From the article

Shapiro said that, in the end, he was comfortable with the journalistic standards of “Park Avenue,” and noted that he’d heard many positive comments from viewers, as well as negative ones. (The broadcast received high ratings for a PBS documentary.) But he said he felt blindsided by the Independent Television Service—the small arm of public television that funds and distributes independent films—for not giving him sufficient advance warning of the documentary’s contents.

And if ITVS had given Shapiro sufficient advance warning of the documentary's contents?  What would Shapiro have done differently?

This is what happens when we have the degree of differences in wealth, and the extreme social and political inequality, we have in this country.  People who share the views and values of the Koch brothers are able to keep public funding of what is described as "public" TV to a minimum, partly to keep their taxes low, partly so they have opportunity to gain special privileges over its contents by giving a tiny pittance of their wealth to it.

The sense of entitlement and arrogance is extraordinary.  How *dare* any media outlet that I fund portray me in a way that is critical!!  I own the damned ("public" TV!) station!!!  (And never mind that I haven't actually watched the film.  I don't need to, you see.)  It makes a mockery of the idea, which not a soul that I know can hear without laughing or shaking their head in dismay, that in what we like to tell ourselves is somehow a "democracy" beyond being a republic, outsized influence is not supposed to be purchasable.  Which, as one of its producers said, apparently is precisely the point of the movie.  

A few people at the top have wildly disproportionate influence and are able to exempt themselves from any kind of accountability to their fellow citizens through an unrigged political system.  They believe, it appears, that the rest of us should simply bow down and kiss their feet.  They confuse deep resentment, anger, and moral revulsion towards them on the part of growing numbers of their fellow citizens with some sort of incomprehensible, and deeply ungrateful, hatred. 

To those who say they have no issue with a system that permits people to accumulate as much wealth as the Kochs or the Walton family or Gates, that the issue is solely one of too many people at the bottom not having necessities, and so what is the problem with those at the top end having what Koch and Walton and Gates have?--well, here is one of them.  Corrupted media and culture, beyond the corruption of the political system.  Yes, NYC PBS did air the film.  But look what else happened, that we know about, that is.  And how can instances such as this not have the effect going forward of self-censorship by NYC PBS or, as apparently has already happened, by ITVS--or else diminishing resources and commitment necessary to run a quality, independent network?

Thanks for sharing.