper Forum pretty quickly that I have
Speaker 1: certain skill sets. One skill that I absolutely do not
Speaker 1: have is working for somebody. I'm a complete failure as
Speaker 1: an employee because I always had a way, my idea
Speaker 1: of how to do it or do it differently. So
Speaker 1: I realized I really needed to sort of start something
Speaker 1: on my own so I wouldn't be in constant conflict
Speaker 1: with bosses. And so Frank and I decided to start
Speaker 1: a film what we thought would be a film company.
Speaker 1: It quickly became a television company because television was sure,
Speaker 1: you know, was much more open to people than film,
Speaker 1: which was much more elitist, if you will, having to
Speaker 1: have connections and having to have money, none of which
Speaker 1: Frank or I had money or connections. But TV wanted content,
Speaker 1: wanted ideas, I'm a voracious reader of everything, and so
Speaker 1: I was in heaven coming up with ideas for what
Speaker 1: was then known as the television movie of the week.
Speaker 1: What's the first movie center, what's the first studio lot
Speaker 1: you pole vault into? It was Universal Studios. And what
Speaker 1: my what Frank and I would do is his little
Speaker 1: broken down car became our office and in his trunk
Speaker 1: we kept all of our scripts and projects and books
Speaker 1: and ideas, and we would get on a pay phone nearby.
Speaker 1: Generally often there was a Howard Johnson's at Sunset. Sunset
Speaker 1: Boulevard had a lot of pay phones in the men's
Speaker 1: room by the way, and we would often be on
Speaker 1: the payphone calling the studio and saying, oh, we're on
Speaker 1: the lot, when we come see you, and then putting
Speaker 1: our hand over when someone was flushing urinal. It's a
Speaker 1: very very very high class undertaking, um. But we would say, oh,
Speaker 1: we're right on the lot, can we come in? And then,
Speaker 1: because it was centrally located, would either go to studios
Speaker 1: on the west side or go over the hill to
Speaker 1: the valley. And Universal Studios seemed to have the least security.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, must have been a very
Speaker 1: different time, and you could get on pretty easily if
Speaker 1: you smiled and talked. So we we made a lot
Speaker 1: of progress getting on the univers A lot and ultimately
Speaker 1: doing a ninety minute television movie. What's the first job
Speaker 1: you get, Well, they entrust you to direct the project.
Speaker 1: Your first directing gig was what first directing gig, which
Speaker 1: was Portrait of a Mistress with Trish Vanderveer, and I
Speaker 1: remember it fondly. It was a ninety minute movie and
Speaker 1: because of the economics of television, the first day of
Speaker 1: shooting literally you started in Los Angeles, flew to San Francisco,
Speaker 1: which was the location, and we're then filming at ten
Speaker 1: or eleven o'clock that morning. What I didn't know, and
Speaker 1: subsequently I learned to be thoughtful and check was. Trish
Speaker 1: had tremendous anxieties and fears, so it was very hard
Speaker 1: for her to come out of the motor home onto
Speaker 1: the set. Yes, seriously, really really bad. So I fly
Speaker 1: to San Francisco. It's the first day, um the director
Speaker 1: and tremendous pressures. You know, I have storyboarded and sketched
Speaker 1: out everything, and she doesn't show up. So on the
Speaker 1: first day the first shot, I had to figure out
Speaker 1: how to shoot around her and basically get coverage of
Speaker 1: other people. And then when she came on an hour
Speaker 1: or two hours later, Uh, make sure that I could
Speaker 1: that it would cut and work well. So it was
Speaker 1: a hell of a learning experience. My stomach gets into
Speaker 1: not just telling you the story, but you know, I survived.
Speaker 1: This is a woman that was married to Georgey Scott. Absolutely, yes,
Speaker 1: and he was quite a presence at times when he
Speaker 1: would come around. Now, yeah, so you direct that movie.
Speaker 1: What did you take away from that? You were hungry
Speaker 1: for more? You wanted to direct more? Yes, And unfortunately
Speaker 1: or fortunately, I've always loved telling stories. I'm not a writer,
Speaker 1: and my interest in my skill set is in directing films.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to do more and it was a
Speaker 1: time when it was easier to get there's a process
Speaker 1: for those folks not in the industry. Well, you have
Speaker 1: to get approved by the network that is the financier.
