name was tually pierce. and so we will tweestion for suk wh with the pierce adstonthanks to both of our gues for being here and our thafpks hi thel association for their help throughout this series. dd [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

>> on the next first ladies, influence and image, as the u.s. heads toward civil war we look at two administrations and two decidedly different women. while jane appleton pierce is in the white house her life is defined by the overwhelming loss of her children. by the time her husband, franklin pierce, is elected, two of their three boys are dead. and their last remaining son, 12-year-old benny, dies in a train derailment before president pierce is inaugurated. then harriet lane, the adopted niece of james buchanan. although president buchanan is ranked by most historians as a failure, harriet's tenure as official white house hostess is wildly popular. after years of schooling and entertaining while her uncle served as a u.s. ambassador to great britain only 27 when she comes to live at 1600 pennsylvania avenue to become first lady. jane pierce and harriet lane.

on "first ladies" live monday night at 9:00 a.m. on c-span and c-span 3 and c-span radio nd c-span.org. our web site has more about the first ladies including a special section welcome to the white house. produced by our partner the white house historical association. which chronicles life in the executive mansion during the tenure of each of the first ladies. and with the association we're offering a special edition of the book first ladies of the united states of america. presenting a biography and portrait of each first lady. comments from noted historians. and thoughts from michelle obama on the role of first ladies throughout history. now available for the discounted price of $12.95 plus hipping at cspan.org/products. >> a's cable companies in 197brought to you as a public service byteleso

>> next filmmaker ken burns talks about his latest documentary, the central park five. hilly inton talks about state women's rights. after that, cheea clinton moderates a panel of women entrepreneurs in technology. award winning documentary film maker ken burns was featured speaker at the national press club lunch and discusses the completion of his latest project called "the central park five." it tells the story of five african-american and latino teenagers who were wrongly con victed of raping a female jogger in new york city's central park in 1989. the documentary premieres next tuesday on pbs. this is about an hour. >> good afternoon, and welcome to the national press club. greling-king la

and a reporter for bloomberg news. we are the worrell's leading professional organization for journalists committed to our profession's future through programming with the events such as this. while fostering a free press worldwide. for more information about the national press club please visit our website atress.org. to donate to programs offered to the public through our national press club journalism institute,lease sit press.org/institute. on behalf of our members worldwide, i'd like to welcome our speaker today and those attending today's event. our head table includes guests of our speaker as well as working journalists who are club members. if you hear applause from our audience, i'd note that members of the general public are also attending. so it's not necessarily evidence of a lack of journalistic objectivity. [laughter] i would also like to welcome our c-span and public radio audiences. our luncheons are featured on our member-produced weekly

podcasts from the national press club available on itunes. and you can follow the action today on twitter using the #npclunch. after our guest speech concludes we will have a question and answer period and i will ask asen questions as time permits. time to introduce our head table guest. i'd ask each of you to stand briefly as your name is announced. from your right, glen marcus. documentary writer and producer with public communications incorporated. ken smith with nbc washington. robert macpherson, lifestyle editor with the ajan press. jennifer lawson senior vice president for television at the corporation for public broadcasting. "the oinske, editor for washington post." sharon rockefeller, president and c.e.o., weta, the local affiliate. skipping over the podium, allison fitzgerald, project manager for financial and state

news for the center for public integrity and the speaker's committee chair. skipping over our speaker for the moment natalie devalo for today president and c.e.o. of pbs, paula kruger, julie bikowicz, national reporter for bloomberg news, akio fuji bureau chief for mccluskey of ly the press club freelanc committee. [applause] in 1989, five harlem teenagers were wrongly convicted of raping a white woman in new york city's central park. that sexual assault of a white jogger sparked a media frenzy and public demand for justice that led to the conviction of the so-called central park five. despite the d.n.a. evidence that excluded them and no eyewitness accounts, tying them

