American Libraries |
||
Site Navigation
Left Sidebar ItemsOnline Features
Follow American Libraries news stories, videos, and blog posts on Twitter.
|
||
Library Nixes Showing of Iraq War DocumentaryCiting a violation of meeting-room policy, the Worcester County (Md.) Library has cancelled the last of four scheduled showings of the documentary Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War at its Ocean Pines and Pocomoke branches. “We got complaints that [the film] was not what the people thought it would be,” Ocean Pines Head Librarian JeriLyn Holston said in the October 27 Ocean Pines Independent, explaining that rule three of the system’s meeting-room policy states: “Nonpartisan organizations which do not endorse individual parties or candidates may be allowed to conduct meetings at which current election issues will be discussed . . . provided that all candidates for the same office shall have been invited.”However, film-screening organizer George Benton contends that the abrupt cancellation unfairly cast the showing of Uncovered in a political light despite the fact that the film is “not antiwar.” The 56-minute film contains interviews with scientists, government-agency officials, U.N. weapons inspectors, and others who, Benton explained, “look at the information that was presented to us that led us to the war in Iraq.” He went on to say that he might host the last scheduled screening at his home. Worcester County Library Director Mark Thomas told the Independent, “There was certainly no hostility toward [Benton] and certainly no opinion one way or the other about the film.” But an October 27 editorial that cited meeting-room policy rule two defining the space as available for “public gatherings of a civic, cultural, or educational character” concluded by asking rhetorically, “If examining the rationale behind our current war in Iraq is not considered part of our civic discourse, what exactly would be?” Posted October 29, 2004. |
Right Sidebar
|
|
