March of the Penguins, a clear sentimental favorite, may have just snagged the Oscar in the non-fiction category, but one hot topic buried (on page 37 of the Metro section…but published! let’s give infotainment credit where it’s due!) in today’s New York Times is a muckraking documentary about the 2002 mayoral race in Newark, New Jersey.
Five-term incumbent Sharpe James beat out Yale-educated Corey Booker back then by 3,500 votes in a boisterous campaign. Documentary filmmaker Marshall Curry, an open supporter of Booker, rolled tape during some of the most fractious goings-on and ended up with an Academy Award-nominated movie that is now making waves in Newark.
“It clearly makes Newark look bad,” said the Rev. Reginald T. Jackson, executive director of the Black Ministers’ Council of New Jersey. “One of the benefits is that because of that, the citizens are going to hold the candidates accountable this time in terms of how they conduct their campaigns.”…
After “Street Fight” was televised for the first time last summer on Channel 13, New York’s PBS station, Mr. James sent a series of angry letters to the station denouncing its decision to display what he described as “nothing more than free political advertising for Mr. Booker.”
Most intriguing from an infotainment point of view, however, is this tidbit:
Rahaman Muhammad, president of the local service employees union, said that “Street Fight” had awakened city officials to the power of the moving image, beyond just 30-second commercials. He said he might even make videos of his own if he sees any campaign tearing down signs or limiting access to public events.
“They were not clean last time, and they will not be clean this time,” he said. “Being clean is not what it’s about; it’s about winning.”
The notion of an “information war” is not limited to the battlefield of the Middle East. Increasingly, politics will be fought through PR-Bordering-on-Propaganda.
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[...] Now, this politician understands the iron laws of PR (let’s call it Bernays 101): There is only thing more effective in drawing attention to yourself than overexposure–and that is underexposure. Mayor Sharpe James, whom I wrote about here, is keeping them guessing in Newark, New Jersey. He won’t say whether or not he’ll run for a sixth term–and the election is only six weeks away. [...]
[...] The Times again refers to a documentary, Street Fight, which I mentioned here, shot during the mayoral election of 2002, in which James beat Cory Booker by 3,500 votes. The mayor and his pals didn’t come off too well, apparently (I haven’t seen the doc; but James wrote angry letters to PBS, which aired it, so one can assume he was not flattered by the portrait drawn of him). [...]
[...] But the documentary phenomenon is catching on again. I first wrote about it in the context of the contentious race for mayor of Newark, New Jersey. And just the other day I followed up with a piece on the broader trend, mentioning Giuliani Time, American Blackout, and An Inconvenient Truth. [...]
[...] The trend of making (and using) movies (”documentaries”) to take down (or promote) politicians and/or their causes continues apace. I first wrote about this here, and then wrote about it here and here and here (and here, where the subject [...]
[...] The New York Times’s David Carr picks up on the documentary trend that I began writing about here (in “Michael Moore, Eat Your Heart Out”) and elaborated on here (in “Of the Documentary Persuasion”). [...]
[...] Way back when (in March 2006), I noted: The notion of an “information war” is not limited to the battlefield of the Middle East. Increasingly, politics will be fought through PR-Bordering-on-Propaganda. [...]
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