to the crime. a serial rapist later admitted to being the perpetrator. but not before these young men served complete sentences of between six and 13 years. in his latest documentary, our guest today, ken burns, tells the story through the vivid testimony of the central park five in what is an unflinching and painful anatomy of wrongful conviction. the movie was directed and produced by mr. burns along with his daughter, sarah burns, who wrote the book that led to the film and with david mcmahon. sarah was only 6 when the events took placand when she learned about it, after the teens' convictions were overturned more than a decade later, she was so taken with the story that she wrote her undergraduate thesis and then the book on the topic. the film based on her book, documents how the forces of the justice system, the press, and pu condermin rights of five young men and condemn them to years in prison for a crime they did not commit.

last night, when we screened the film here at the national press club, we were honored to have with us two of the central park five. yusef salam and santana who have been traveling around the country to major film festivals. and drawing praise from film critics the documentary has been making news. a federal judge in february ruled that new york city may not look at outtakes, notes or other material from the film in their efforts to fight a $250 million lawsuit brought by the central park five against the city. we will discuss this and other developments in our conversation with mr. burns whom we are delighted to welcome back to the press club for his eighth appearance at a luncheon. he has been called one of the "most influential documentary makers of all time" and honored with a lifetime achievement award by the academy of television arts and sciences. ken burns' films have won 12 emmy awards and received two oscar nominations.

among them have been highly aclamede documentaries about jazz, baseball, the brooklyn bridge, u.s. national parks, and of course the civil war which was the highest rated series in the history of american public television. please join me now in welcoming back to the national press club to discuss his latest film mr. ken burns. [applause] >> thank you so much. it's good to be back here. oom thrilled to be back here. let me not bury the lead. on april 16, that's this coming tuesday, pbs will broadcast our two-hour film "the ceral park five." this filwod t have been made without the help of extraordinary numberle. to knowle in this r i imporntom th wou like to

wemyroctionartn yd parcularly i sharon rockfuler who is up here. they have been the best production partners anyone could imagine. th on a number of projects. nd and we have counted on them having our back. and they've had our back through the many decades that this association has gone on. and i've been blessed to have that association. i happen to be one member of an extremely important family. and that is public broadcasting. there is no other place on the dial where you can get the kind of quality work that happens only on public television without commercials, which is sometimes taken for granted. but incredibly important in our ve in ways no one else cado. and we do it serving the public. it is the public broadcasting service that we are about.

and i'm honored to be a small part of it and a little niche doing history in an extraordinary network that spans the entire united states with more affiliates than any other network and touches deeply into the lives of people not just with its extraordinary prime time schedule but with continuing education and adult learning and early childhood things. even homeland security, crop reports, all sorts of things that help stitch our country together. it is by no means some elitist coastal institution but something that's beloved in red state and blue across this extraordinary continent of ours. and so i'm very pleased to have spent my entire professional life producing films for public broadcasting. it is the only place to be. and i'm very honored that paula kruger is the chief executive officer and president of pbs is here with me. and a dear friend as well as

sharon is. we don't make these films without funding. and as you can imagine, a film like this has some very dicey aspects to it. not everybody who is interested in the traditional historical work that we've undertaken over those last 35 years have been as excited about the possibilities of this as have the people who actually did fund it. and i have to acknowledge their support from the very beginning. without them, this literally could not, would not have been made. and that is also pbs. but also our long-time mo of our flms have been supported by the corporation for public broadcasting than any other entity. hey he t but ry jennifer lawson also fof many y extraordinary in helping us fulfill our desires to make the variety ofms we'vead the

opportunity to make. they were inrom the beginning. but when we surveyed the landscape of other possible funders, most shrank away from this very difficult subject. this recent history if you will. two groups stood out. one was the better angels society which is a nonprofit group that was started to help us fund our historical exercises. and bobby and polly stein of jacksonville, florida, stepped forward and made a significant grant. but no grant was more important, more central than the huge grant that came from the atlantic philanthropies. which made the largest grant this particular production and indeed the largest grant i've ever received percentage wise for any film. upward of 75% of our entire budget. it was an amazing risk. and commitment. and we can't imagine having lived through the last several years which have been quite