Speaker 1: So I've been approved as the director I don't know
Speaker 1: how on that first film, and that allowed me to
Speaker 1: do more television movies which I directed, and then within
Speaker 1: a few years went on to do one of the
Speaker 1: most successful television movies, which was The Burning Bag with
Speaker 1: Fara Fawce, And that was a real change in the
Speaker 1: sense that then I was offered tons of movies to
Speaker 1: direct success film. Yeah, let's let's talk about that. Insofar
Speaker 1: as you've done a handful of films between the first
Speaker 1: one and when you've worked with Sara, had you done
Speaker 1: a few films, what was it like for you to
Speaker 1: work with her in terms of getting the performance you wanted?
Speaker 1: And of course she gave a wonderful performance in the film.
Speaker 1: Most people recognize that. It's interesting because in essence, she
Speaker 1: hired me. She was attached to that film before I was.
Speaker 1: Then I was approached by the producers John Evan and
Speaker 1: Steve Tish and they said, you know, here's this project.
Speaker 1: And what they didn't tell me is tons of directors
Speaker 1: had turned it down already. But fortunately, because of my
Speaker 1: theater background, I had seen Farat off Broadway in extremities
Speaker 1: and she was very good, and I felt there's something here.
Speaker 1: And the other thing, and you know this about stars
Speaker 1: is they have a pretty most of them have a
Speaker 1: pretty good sense of what they can do. And so
Speaker 1: I met with Farah and I felt there was a
Speaker 1: real commitment to wanting to do this story. I talked
Speaker 1: to her about I would want several weeks of rehearsal.
Speaker 1: I would want to go with her to various shelters
Speaker 1: for abused women and interviewed the women. And she was
Speaker 1: signed up for all of it. And then I think
Speaker 1: I said this even before filming or rehearsal, I said,
Speaker 1: and I don't want you surrounded by hair and make
Speaker 1: up people after every take, tweaking and touching, and I
Speaker 1: want you to be able to kill the momentum, killing
Speaker 1: the momentum, killing the truth. And she was not a
Speaker 1: trained actor, so she needed the emotion and because she
Speaker 1: didn't have the technique to recreate And in fact, one
Speaker 1: of the best scenes in the movie when she's on
Speaker 1: the witness stand and I just did it out of instinct,
Speaker 1: was I kept rolling Rather than saying cut and start
Speaker 1: over again, I said go again, go again. And I
Speaker 1: wouldn't let them cut, and I wouldn't let anybody come
Speaker 1: on the set. And it ultimately led to us, I
Speaker 1: think a strong and truthful moment. Was she grateful to
Speaker 1: you in the end? Do you think that you guys
Speaker 1: had accomplished something together? Yeah, she was very appreciative. And
Speaker 1: then when the film aired and it got you know,
Speaker 1: more people watched it and watched the presidential debates and
Speaker 1: got all kinds of awards, and and it also in
Speaker 1: a way moved me towards where I ultimately wound up
Speaker 1: because the social impact part of it, I mean, we
Speaker 1: were getting notes from legislators, laws were getting changed. It
Speaker 1: was really quite something, and the realization of the power
Speaker 1: of storytelling to reach people and affect lives of many
Speaker 1: people throughout the country. Up until then, sort of domestic
Speaker 1: abuse was looked at as women complaining, and the police
Speaker 1: didn't take it seriously, and legislaators didn't take it seriously.
Speaker 1: So she and I and John and Steve all felt
Speaker 1: quite a bit of pride in being able to do that.
Speaker 1: Most people assume that the ultimate goal to make films
Speaker 1: to make feature films, and although that thinking that films
Speaker 1: are automatically better than television, as he wrote it, substantially
Speaker 1: in the last twenty years, obviously, and some of the
Speaker 1: best acting and some of the best directings being done
Speaker 1: in streaming TV and even a network TV and movies
Speaker 1: are not necessarily the Shangla law that people have always
Speaker 1: thought it was you know, but nonetheless you decide you
Speaker 1: want to get into the feature film business. How did
Speaker 1: that start? What was the first feature you shot? Maybe
Speaker 1: it was that I do right? And whose idea was that?
Speaker 1: Not mine? No, no, I know what. Listen, we all
Speaker 1: have our It was Larry Gordon and Joel Silver hired
Speaker 1: me and Olivia I think now they didn't have Olivia yet.
