TO THE EDITOR:
In a recent letter to the editor, The (Raleigh) News and Observer executive editor John Drescher forcefully refuted The Daily Tar Heel’s reporting that the N&O declined interviews with me for my documentary film. If Drescher had contacted me first, he would have learned that that claim did not come from my film or me. In my film, I specify that the N&O declined “on-camera” interviews, a fact Drescher confirms in his letter.
Drescher did offer to give interviews off camera if I would allow him and his reporters to interview me afterward. However, such off-camera interviews would have no value for a documentary film. Unlike print, film is a visual medium. Therefore, unless the interviews could be captured on camera, they served no purpose for my film. His offer was thereby not an even exchange.
My film is not the anti-media polemic many expected. My production team and I made the film with the belief that a more humanizing story about the people connected to the scandal would reach a larger audience and have more of an impact. If Drescher and reporter Dan Kane are unhappy that I did not accept their offer to interview off camera, I am more than happy to engage Kane in a live, broadcast debate where neither of us has to be concerned about the other’s editing.
Bradley Bethel
Writer and director
“Unverified: The Untold Story Behind the UNC Scandal”