arduous producing the film thout them. and i'm sorry, i don't think there's anyone from atlantic philanthropies here. but if they are, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. there are some missing people here. and angela alluded to them. the first is my daughter sarah. who has been on the road for way too long and is rushing back to take care of my grand daughter, her daughter. and is the author of all of this. not just of the superb book that she published in 2011 that her husband, david mcmahon, and i had the opportunity to see as the first pages were coming out of her computer and realized what an extraordinary film this could also be in addition to a book. but she has been the author in the sense that for more than a decade, she has felt and carried and agonized over this story. she has been by turns obsessed but also outraged by it.

and that outrage has fueled a great deal of her creative energy. it has fueled my own interest, her husband, david mcmahon's interest, and i don't think we would in any way possibly be here without her superb guidance. she is an incredibly intelligent woman. incredibly articulate. she has also i can assure you as her proud papa had a fierce sense of fairness all her life. and there was something about this story that so offended her sense of fairness. not just in the classic sense that we feel as americans that there should be a level playing not just in the sense that things should just be fair and hod sulk and take their ball home but in a kind of deep human sense of fairness. because this story as much as it enjoins andrs together themes of importance historical moment, it nonetheless also

reflects on just basic human things of failure, of mistakes, of atonement, of forgiveness, of reconciliation. of compassion. and all of those are in great abundance with sarah and she kept us in the right direction. the rest of that us is david mcmahon. he is my son-in-law, her husband, but he is much more than that. he is the creative center of this film. he managed it day to day. not just as a field general and a producer but as the person most responsible for the creative look and feel of this film. no hip, no film. and he has worked tirelessly behind the scenes for way too longnd deserves the lion's share of the credit that comes to this film. and so i feel as i speak to you this afternoon the absence like amputated limbs that tickle an itch long after they're gone, my daughter and son-in-law

deserve to be here. deserve to share this podium. serve to receive whatever credit you might extend to the film. and if there's anything you don't like, it's all my fault. [laughter] also missing are five extraordinary individuals. anton mccray, kevin richardson, yusef salaam, raymond santana and cory wise. they are the central park five. if you were a member of the central park five in 1989, you were among the worst human beings on earth. today, that is quite different. and to be counted among the central park five is to be counted among a band of brothers who i think represent in some ways the best of us, that represent a kind of heroic forbearance in the face of unbelievable odds, who exhibit

startling lack of bitterness and anger, who have grown in the course of this immense and infuriating tragedy into extraordinary young men who have graced our lives and become friends of our family and have been out on the road with us, with a style and a degree of articulation that i think those who were here last night when we had the opportunity to screen theilm derstandth b s pathos to our understng of is story. and re direc nnectis to what ed. in fact, what happened is at the heart of what i want t b about. look very much forward to our nvertion. we, sarah and david mcmahon, and i, had two sort of animating questions if you will, as we began this subject. first is an obvious one. and it ought to be on the lips of all journalists, though, in

fact, part of this disturbing story is the utter failure of our profession to rise to the occasion in this particular instance. and that is how could something like this have happened? in america? at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 20th century? how could this injustice have taken place? and second, because their voices were stolen from them, ripped apart by police and prosecutors and then an ever-compliant media interested in whatever, you know, if it bled, it led. they lost their voice. we wanted to ask another question. who are they? who are they? could we in some ways not restore or make them whole. that will have to come from other places. but could we at least listen to them and find out who we are? we are in a country, we live in a country that is so dialectly