Speaker 1: It was Larry and Joe huired me. Um, and I
Speaker 1: thought it was would be fun. I love musicals. My
Speaker 1: uncle is Michael Kidd, director and choreographer, so I grew
Speaker 1: up watching him work. Um and I decided, I don't
Speaker 1: know that I decided so much to do features, but
Speaker 1: I thought this was an interesting project. And um, so
Speaker 1: I went into the lions den of a big studio
Speaker 1: movie and um, I emerged barely standing right right. I'm
Speaker 1: told that nine eleven. I want you to clarify this
Speaker 1: for me was what helped to build the next bridge
Speaker 1: for you, which was to basically give up making entertainment
Speaker 1: films and in for theater or television and go into
Speaker 1: the business here and now? Is that accurately? That was
Speaker 1: the timeline around nine eleven and what happened, Yes, in fact,
Speaker 1: it was. It's actually very accurate and very specific. So
Speaker 1: a couple of things all came together. One of them
Speaker 1: most it was nine eleven, and as you've i'm sure experienced,
Speaker 1: it was tremendous payen and tremendous fear. But our grief
Speaker 1: as a country, as a people so quickly shifted from
Speaker 1: grief and pain to rage and revenge. I found it, frankly,
Speaker 1: quite terrifying, and particularly terrifying because of my four children,
Speaker 1: who affect so many of the decisions that I've made
Speaker 1: in my life that I make in my life now,
Speaker 1: and I felt a strong sense of what, if anything,
Speaker 1: could I do. And around the same time, my father
Speaker 1: died and like all parents, like myself as a parent,
Speaker 1: uh not perfect as a parent. And I remember very
Speaker 1: specifically waiting to get up and speak in our living
Speaker 1: room where we had a little memorial for him, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, what am I going to say? That's not bullshit,
Speaker 1: but that is real. And it really hit me that
Speaker 1: one of the wonderful things he passed on to me
Speaker 1: was this notion that you gain by doing something above
Speaker 1: and beyond your own narrow financial interests, assuming you're fortunate
Speaker 1: and comfortable enough, which I was, and so at that
Speaker 1: moment it all kind of came together. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that I was going to start a company, that I
Speaker 1: was going to make all these documentaries, but I did
Speaker 1: know I wanted to do something as difficult as it
Speaker 1: was and it is, that would have impacts in a
Speaker 1: way above and beyond somebody walking out of a movie
Speaker 1: theater and saying, oh, that was fun or not fun.
Speaker 1: For ven I was doing a play out on Long Island,
Speaker 1: and it was the first year that Bay Street Theater
Speaker 1: and sag Harbor had decided to extend their season beyond
Speaker 1: the normal summer months and the summer crowd and go
Speaker 1: into the month of September, and we were going to
Speaker 1: run through the month of September for two or three weeks.
Speaker 1: On our first invited dress was nine eleven itself, and
Speaker 1: we canceled that performance. We all said that we were
Speaker 1: not in any emotional condition to go and do that.
Speaker 1: Then the next day was our first ticketed preview, and
Speaker 1: the theater was small, and when you left the theater
Speaker 1: from the dressing rooms, you had to pass through the
Speaker 1: lobby and a handful of people would wait for us
Speaker 1: and with tremendous sadness in their face. They would say,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for giving us something, for coming
Speaker 1: here and doing this and giving us something to take
Speaker 1: our minds off this horrible event, because it was so immersive,
Speaker 1: you know, you just couldn't get away from it for
Speaker 1: months and months. I had a woman who lived in
Speaker 1: my building who was Jewish, and she turned to me
Speaker 1: and she said, now New York is like Israel. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget. She said that, like, like we were gonna
Speaker 1: have to live now in a condition of fear and
Speaker 1: then a defensive posture on a kind of constant level.
Speaker 1: Now the United States was no longer invulnerable to this
Speaker 1: kind of thing. And I remember thinking to myself, you know,
Speaker 1: I gotta get out of here. I thought I got
Speaker 1: to move out of New York, and I was really
Speaker 1: really terrified. I didn't really think much about changing my career,
Speaker 1: but you do change your career. And were your politics
Speaker 1: fairly conquetized, and you were fairly kind of inclined where
Speaker 1: you were going to go once you started making a
Speaker 1: different kind of programming, once you your company, Brave New
Speaker 1: Films comes into being, and you're going to make a
Speaker 1: different kind of content. Did you know where you were
Speaker 1: headed because you've already been dabbling in that politically, well,
Speaker 1: I knew that some of the most satisfying experiences when
Speaker 1: I've been in the commercial for profit world had been
Speaker 1: true stories based on things like the burning bed and
Speaker 1: a bunch of others, children being locked up in prison, unemployment, inequality,
Speaker 1: the whole series of things that those are the ones
Speaker 1: that gave me the greatest satisfaction. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: do something that would be hopefully meaningful, and it also
Speaker 1: where I could be challenged and use whatever skills I
Speaker 1: have to the best of my ability and most you know,
Speaker 1: A key piece of it was by this point, because
Speaker 1: I've been very successful in commercial television, I had enough
Speaker 1: money so that if I was careful and if I
Speaker 1: was thoughtful, I wouldn't have to pay myself a salary.
