Five days after having announced a new documentary series about the Ku Klux Klan, the channel A&E has canceled this project all of a sudden. In a statement issued on the eve of Christmas, the spokesperson of the channel said that the show’s producers paid to participants to "facilitate access", something that The&And only learned now and that is a practice contrary to its policy.
The series of eight episodes should premiere in January and aimed to "look closely to those who work in the rescue of people linked to the promotion of hatred, helping them to leave the Ku Klux Klan – the racist group with a long history of violence against african americans and other groups." "We had already ensured in advance to the public and to our partners – including the [organizations antiracistas] Anti-Defamation League and Color of Change – that there had been no payment to members of hate groups, and at the time we believed to be the reality," says the statement. Now, they explain, they decided “not to proceed with the transmission of this project", produced by a producer outside.
Although some producers of reality TV to pay the people that shoot, the channel stresses that is against this practice in the case of documentaries. "The A&E takes very seriously the authenticity of its programming document and the themes of racism, hatred and violence," he adds in a statement.
The series, titled Generation., was described as a look at the behind the scenes of four powerful families of the Klan, each having a member who was trying to escape from the organization. The producers also focused on the pacifists that try to help these members to leave the KKK. The A&E, a channel known for programs such as Intervention or Scientology and the Aftermath, was shrouded in controversy last week when it announced that the series would exist. Some people argued that any series about the KKK, even on people that leave you, is a way of normalizing a group that promotes hatred, especially after a presidential election in which members of the KKK supported the future President Donald Trump.
In the wake of this adverse reaction, the channel responded by saying that was going to change the title of the series to Escaping the KKK: A Documentary Series Exposing Hate in America to "ensure that no one can be confused as to its purpose and that a title does not serve by itself to normalize the Klan," wrote The&And in a press release. The channel has also announced partnerships with the Anti-Defamation League and Color of Change, and said that both the organizations for the defense of civil rights would produce guides viewing and a compendium education to accompany the series, in addition to taking part in a special episode of the debate.
"For us, this new title and these partnerships, with the add-ons within the series and after the series, in addition to our support plan, reflect more broadly the content of the anti-hate series, and our intention", said the executive vice president of the channel, Rob Sharenow, in a statement in which enlightened the new elements of the documentary. "The aim is to expose and combat the racism and hatred in all its forms, and appreciate the feedback valuable that we have received."
The series is produced by the company, of Los Angeles, This is Just a Test, the same that is behind titles such as I Am Jazz, the program of TLC about a teenage transgender, or Big Rig Bounty Hunters, the History Channel.
The trailer for Escaping the KKK has been removed from YouTube but the New York Times described her first scene: a member of the group to provide hoods of the KKK to their daughters. The series, which was commissioned around a year and a half, will have, according to the New York Times, caused some doubts in The a&E. "we didn’t want the series to be seen as a platform for the views of the KKK," said Sharenow to the New York Times. "Our only political agenda is that we are against hate."
Unique PUBLIC/The Washington Post
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