preoccupied. we are certain that if we me the distinction about the other, that you are red state or blue state. that you are black or you are white. you are male or you are female. you are rich or you are poor. you are gay or you are straight. you live here, or you live there. that somehow aha, we will have the whole of you. and unfortunately, particularly, when it comes to lousy d class, we do a job and exploit the guffles between people and forget that each human life within the sound of my voice is as important and as full as any other life in this room. and unfortunately, that was stolen from the central park five. and so missing also and must be foremost in our thoughts are not only the authors of this, sarah and dave, but also the five of them who are in every sense of the word real and

complete human beings who have undertaken trials, none of us in this room could possibly even imagine. and have come out as good if not better than anyone in this room. there, i did it. i made a distinction. let me tell you what happened. on april 19, it was a wednesday night, 1989. in new york ntk. a woman, a white woman jogger, an investment banker at salomon brothers, was brutalally assaulted and raped and left for dead in the northern reaches of central park.iero perhaps 30, perhaps more young boys, teenagers, african-ameriand hispanic, entered the park. it was a wednesday night. a school night. but school was off the next

day. there was a passover holiday. and their parents had given them permiion to stay out late. some had stayed behind and played basketball games at the projects. others had gone into the park with a group of people. most didn't know each other. they were going around, doing something that was frequently called just hanging out or just wiling away the hours or in the vernacular, whiling. spending time doing nothing. they proceeded to go through the park. several of them began to sort of harass joggers and bicyclists, threw stones and tried to interrupt their course. they kept moving farther and farther southnto the park. a drunk. theynot all of them. this is a couple of people. it was watched by some of them. and then there was a serious assault made, a felony assault on a man who was beaten enough to require temporary

hospitalization. and all of this was taking place over the course of some time that early evening in the park. the police were notified as joggers and bicyclists came across them in the park. and they came and sort of flashed their sirens and broke up this crowd. and they scattered. andeconved some of them, many of them went home at that moment. but some began to be picked up by the police, including two of the central park five who had become the central park five, evin richardson, and raymond santana. and they were held along with a lot of other boys for unlawful assembly. and we're going to be sent home when their parents arrive with a citation for family court. and that was it. and everybody was beginning to feel relaxed when late that night, the woman's body was found near death in the northern reaches of central

park. she was so close to death that it was a sign to homicide -- assigned to homicide and certain she was going to die and immediately decided that perhaps and not unreasonably so, that these yuths that they had collected and the others whose names they were also collecting who had been out in the park were responsible for this crime. and then there began this descent into a hell that kafka or dante could not themselves have imagined for these young men. some of them had been in the system before. some of them had committed crimes that knew how to lawyer up and got up right -- out right away. those who would be called the cel ivefrom good, stle middle class families. they had never been in trouble before. they had no idea what was going on as suddenly the questions shifted from we're going to let you go to your parents for this

myor set of events to suddey you are responsible for the brutal rape of this person. what takes place over the next 30 hours is one of the most horrific things that i believe has ever taken place in the american criminal justice st. boys, children, two of them were 14, two of them were 15, and one of them was a developmentally challenged 16-year-old who admits in our film that he felt and probably accurately that he was 12 years old that night, the police began working on them. in one case, up to 30 hours with a young boy without the benefit of a lawyer, often without their parents present. felt that they were so angry and screaming at him, spitting at him, blowing smoke in his face and so angry that they thought that they were going to take him out and kill him. they were petrified. their parents had experienced a

sort of crimes of being black or brown in a large metropolitan city as they had grown up. many were immigrants or recent arrivals in the city. and they were petrified, too. did not know enough about their rights of miranda to stop the proings at any time which would have ended it. and i would not be here had that happened. i would not be here today if a parent had stepped in or a child had invoked his miranda rights to a lawyer. those that did, as i said got off with smaller sentences, pled to what they had actually done. but these five, strangely enough, the most innocent and unacceptably the most vulnerable within our crimina justice system, went through this extraordinary experience of being interrogated. it was kind of a circular firing squad. e cops would say we know -- we have your d.n.a. and your fingerprints on her pants and we know you didn't do it but the guy next door kevin is