Speaker 1: And that was a big, big deal because you know,
Speaker 1: the hardest part of my job when I started and
Speaker 1: to this day, is fundraising. I'm lousy at it. It's difficult.
Speaker 1: If I had to raise money to pay myself, I
Speaker 1: don't think I could ever do it. But fortunately, because
Speaker 1: of those circumstances and for fifteen or sixteen years now,
Speaker 1: I've I've been able to be a full time volunteer
Speaker 1: running Brave New Films and raising money for the staff
Speaker 1: that of course needs to be paid, and I did
Speaker 1: um the general approach to around equality in civil rights
Speaker 1: and national security were all there. I think the work
Speaker 1: that I've done and the amazing people I've met, whether
Speaker 1: it was when I flew to Pakistan and interviewed drone survivors,
Speaker 1: or when I went to Afghanistan and interviewed women there,
Speaker 1: or people who you know, taking on the n r
Speaker 1: A around the country, or voter suppression. I mean, just
Speaker 1: it's so extraordinary the people you come in contact with,
Speaker 1: and you're able to have a connection at a much
Speaker 1: deeper level than a you know, a cocktail party or
Speaker 1: a casual acquaintance. Now when you start, because I'm assuming
Speaker 1: now if nine eleven is you know, kind of the
Speaker 1: benchmark there. So you've been doing this for twenty years
Speaker 1: roughly Brave New Films. In the beginning, were there people
Speaker 1: you knew you wanted to reach out and you were
Speaker 1: going to form a staff or the beginnings of a
Speaker 1: staff with people you had worked with previously. Is that
Speaker 1: you and a couple of young people around your kitchen table.
Speaker 1: What is Brave New Films Day one? There was no
Speaker 1: Brave New Films day one. It was the furthest thing
Speaker 1: from my mind. What I thought was I wanted to
Speaker 1: make a movie about the Iraq War and that we
Speaker 1: were not being told the truth. And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: let's let's try to do it. So I found one
Speaker 1: or two other people many I mean the people around
Speaker 1: me at the time, as you know, the agents and
Speaker 1: the lawyers or whatever, tried to talk me out of
Speaker 1: it because there was no money and they defined themselves
Speaker 1: by money. My brother way back when, gave me a
Speaker 1: wonderful little book called Wealth Addiction, and it talks about
Speaker 1: people addicted to making money above and beyond what they need,
Speaker 1: and it almost becomes an addiction. What is an addiction?
Speaker 1: Never enough? Always thinking about getting more? And it, you know,
Speaker 1: it really stayed with me. So when I made this
Speaker 1: decision to try to do a documentary about the the
Speaker 1: lies and the distortions around the Iraq War, I just
Speaker 1: reached out to essentially a version of what you're saying.
Speaker 1: A couple of folks who hired an editor, and I
Speaker 1: hired a researcher, and we began and that was the start.
Speaker 1: And then when we finished the film, um, so I
Speaker 1: hadn't really thought about this. How are we going to
Speaker 1: get people to see it? Right? So we had an
Speaker 1: alliance with one of the local radio stations, and I
Speaker 1: remember this so well, and they booked the Lumley Theater
Speaker 1: in Cinea, Monica. And I remember going to the opening
Speaker 1: the one opening night, the only night, driving in the
Speaker 1: car on I think it's Second Street on the way
Speaker 1: to the theater, and there's a line around the block.
Speaker 1: And I turned to my wife and my daughters and say, oh, ship,
Speaker 1: somebody's having a premiere tonight and it's gonna get all
Speaker 1: the attention and we won't even be able to get
Speaker 1: into the theater. Well, it turned out it was the
Speaker 1: line to see they are ac film because it was
Speaker 1: such hunger. And then afterwards people came up to me
Speaker 1: and it wasn't then you've had this experience just oh
Speaker 1: it was a good film. It was thank you for
Speaker 1: making that movie and telling that story. And that was heroin.
Speaker 1: I mean, that got me, That got me hooked. Filmmaker
Speaker 1: and activist Robert Greenwald, if you're enjoying this conversation, don't
Speaker 1: keep it to yourself, tell a friend and follow Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing on the I Heart radio app, Spotify or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back. I
Speaker 1: talked with Robert Greenwald about how The Burning Bed and
Speaker 1: nine eleven led him to bring his storytelling skills to
Speaker 1: another platform. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Since Brave New Films founding in two thousand four, Robert
Speaker 1: Greenwald has made numerous films with a strong political message.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know what frustrates him about politics in
Speaker 1: our country today. Well, I feel a mixture. There's a
Speaker 1: part of me that, despite it all, and despite being
Speaker 1: a New Yorker, in my heart and soul, I am optimistic.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, we've been working on voters suppression. Started.
