Ken Burns wins legal battle against NYC over “Central Park Five”

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 17:30:00 +0000

After New York City officials issued a subpoena against "Central Park Five" filmmakers Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon in October 2012, they hoped to obtain unreleased footage examining the wrongful conviction of five black and Hispanic men in the infamous, racially charged 1989 Central Park jogger case. The five, who have since been exonerated, nine years ago filed an as-of-yet unsettled $250 million lawsuit against the city; Burns and his team have been vocal in their hopes that the case will be settled soon. City officials -- who did not cooperate in the making of the film -- had planned to obtain Burns' footage and find material to present in defense in the ongoing lawsuit, claiming that Burns and his team shouldn't get reporters' privilege because they were making a "one-sided advocacy piece."

Yesterday, however, Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis of United States District Court in Manhattan ruled against the city, upholding the filmmakers' argument that "Central Park Five" was constructed as independent, investigative journalism. He argued that, “Indeed, it seems likely that a filmmaker would have a point of view going into a project,” but having an opinion does not have to be in conflict with independent reporting.

“The Central Park Five”: New York’s darkest hour

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:07:00 +0000

If you lived in New York in 1989 – hell, if you lived in America in 1989 and were over 12 years old – then you remember the story of the Central Park jogger. It was a terrible case that seemed to epitomize everything that had gone wrong in America’s greatest city during the reigns of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush -- the toxic combination of exploding Wall Street wealth, skyrocketing crime, the crack epidemic and worsening racial tension. This was the “Bonfire of the Vanities” New York, the “American Psycho” New York, in which newly created or reinforced classes, the super-rich and the alienated poor, faced off in nearly open warfare. The legendary power of that failing city is such that many contemporary visitors to New York still expect the Bronx to be on fire and Central Park to be an uninhabited zone of “muggers and trash,” in the words of my mother-in-law, and are startled by the affluent chain-store bustle of 21st century Manhattan.

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Ken Burns wins legal battle against NYC over “Central Park Five”

“The Central Park Five”: New York’s darkest hour