saying you're doing it and raymond is saying who's kevin? i've never met him before. we think, raymond, you're a good kid and didn't do it but he's saying you did it and if you say you saw him do it we're going to let you go. parents would come in and look after hours and hours and tell their sons just tell them what they want. they'll let you go home. each one of them, to a boy, said to us as men later on, all i want to do was go home and they would be dangled out the promise of being able to go home. if they would only say this. so after several hours, 30 in the case of one of them, 16, 20, they suddenly had arrived at a place where the cops felt they had gotten the story right. what was clear is that they didn't know anything about the crime. they were nowhere near it. they would describe the crime happening in the reservoir and the cops would change, no, up near the lock. they did not know what was going on. they were petrified. and they began to piece

together confessions. at that point, the district -- assistant district attorney, elizabeth lederer turned on a video machine and with the burly detectives who had done this good cop, bad cop interrogation standing with arms folded behind them began to record their confessions. in quotes. coerced confessions. within each of these confessions are glaring contradictio betweense confessions, there are glaring contradictions. ne of which acted t atntion to the seasonened professionalew york' finest as they are called,ho areible for findinghe criminals in our society. and who in this case failed to entertain an alternative narrative that may have saved the lives of these five boys. buso actually the lives of other human beings. because they were so focused

and so excited that the crime of the century as mayor ed koch called it had been solved within the first few hours and gone out to the celebrated watering hole of elaine and giving themselves high fives and raise a toast to each other that this crime of the century had been closed. what they didn't disclose to themselves was that two days before on april 17, 1989, a woman was assaulted and that assault was broken up by a man who she described as having fresh stitches on his chin. a detectiveyoung detective was assigned to track down to the local hospitals who this person might have been. and by the end of the day or the next day they his name. s name was matais reyes. nobody followed through. matais reyes committed the crime the next day, april 19, on the central park jogger. went on, while the cops and the prosecutors were focused on this horrible miscarriage of

pinning it on the five. went on to rape and assault he went on to rape and hurt many women. he was eventually caught not by the police, but by civilians who held him down until the police had come. many of the police whoorked thatase had been police who had worked over the central park five. as a district attorney's office was gathering evidence is that they found out that i'm seen a horrific, bloody crime scene. not a bit of that was on any of the five boys. and none of them on the crime scheme. they had extracted a single piece of dna. a semen sample that was the only link that link another

human being to the crime scene besides the victim lying near death. they then proceeded to try to match samples with the five. they did not match. they did not at that time begin to entertain an alternative narrated -- narrative. acted in good faith during the 30 hours of interrogation of a 14-year-old saying, we just asked him what happened. it took apparently 30 hours to get the story straight out of their mouths onto a videotaped confession. when mother burst into the inteogio and refused to have a go on. d not maka ot at the other four did. -- buthe fr did. nt ime other place os sort of

meanwhile, all hell is breaking loose in the united states of america. century.the ime of this is our worst and aces fears of "the other." these were both packs. these were wilder's that became wilder. it is a phrase made up by the police. they say how b morse list these 54. selessy say how remore se fier toocoerced confession of an african-american who died. his obituary is still in the new york times. the press said, wait a minute. he was exonerated.

that led to miranda. because of the firestorm of led to theis moment death penalty being reinstated. donald trump took out full-page ads in every one of the daily pers saying, bring back the death penalty. reputable, so-called reputable columnists said that the -- this what he said -- ought to be hung in central park and the other four flogged. said, join the drumbeat. everyone accepted the verdict that they were guilty. what has happened to our society? what happened to our family structure rushed markovnor cuomo basically backed off and said, nobody is safe. even lockiour doors is not