Speaker 1: We did a film the help of many folks about
Speaker 1: voter suppression in Georgia. We had two thousand and twenty
Speaker 1: free screenings before the two thousand and twenty elections. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it continues. We're working on a new version of
Speaker 1: it now suppressed and sabotaged. And Alex I tell you,
Speaker 1: at times I don't believe I'm in this country. I mean,
Speaker 1: this breaks my heart. Honestly, the number of people who died,
Speaker 1: who died fighting for voting rights, and here we are again,
Speaker 1: and the fact that some elected officials can justify what
Speaker 1: they're doing around suppressing, around sabotaging. It's breaking my heart
Speaker 1: to hear these stories all over the country of legislation
Speaker 1: being passed, people being intimidated, people being bullied. And I
Speaker 1: feel at times like I'm either in another country or
Speaker 1: in another time period. And I see that and as
Speaker 1: kind of an overlay of so many of the problems
Speaker 1: and challenges. If elected officials with a straight face can
Speaker 1: get up there and say no, you should not have dropboxes,
Speaker 1: No you should not have vote by mail, it baffles
Speaker 1: me how they can live with themselves. You have quite
Speaker 1: a range of topics you've covered with Brave New films
Speaker 1: from two thousand four in the War on Iraq, out Foxed,
Speaker 1: Rubert Murdock's War on Journalism, documentaries about Walmart war profiteering
Speaker 1: in Iraq, Rethinking Afghanistan in two thousand nine. What are
Speaker 1: you working on now? Do you have something that can
Speaker 1: you discuss that? Yeah, it's going to be called suppressed
Speaker 1: and sabotage two And the goal is to have it
Speaker 1: done in the spring we put together you know, again,
Speaker 1: we do two things right. We make the content and
Speaker 1: as important, maybe even more important, is the distribution, because
Speaker 1: there's no point doing what we do if people aren't
Speaker 1: seeing it and if there isn't an impact. So we
Speaker 1: have study guides, we have actions that we ask people
Speaker 1: to do, and so if you have thousands of free screenings,
Speaker 1: it's hundreds of thousands of people being reached, some of
Speaker 1: whom are then going to be moved to do something
Speaker 1: about it. So right now we're heavily focused on the
Speaker 1: suppressed and sabotage. We were interviewing people around the country.
Speaker 1: If any of your listeners have stories of suppression, they
Speaker 1: can contact me Robert at Brave New Films dot org.
Speaker 1: We're looking for more stories. We have some experts, and
Speaker 1: I think that's going to be as important, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's big picture stuff and the common thread out
Speaker 1: like and not that we're always successful with all of
Speaker 1: the films is I try to do two things. I
Speaker 1: try number one, to put a face on policy, because
Speaker 1: that's what film can do that books don't do and
Speaker 1: studies don't do, and think tanks don't do. We humanize
Speaker 1: it and then we try to connect the dots so
Speaker 1: that people understand it's systemic. Walmart was not about a
Speaker 1: bad boss. It was about a system of greed based
Speaker 1: on a certain kind of capitalist where anything is okay.
Speaker 1: Similarly with the Drone movie, if we stopped using drones today,
Speaker 1: there's still would be issues around the military industrial complex.
Speaker 1: So I try very hard, and it's and you don't
Speaker 1: want to preach to people. You don't want to do
Speaker 1: spinach or homework. So how do you tell those stories
Speaker 1: that are deeply personal, that exposed the systemic workings and
Speaker 1: that people want to see and energize them rather than
Speaker 1: have them wanting to slit their wrists. We're really for
Speaker 1: a small group of putting more time and energy into
Speaker 1: reaching people. Because how do we take a clip and
Speaker 1: how do you change it so it will reach a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people on TikTok and how do you change
Speaker 1: it so it will reach two hundred thousand on YouTube?
Speaker 1: So our job is to reach the different audiences in
Speaker 1: different ways that they consume the material, not to change it,
Speaker 1: but to reformat. Yes, well, I'm proud to know you.
Speaker 1: I'm proud to know you. Thank you very much for
Speaker 1: coming on with us, and thank you for your time.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Okay, thanks be well. My thanks
Speaker 1: to Robert Greenwald and Scott Heckinger. This episode was recorded
Speaker 1: at CDM Studios and produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach McNeice,
Speaker 1: and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social
Speaker 1: media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the
Speaker 1: thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio