After Kevin Spacey was acquitted of nine sexual assault allegations, a two-part documentary from the U.K.’s Channel 4, titled Spacey Unmasked, trots out ten men to accuse the two-time Oscar-winner of sexual misconduct.
And it gets worse [emphasis added]:
In between clips of prolific award wins and talk-show wisecracks, Spacey Unmasked features the testimonies of a group of men — identified by their first names only — that span five decades, ranging from a teenage Spacey at high school to the height of his House of Cards fame, as well as his time at the Old Vic.
This disgraceful hit-piece will air in the U.K. next week. Eventually, Max and Investigative Discovery will announce their own broadcast stateside. Max is HBO, a network that used to do the Lord’s work in broadcasting documentaries that questioned prosecution. Now HBO is participating in the prosecution. What a fall.
On his verified Xwitter account, Spacey responded.
“I will not sit back and be attacked by a dying network’s one-sided ‘documentary’ about me in their desperate attempt for ratings,” he wrote. “There’s a proper channel to handle allegations against me, and it’s not Channel 4.”
“Each time I have been given the time and a proper forum to defend myself, the allegations have failed under scrutiny and I have been exonerated,” he added (accurately).
Spacey claims, “I have repeatedly requested that Channel 4 afford me more than 7 days to respond to allegations made against me dating back 48 years and provide me with sufficient details to investigate these matters.”
He says the network refused to give him the requested time.
So…
Spacey goes nine-for-nine in a court of law, and what does the kangaroo court of Channel 4 decide to do? What does this massively powerful corporation decide to do? Become judge, jury, and executioner in the court of public opinion.
This is obscene.
Other than a natural revulsion when large corporations attempt to destroy individuals with unproven claims, I have no dog in this fight. Kevin Spacey is a Democrat. Why should I care? Why should any of us care? I’ll tell you why… It is beyond indecent for a powerful corporation to annihilate a human being’s reputation and legacy with unfounded accusations of criminal behavior.
Five years ago, I wrote about this appalling turn in a media that once prided itself on its mission to exonerate the innocent, not prosecute and persecute:
We were once a society raised on To Kill a Mockingbird, The Crucible, The Lottery, The Scarlet Letter… Above all, we were taught to respect the presumption of innocence, and to reject the mob and the tyranny of the majority.
…
HBO broadcast a four-hour documentary that “convicts” Michael Jackson, a man who’s been dead ten years, for the worst crimes imaginable, but failed in basic fact checking.
This fascist plague has only worsened.
Just this week, former Nickelodeon boss Dan Schneider filed a defamation suit against Warner Bros. Discovery for broadcasting Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids. He claims that “the docuseries portrayed him in a false light by implying that he enabled the sexual exploitation of children.”
Producer Dan Schneider (C) accepting the Nickelodeon Lifetime Achievement Award onstage during Nickelodeon’s 27th Annual Kids’ Choice Awards held at USC Galen Center on March 29, 2014, in Los Angeles, California (Frazer Harrison/KCA2014/Getty Images).
And here we are a few days later…
Even after being exonerated in a court of law NINE TIMES, Channel 4 decided to finish off Kevin Spacey forever without taking him to court or allowing him to face his accusers.
And I don’t want to hear any of this shit about where there’s smoke, there’s fire. That’s not how a decent society is supposed to operate. Unless there’s a criminal conviction in a court of law that affords the accused all the rights Channel 4 is denying Spacey, Spacey is and should be considered innocent.
Guilty or not, this is an electronic lynching of a man’s livelihood and reputation.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover on Kindle and Audiobook.