safe. it was almost like he abandoned the city. they mocked the idea on the street alleged perpetrator. their mothers and grandmothers say they are good boys, but don't you believe them. and no one believed them. they immediately recanted their confessions and said it wasn't true i went on to try to assemble a defense. one had a public defender who did an extraordinary job. the rest were ill-served by counsel. by the time this went to trial, they were guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty throughout the world. the trouble is affirmation of it. even then, there was no dna match. there was inconsistencies within the confessions. triadivided it into three ls. one jury member held out for 10 days until he got so much from

the other members that he decided he wanted to go home. just as the boys had done. they went to jail for up with the 13 years between seven and 13 years. these were men, children, boys, who were offered a chance at a plea deal and did not take it. if i was guilty of something, i would have tried to get the least a sentence. forcan put me into jail the rest of my life. i would not confess to something i did not do. every time they were up for parole at these horrible institutions, one and two maximum-security prisons and the other four went to juvenile facilities that are not much better. in which a sex crime offenders are at and are vulnerable in ways no other prisoners are vulnerable. they all had parole hearings.

up thed have speeded exit from jill. they all attempted to get and several did get degrees before those programs were taken out of the priso. it was an extraordinary display of willful advancement in the face of all of this. heai all of the scuffling's and the jumping ons ane thatgs, the trials, speaks volumes. i think we know what scuffling's are. we can only wonder what jumping on czar. we know what stabbings are. we know what what trials and tribulations are. it went throug. finally they were released from jail except for corey who were serving an adult sentence.

the one-two out how to register to register as sex offenders. they could not -- the ones who regter as sexo offenders. they could not get jobs. back to jail for drugs. was being released from jail, he bumped into another who had been caught that same summer. they had got into an altercation over the use of a tv. now it is 2002. cory.agi reyes went toft, timearden and said, i did for a crime i committed. suddenly the case comes blowing uphill and the da comes up and

takes a sample. it matches. the unknown a semen sample from before. he gives details of the case that no one knew, even the cops. they suddenly piece it all together. the district attorney who had overseen the original to prosecutors who were inbuilt. .e assigned new ada's they be investigated. igated.nvest if i knew then what i knew now, i would not have indicted these five. been both the prosecutors and the defense, together in unison, went to a judge and asked in unison that the judge vacated convictions, which he did in a nano second. because he was no longer a predicate felon, raymond was

released for time served and they were all out. -- the reactionary new york post plated from the prosecutor's point of view. this was a big mistake. they became the house organ for the police and the prosecutors over the next years. because it represents a gross failure on the part of all of us involved in the media, everyone else made relatively silent. the reactionary forces defined the narrator -- narrative for he has nearlye they are settled out ofourt han t. when they go to truck, things happen within a reasonable amount of time. thingsthey go to trial, happen within a reasonable

have not taken place yet after 10 years. the five and the families have requested mountains of material requested mountains of material, which they cannot possibly reduce. this is, you know, first, the language in the press is the language of jim crow america and not the progressive america at the end of the 20th century. it has been reprehensible in the they subpoenaed all of our outtakes and notes, is seeking a phishing attempt of looking for inconsistencies. you told us you enter the park at 9:01 p.m. do you always lie? at least for the time being, they have fought back. they reviewed the city in its -- we arehat we did

one advocate. setting aside the fact that this most journalistic of all of the films we have done, even if it was an advocacy piece, so what? haven't heard of the first amendment? was this country not border on the idea we can expect an opinion? does every editorial board of every newspaper in the country has to fear the intrusion of the government if they decide that they want the help of that newspaper to help them solve a crime? we are not obligated to do that. the judge found the and reversed the decision that had taken place for filmmakers and journalists. like thece again central park five drawn into this terrible story. i do not mean to suggest that we are the story. we are not. the most important thing has to

be on the five and what they have gone through. we have had their lives blasted. they do not know if any of you sitting here remembers where you were when you were 14 or 15 years old or 16 years old. your life is unfolding. who you will day and when you will go to prom and when you will get a car. whoho you will date and you will go to prom with and when you'll get a car. all of that was robbed from them. what if they insist it goes to trial? bere interested that there a settlement at the end of a long, run on sentence of injusticet isern a modern societyha clmee its birth that all people are created equal. whoops thever sathe codictio

