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The Times Fawns Over Film, Misses the News Again
The Los Angeles Times is nothing if not predictable. Every six weeks or so it publishes another terribly long and terribly earnest story about the film "Deliver Us From Evil". Never is any new ground ploughed; instead, each story repeats the same 20-year-old allegations contained in the film, provides new quotes from victims' groups that are remarkably similar to the old quotes and generally plods along, paragraph after paragraph, with the Times' usual arrogant lack of understanding or curiosity about the real story.
The Times' most recent effort about the film appeared February 17. It was some 40 inches or so long, and as far as we could tell, contained nothing new.
And that in itself is a further indictment of the Times' shoddy reporting when it comes to this film. Because, in fact, there was news to report regarding "Deliver Us From Evil."
Several days before the Times published its story, the Irish Examiner reported that the film's director, Amy Berg, had been forced to remove scenes of Irish schoolchildren and a Dublin school which she included in the film without the school's permission.
As previously reported in the Irish media - but not, of course, in the Times - Berg had apparently obtained the footage of the children under false pretenses by telling school officials that it was for some other purpose entirely.
It might have been interesting for the Times, in its latest effort, finally to have caught up with the Irish media and then to take it one step further and probe what effect Ms. Berg's perfidy and the deletion of the scenes will have on the film's Oscar chances. (But what do we know? We're not reporters or editors.)
By the way, there was something else you didn't see in the latest Times story: a statement the Archdiocese sent to the reporter regarding the film. Thus, we will reproduce it here, since it nicely summarizes the matter:
"Frankly, we have lost track of the number of fawning articles the Times has published about this flawed, biased, error-filled movie and the number of occasions on which the Times has rehashed the decades-old contentions it contains. It would certainly be refreshing - although we're not going to hold our breath waiting for it to happen - if the
Times would, for a change, take a look at the failings of "Deliver Us From Evil": the
fact that it relies almost entirely on commentators with ties to victims advocacy groups or plaintiffs attorneys; the fact that it is filled with grave misrepresentations of theology, history and Catholic doctrine; the fact that it totally ignores advances the Church has made; the fact that its director apparently took advantage of Dublin school children by
obtaining footage of them under false pretenses; the fact that at least one sober and responsible reviewer has concluded that "it may do more harm than good for the cause it seems to care so deeply about." Those are just a few of the issues regarding this movie we wish the Times would investigate and report. As we said, however, we're not holding our breath waiting for that to happen."
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