Justin Robert Young and Producer Jennie Josephson chat post-show about the Sony decision to pull The Interview form theaters. It was such a substantial conversation we decided to include it in the feed as a bonus audio track. Hope you enjoy. (This conversation is included at the end of the video version as well.)
7 thoughts on “DTNS 2388 PART 2 – Post-show Talk about Sony and the Interview”
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Jennie, Justin and Tom, I want to personally thank you for including your post show discussion on the Interview and Sony. Although I know that there was plenty of tech news aside from the GoP implied threat and Sony’s decision, I am glad you spent some time to focus on this story and especially on the ethics of journalism with respect to sharing private information (and how easily it can be disseminated via the Internet). It was great to listen to your opinions and a bit cathartic as well.
In regard to Sony pulling the Interview, I think you underestimate the legitimate concern a business may have over the threat that real harm may come to their customers and employees. I have worked with a number of Wall Street firms which are usually portrayed as heartless / profit driven companies, but I was close enough to know that they had real worries over the risks to both groups following 9/11 based on what they did going forward. When you have masses of people who may be exposed by your actions, you have to take the risks seriously.
In reality, Sony is taking a profit and reputation hit on this as you said and may be doing it to do what they think is the right thing. Imagine the way you’d feel as an executive the morning after some lunatics went into a theater with firearms when your film was shown.
And, of course, the First Amendment concerns raised during the show don’t apply since Sony is not a government entity.
One added thought on the Sony / Interview discussion, we can’t know but Sony / law enforcement may well know things that are not being revealed that would increase the credibility of the threat. These things are often handled this way to support the investigation.
I’m not saying that that’s the case, but we may want to reserve judgment
He ya’ll, Chris , a histyory teacher from CT here. I have a couple of comments on todays post show podcast.
1. Awesome. well done. Smiley face sticker for all of you. ( I teach middle school. Clearly.)
2. The only time I can think of a film where a sitting government official was specifically targeted was “The Great Dictator”, Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 send up of Adolf Hitler. While it was not a call for an assassination of Hitler, it was a sharply pointed parody of a world leader.
3. The only other time I can think of films calling for the assassination of sitting world leaders would be the WWII Propaganda films of, well, everyone involved in WWII.
See Death of a President (2006 film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_a_President_%282006_film%29
tom mentioned on the assassination of an actual head of government: There actually was a British mockumentary about assassinating Bush, in 2006.
Death of a President
You beat me to it, Mark. 🙂
But all in all, great reporting and analysis from Team DTNS. Proud to be a Patreon.