Daniel Ellsberg appears at a screening of
The Most Dangerous Man in America:
Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,
hosted by WPBT2 and Florida International University
Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith’s documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, which had its national broadcast premiere on POV in 2010, has been nominated for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking in the Creative Arts category of the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards. The Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards will be taped on Saturday, September 10, 2011, and aired at a later date on the E! Network.
POV would like to take this opportunity to thank the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), who provided the funds to develop a national public awareness campaign around the film, in collaboration with the filmmakers. The campaign succeeded in engaging an ongoing dialogue on government transparency, ethics and the role of the press in the weeks leading up to the October 2010 broadcast and culminating with the 40th Anniversary of the publication of the Pentagon Papers in June 2011.
POV awarded seven grants totaling $50,000 to local public television stations supporting local programming and community activities around the film. Grant recipients included KNME (Albuquerque, N.M.), KQED (San Francisco); Maryland Public Television (MPT) (Owings Mills, Md.), WGVU (Grand Rapids, Mich.); WFYI (Indianapolis) [link opens MP3 file], WVIZ (Cleveland) and WXXI (Rochester, N.Y.).
Stations had access to educational materials that POV produced to assist in the implementation of these outreach events, including an in-depth discussion guide with background information, discussion questions, action steps and resources, two lesson plans (one designed for grades 6-12 and one for college students), and the POV companion website which features a multimedia timeline of whistleblowers, an examination of WikiLeaks’ “Afghan War Diaries” and the Pentagon Papers, a transcript of a live chat with Dr. Ellsberg, and a New York Times panel discussion video and transcript.
In addition, POV worked with public television stations, educational institutions, and national and local organizations to build awareness for The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers campaign by conducting screenings, discussions, panels, roundtables and conference sessions, as well as notifying their various constituencies and stakeholders about the national broadcast, screening opportunities and campaign resource materials.
A partial list of groups includes:
A big thank you to all of these organizations for their incredible efforts in arranging screenings, discussions, panels, workshops and original television and radio programming around The Most Dangerous Man in America.