News war WGBH Boston ; executive producer David Fanning.
(DVD)

Originally aired as segments of the PBS documentary television series Frontline on February 13, 2007-Part 1, February 20, 2007-Part 2, February 27, 2007-Part 3, and on Frontline/World March 27, 2007-Part 4.

Special feature: Teacher's guide [requires a DVD-ROM drive and Adobe Acrobat (PDF file)].

Director of photography, Ben McCoy ; music composed by John Low, Claudio Regazzi, Askold Ruk ; camera, Frank-Peter Lehmann, Scott Anger ; translator, Paula Wang.

Narrated by Will Lyman ; commentators include Ron Suskind, Tom Rosenstiel, Bob Woodward, Jay Rosen, Clark Hoyt, Walter Pincus, Joseph C. Wilson, David Szady, Judith Miller, Norman Pearlstine, Leonard Downie, Earl Caldwell, Edwin Meese, William Bradford Reynolds, Carl Bernstein, Ben Bradlee, William Safire, Mark Feldstein, James Goodale, Lucy Dalglish, Floyd Abrams, Bill Keller, Steven Aftergood, Mark McKinnon, Dana Priest, James Risen, Eric Lichtblau, Dan Bartlett, Seymour Hersh, John McLaughlin, John Miller, Lance Williams, Mark Fainaru-Wada, Phil Bronstein, Tasia Scolinos, Josh Wolf, Randall D. Eliason, David Javerbaum, David Westin, Brian Ross, Jeff Fager, Ted Koppel, Dan Rather, Tom Bettag, Walter Isaacson, Scott Moore, Eric Schmidt, Andrew Baron, Markos Moulitsas, Jeff Jarvis, Nicholas Lemann, Josh Marshall, Scott Johnson, Simon Surowicz, Kevin Sites, Charles Bobrinskoy, David Hiller, Lauren Rich Fine, Craig Newmark, Larry Kramer, Rob Curley, Jim Brady, Eli Broad, Andy Barnes, Duncan MacInnis, Brian Conniff, Claudie Abi Hanna, Bushra Abdel Samad, Ghassan Ben Jeddou, Wadah Khanfar, Mamoun Fandy, Abderrahim Foukara, Eric Clark, Frank Pascual, Nakhle El Hage, Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, Michael Pelletier, NIgel Parsons, Cliff Kincaid, David Marash, Geoffrey Nyarota.

Secrets, Sources & Spin Part 1 examines the political and legal forces challenging the mainstream news media today and press reactions. The film looks at the debates over the role of journalism; the relationship between the Bush administration and the press; the controversies surrounding the use of anonymous sources in reporting; and the unintended consequences of the Valerie Plame investigation -- a confusing, ugly affair that ultimately damaged the legal protections reporters' thought they enjoyed under the First Amendment. Part 2 continues with the legal jeopardy faced by a number of reporters across the country, and the complications generated by the war on terror. Many reporters face jail for refusing to reveal sources in the context of leak investigations, while editors of the nation's leading newspapers now confront the question of how much can the press reveal about secret government programs in that war without jeopardizing national security? In What's Happening to the News (Pt. 3), network executives, journalists, Wall Street analysts, bloggers, and key players at Google and Yahoo! explain the battle for survival in a rapidly changing world. The embattled Los Angeles Times, one of the last remaining papers in the country still covering major national stories, is profiled. The Frontline/World (4th) segment focuses on two stories. The first is on new Arab media and its role in both mitigating and exacerbating the clash between the West and Islam. Al Jazeera has changed the face of a parochial and tightly controlled Arab media, and this hour explores Al Jazeera's growing influence around the world. The second is a video essay on journalists worldwide, which details how in many countries the press has been suppressed, and journalists have been jailed, exiled, and murdered.

DVD, Region 1, Stereo, widescreen presentation, enhanced for 16x9 televisions.

Closed-captioned.

DVD