in the pledge allegiance, liberty and justice for all. it seems like it is liberty and justice for those who can afford it. asleave this case hanging our field is left hanging, wondering what will be do? what is our responsibility? journalists and fellow citizens to try to deal with what took place? ladies and gentlemen, i'm very sorry to say that this th to tell is a descent into hell. it is not a unique story. it happened yesterday and will probably happen today and it will happen tomorrow. and the stories that we tell each other and the way that we report the ongoing fax of our , the -- facts of our lives

way we frame the events, call it movies or journalism, when do we stop and say, enough? when do we rise up and live out the true meaning of -- and judge people not by the color of their skin? and the meet the five content of their character? thank you. [appla >> to what do you attribute the failure of the press and media to investigate the report accurately? what lessons should the press

takeaway for future cases like this? >> we are in a funny era. up to be the conscience of the country and also -- we have to be the conscience of the country and also be a business that makes money. there are demographics and the ratings. we know that if it bleeds, it leads. this was so a fantastic and impossible story, so perfect a for help these episodes him. -- healthy skepticism. that is the lesson. we have to do our job. it was not done here. ofyour most journalistic the films you produce, do you consider yourself a journalist? >> yes. i believe people have called me a historian and i accept that role reluctantly.

i'm not an academic historian. i do not work for a living, or say, at a journalistic organization, but i believe in the course of collecting evidence, history has to apply. was philip graham who owned the washington post who says that journalism is the first rough draft of history. that is a wonderful turn of phrase, except when you realize at you see in this case is a really sloppy, shoddy rough draft. in history, we have to be much more mindfuliangulate th multiple s and to get data more accurately by finding out what historical record covers it. it is ongoing.

we felt in this case we would move in stylistically quite differently from other films. ,t is energetic, but hitting they have popped that was beginning to develop. the anarchy an that seemed to ht the city. he did that in favor of a war rigorous -- instead of a -- we did that instead oa more rigorous style. we did that in a way to be as journalistic as possible. >> the film takes us back to 1989. , theedia, the public legal system. do you recall your own response back then? >> i live and work in a little village in new hampshire. i wanted to work with an editor and i did editing in new york

city. it needed weekly to new york. i was in new york -- i commuted weekly to new york. i was in new york. no one could help but the in an avalanche of coverage. it was on every news station and every tabloid. all an intense competition, screaming for the loudest kind of headlines. it was hard to miss. what happened? the sense of falling into a bottomless pit. i did note later on from the distance of new hampshire that when they were -- they have the convictions vacated, it had such little notice in comparison. a committed the other forces to sort of suggest the insane alternative narratives. city maintains that they started.off what reyes

or that they must have done something. they fasten late like impound arguments likerguments -- fa ping-pong balls. >> a follow-up to the earlier question. at the time this is being repoedouts atoonssnsonsistcies at were clear? .> that is a gooqu i wish my daughter, etc., wa he. she would knownsnt sraarah, was here. she would know instantly. the holdout jury member was smart enough to see what was

going on and feeling like the detectives were lying. they consider them suspects from the get-go. this was horrible. they have in available from the moment of the trial, if not before. does mention the other victim, the victim of the rape in central park. but she is not interviewed in the film. what reaction has she given to it? >> i do not know her. we normally do not say the names of victims. she wrote a book called "i am the central park jogger." detail to recovery. she has no memory of what happened. road torote about her recovery. she has no memory of what happened. and they filled in

this firm and in neurological she had about that night. thank goodness she remembers putting on her jottings and remembers nothing until waking up. i goodness. when she is about to go public for the first time, one can narrative as the she has believed for so long did not happen that way. i asked her to participate and i respected her decision not to. i let her know that the film is playing near her and give her the heads up and warning that it would be. there'seen the film, never a moment in the film when we do not return again and again to her extraordinary recovery and progress and understand that was the primary victim.

