More4 News Blog

Fahrenheit 9/11 as a propaganda tool for Muslim resistance groups?

An Iraqi resistance group - one of the many, and certainly not the largest - Jaish Al Rashideen has been teasing for months that a documentary based on Michael Moore's polemical film "Farenheit 9/11" was to be released. It's called "The Code of silence"

The documentary claims that President Bush has hidden from the American people the true number of US deaths in Iraq in the conflict. It calls him and his administration liars, and says that it is the Iraqi insurgents who are winning the war, not the Americans. Hence the code of silence refrerred to in the title.

Over the last few weeks the film has slowly been drip fed on the Internet but on the eve of the commemorative services in New York, it went on general release - so to speak.

The Assassination of President George Bush

More4 has an exclusive report tonight, on the assissination of the US President. Not the actual event, of course, (that would be a scoop) - but a film imagining how the event would happen. Channel 4 News's Felicity Spector worked on the film - here's her account of filming a top-secret drama.

The film Death of a President was an epic project - a fictional drama researched as thoroughly as any documentary. My job was to help track down and interview real-life counterparts of the characters in the film: the FBI agent, the forensics expert, the White House presidential aide, the White House correspondent, the Iraq war veteran and so-on.

Due to the highly sensitive subject matter - the assassination of George W Bush, everyone involved with the entire project signed a confidentiality agreement. I spoke to some pretty senior people from present and past administrations - some who'd experienced the assassination attempt on President Reagan - others who'd been involved with investigating terrorist suspects or policing major demonstrations against Bush.

The aim was to make the film as accurate as possible - filmed in the style of a real documentary, it charts the moments leading up to the assassination - and the political aftermath. Clearly it's attracted lots of publicity - not least through More4's release of a still photograph showing the moment the sniper's bullet hits the President.

Stars Wars stops attacking the clones

In this week's Top of the Pods Ben King discusses a little reported decision that could have far reaching consequences.

Lucasfilm, the people who own the copyright to Star Wars quietly gave their blessing to people who show their own Star Wars related films online.

The popular video site, YouTube, for example, hosts thousands of these films but this month it took them all down after what they mistakenly thought was a request from Lucasfilm.

Here's how Kevin Rose at the Diggnation podcast told the story: "Lucasfilm tells YouTube to put all removed Star Wars content back online ... Awesome."

That means you can still catch the likes of Chad Vader. This is the story of Darth Vader's less successful younger brother who - still wearing the family's distinctive black cape and mask - works as a day shift manager at a local supermarket.

Top of the Pods appears weekly on Channel 4 News Radio's The Morning Report.