Petrelis Files

John Cloud
Time
New York, NY

Dear Mr. Cloud:

In your recent cover story on the fact-challenged and truth-bending contrastive writer Ann Coulter, you called attention to a film about her.

"A recent documentary, Is It True What They Say About Ann?—co-directed by a friend of Coulter’s, journalist Elinor Burkett—has played at film festivals and won some favorable notices," you wrote. (Source: http://www.timecanada.com/story.adp?storyid=001 .)

Since I never heard of the film and fancy myself a movie-lover, I used Google to fact-check your claims about this documentary on Coulter.

First of all, the makers of the film have a web site to promote and sell it, http://www.anncoulterdoc.com/ . The site links to what appears to be all of the film festivals, three total, that screened the work in 2004. I couldn't find any evidence that the film has been shown this year.

Regarding two of the three festivals, the Liberty and the Renaissance film festivals, they are put on by conservative organizations, proud of their right-wing political bent. The third one was the Maryland Film Festival. Not exactly Cannes or Telluride, or mainstream film venues for the latest documentaries focusing on American politics and pundits. (Sources: http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/ , http://www.afrfilmfestival.com/ , http://www.mdfilmfest.com/ .)

Second, where are the supposed favorable notices you claim exist for the documentary? The links to news clippings about the film aren't reviews, but articles about the filmmakers, their controversial subject or the conservative film festivals showing the film. (Sources: http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=287 .)

Does this excerpt from an essay by Bryan Curtis for Slate qualify as a rave in your opinion?

"Stranger still was Is It True What They Say About Ann?, a short film about the conservative provocateur Ann Coulter, who said of Muslim terrorists after 9/11 that we should 'invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.' The director, Patrick Wright, never attempts to answer the title question, preferring to let the camera gaze lovingly at Ann as she hawks her books and invades university campuses.

"After a protester disrupts one of her speeches, she quips, 'You really develop your analytical skills here at Johns Hopkins. At Harvard, they had questions.' When an olive-skinned girl asks her to sign a book later, Coulter asks, 'Are you a Sikh?' No, I'm Hindu, the woman replies. 'Oh, I've got a lot of Sikh friends for some reason,' Coulter says. 'You're my first Hindu.'
"And that's the way the festival unfolded. The films were pleasantly amateurish and the sermons were, too." (Source: http://www.slate.com/id/2106624 .)

If that's a favorable notice, what were the unfavorable ones like?

The closest thumbs-up review I could find, none too surprisingly, appeared in Human Events in December 2004. As you know, Coulter is the legal correspondent for this publication, but nevertheless, you can read her colleague's review of the movie at http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=5972 .

The only other review of the film, again using Google, to come up was an outright slam, written by a film buff living in Maryland.

This is about the kindest thing he had to say. "Unfortunately, the film has no real ambition other than to rehash old clips, interview segments, and dull-as-dishwater book tours in order to present a side of Ann that actually harms her image, despite the fact that this is alleged to be a puff piece. Having been screened during at least one conservative film festival this past year, Is It True What They Say About Ann? is the Right's answer to Al Franken and Michael Moore, only without the entertainment value, humor, or insight. And my loathing of Coulter is beside the point: this is simply poor filmmaking, as it randomly cuts and pans without direction or purpose." ( Source: http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/movies/i/isittruewhattheysayaboutann.html .)

Since you omitted any adjectives when describing the film festivals, readers may have been left with the false impression the venues were politically neutral or of high cinematic caliber.

Then again, there are much larger issues overall in your profile on Coulter for Time, and you've been taken to task for what many media critics see as sloppy reporting. To your credit, you answered some of the criticism leveled against you in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review's daily blog.

As you admitted to the review, your "job in this story was not to be a fact-checker." (Source: http://www.cjrdaily.org/archives/001458.asp .)

Truer words could not have been spoken by you.

Sincerely,
Michael Petrelis
San Francisco, CA