there was a total of six. >> there is so much more i want to know. what happened in prison? what are the central park five doing now? are any of the police remorseful? >> as the film said, the police the districtafter attorney had been investigated and moved to vacate the convictions and a judge agreed. the licenv. asmecolumn pointed out in the film, they had gotten the wrong guys and had let the realuyontinue to mder subsequent to that. there has been no remorse expressed. it has been the exact opposite, a sort of contempt for the five and the extraoary deliveranc from this hell.

five now? the where are they now? >> they are a remarkable group of human beings. i hope i could communicate that in my remarks. they all suf, as many other family members do, from some ptsd.f what would call did not appear in the fi rore. to maryland and then to the deep he change hiname and escape south where he works as a forklift operator. he keeps his head down and pays his taxes and takes care of his kids. he still feels that someday someone is going to come and grab initialed shoulder and say, come this way. he is in contact with agreement every single day. we were able to lure him out for the closing night of the film festival november 15. he appeared for the first time

since they were all together during the original crime in 1989. the other four are still in new york. all still in the same neighborhood. of the most successful. he works for it systems. he has several kids fro. amazing human being and great father. kevin and raymond have jobs. employee'sks for an union. i can't remember where kevin is. we see them a lot. the 16-year-old is now 40. he struggles in some ways because of the disabilities that the others have not. they weigh on him in a different

way. the amazing thing is that they are alive. the intention was that they would not make it through this. no conspiracies, but just in the sense that in this new era of the new jim crow, it was assumed that they would disappear and theoops mistake of we got wrong guy could be covered up because these guys would disappear. instead, they remind us daily of the hero it perseverance -he roic perseverance i wish i had myself. >> you talked about the film becoming a press freedom peace. what was it like having your work, your notes, your video under a subpoena and having to fight back? >> it was a mixed blessing. it was something incredibly foolish about the city subpoenaing records write-in the

middle of the film. it was a publicist dream, right? [laughter] is it not? ,tme icreated and ink fo sarah and dave as well, there is something that sucatur got, that feeling that you have sometimes when you think you're driving too fast when you see the blue lights behind you. this meant something. ,his is felt on our effort particularly the irony that we had spent so long and have been so conscientious and diligent and asking for them to please comment. honor us with a return phone call to say no. there were just be unanswered voice messages and e-mails. they would then start coming out with a tack that this was suddenly something they needed and it would be important for an investigation. more than that, they could and

had a right to this because it was a one-sided advocacy piece. he felt, my goodness. felt, my goodness. >> were the lawyers? why didn't they protect their clients at the time? ?- where were the lawyers why didn't they protect their client at the time? >> it is a sad aspect of the case, except for a court appointed attorney for one of the boys. he did a good job serving him. the others were friends of the family. one was a divorce lawyer. he was incompetent. another handled raymond's case. he was out of his depth.

another attorney i cannot remember his name. he served cory. at the time, everyone assumed they were guilty. they were guilty. they had confessed. what soapboxwas, this might present for one attorney? what can you do to my gate this -- mitigate this? people were not fitting things together. the coverage was so great. the african-american papers bought into it. most of their relatives shun them and ostracized these five boys. they assumed they were guilty. thtrs within eh of the famili are expensive these guy mentioned that it is suice it to say, each of them

separate in the obvious way that society had inte them to suffer by going to jail thatin the losses happened within their own families. mothers and fathers and parents putting up. -- splitting up. if his father had told h, stick to your guns he wouldn't have confessed. after the later painful memory of seeing his father lying dead that he suddenly realized what forgiveness could be. he has to go to his grave with all of that was left just by the slight chance. , play basketball.

you can ses eyes going, what if i had done that? another's father said do not stand on the street corner. and he breaks down and cry. we are almost out of time. i have a couple of housekeeping matters --