Phil Donahue talks about his Body of War
Cleveland's "Favorite Son" on Iraq, Mainstream Media and more

The phone rings and for the first time since I interviewed James Earl Jones many years ago, the voice on the other end commands attention like thunder. It seems almost surreal. "Peter? Phil Donahue calling." That voice, instantly recognizable. Insightful and incisive, I expect ten minutes with one of Cleveland's "favorite sons"; he graciously gives me an hour. He's got a lot to say this morning, never at a loss for words.

One would be hard pressed to find a greater (or more recognizable) broadcast icon than the St. Edwards High School grad. Donahue launched his career right here in Ohio -- establishing the model for tabloid talk shows in a five-decade career that ended with a short-lived, eponymous MSNBC news program. And while he's in town this weekend for a screening of his award-winning documentary film Body of War and accepting an award from Ohio Citizen Action, thoughts on the MSM ("mainstream media" for you non-bloggers) are never far from his mind.

"If you're on TV today, you have to be popular," Donahue says, offering that message and tone should match celebrity status these days. "[B]ut it's hard to be popular when you're telling people things they're not interested in hearing."

Donahue's first foray into documentary film, Body of War tells the tale of Tomas Young -- a twenty-something who "signs up for the Army right after 9/11," expects to go to Afghanistan but ends up in Iraq somehow. Then the unthinkable happens: less than a week into his first tour of duty, his unit is ambushed by insurgents and he shot and paralyzed. Body of War movingly delivers Young's attempts to return to a normal life when he comes home. Needless to say, that never quite happens.

Pictured here with his film collaborators at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival -- Young, cinematographer Ellen Spiro and singer-songwriter Eddie Vedder -- Donahue has earned accolades unthought of while he was still at MSNBC. The film went on to be named the National Board of Review's "Best Documentary" of that year and was short-listed for an Oscar nod.

The last Donahue program, which anchored the NBC cable station's prime-time lineup earlier in the decade, suffered its fate in large part due to the host's criticism of the Iraq War. Though highly-rated, the host did not exactly warm up to the idea of going to war in the Middle East. The program was axed in 2003, only a year's time after launching, and under a shroud of controversy. At the time, very little opposition to the war had made it to the mainstream media and NBC's parent company, General Electric, might not have felt so warm and fuzzy about the direction he was going in (read on for more on that).

The MSNBC cancellation set in motion Donahue's entry into documentary film, an intense, straight-from-the-womb stunner that moves viewers on both sides of the aisle. It's intimate, interpersonal and leaves viewers reeling and with plenty to contemplate. The film might not have happened if not for consumer advocate and perennial presidential candidate, Ralph Nader. This was but the beginning of the conversation:

Cool Cleveland: It's an honor to talk with you this morning. I am a longtime admirer of your work. Where am I reaching you today?

Phil Donahue: I'm at home today in Westport, Connecticut, on Long Island Sound. So, you're a journalist in my hometown, eh? Good for you. We're looking for more of you guys.

Appreciate the kind words. And congratulations on Body of War. You've been quoted as saying that a visit to Walter Reed [Army Medical Center] and meeting Iraq vet Tomas Young and his mother is really what catalyzed the film for you. What can you share with our readers about that visit?

I was invited to accompany Ralph Nader to meet a mother and her son there, so off we go. When we arrive, there he is lying there, 24-years-old, very whacked out on wall-to-wall morphine, heavily medicated. He was pale, very weak, very ashen. As I stood next to his bed, his mom explained injuries to me and how he arrived in this place. Tomas saw President Bush on the pile [of the collapsed World Trade Center towers] and signed up immediately. But things went awry almost immediately. At Fort Hood in boot camp, he was told he was going to Iraq and asked why, because he signed up for Afghanistan to get [Osama] Bin Laden. He's there in Iraq for a week, in transit with 26 other guys in an open truck and they draw hostile fire. They're fish in a barrel, Peter. A bullet severs his spine and he's paralyzed from the nipples down. Cut down in the prime of his life.

All these dominos fall. He can't walk, he can't cough, he needs speech rehabilitation for a pulmonary embolism... you name it, he's got it. A urinary tract infection that never goes away, gall bladder problems, erectile dysfunction, violent nausea every day... and the closer you get to this young man, the first thing you say is "Why him and not me?" It was a full blast of the enormity of what's going on behind the closed doors for thousands of American families who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. The Iraq war is the most sanitized of my lifetime and the pain that has resulted, well, Americans are just not seeing. Body of War is an attempt to [show that] corporate media has not really let us see the sacrifice Americans are making.

We are hopeful that it helps to fill in that black hole left by corporate media. If we can't see it, we can’t feel it as a society. It's so wrong in the land of the free. If you're gonna send a nation to war, you need to show the sacrifices.

The war coverage has not appeared to change much since the Iraq War began. We're still not seeing coffins on TV, or hearing an extraordinary amount of criticism of the Bush Administration, even as the president seemingly limps out of office. Why?

Isn't that amazing? First of all, there are millions of hard working, God-fearing, law-abiding patriotic, America-loving, church-going Americans who believe deeply in their heart that if a president calls a war, you have to shut up and sing. This is killing our young adult children. If there ever was time to dissent, it's in a time of war.

This is awful. If thousands of soldiers are going to die for this way of life -- and at the center of that life is free speech -- then we should be able to express our distress about it. It's perilously dangerous to suggest that dissent is somehow unpatriotic. The opposite is true; without dissent there's no democracy. These dissenters are not claiming to walk on water, but they deserve to have their voices heard. People still believe that Saddam Hussein was going to get us. The Bush Administration scared the hell out of everyone and walked the nation by the earlobe right into the sword.

Big media has failed its audience to some degree, but has it crossed the Rubicon? Has the handling of the Iraq War taken the bite out of journalism for good -- especially as it relates to enforcing accountability at the highest of levels?

What this war has done -- which is really an embarrassment to the MSM, to use bloggerese -- is damaged journalistic integrity. It's hard to imagine a serious, mainstream media journalist seeing the folly of this coverage. Every major metropolitan newspaper in this country supported this war, which is what you get with corporate media. Being against this war was not good for business; it meant that you agreed with "pointy headed people" and over half of the political voice in this country was marginalized because of it.

People are literally terrified of the word liberal now. We've endured a litany of insults, all sustained in this full-frontal attack. Somehow we don’t believe in God, we don't believe in marriage, we're all communists, we hate the troops, and on and on and on. What we have to do, those of us who believe dissent is patriotic, is to resent those comments and reject them entirely. This whole "rootin’ tootin’ shootin’" warrior approach is killing young adult children and it doesn’t have to be this way. Our strength is in ideas, not incendiaries. It's in reaching out, not lashing out. It's not bombing cities at night and killing women and children and families in the process. It is so wasteful to be as belligerent and disrespectful as we've been. And it is disrespectful to past warriors as well. As to journalism, we’ll have to wait and see where it shakes out.

Your quote-unquote "unhappy life" at MSNBC earlier this decade is inexplicably linked to being against the war in Iraq. Did you feel vilified at the time, and how do you feel now? Do you expect that you'll ever return to mainstream television?

I don't think I'll be going back for a daily show. (laughs) We did six thousand episodes of the Donahue show [in various incarnations]. And if you think I'm bragging, I am! I'm Cal Ripken! (laughs) Certainly that was for a younger man. Now I'd like to be heard, because I'm still an American, but I'd rather not be aided an abetted by a compliant corporate media that would much rather go along to get along.

To your previous question, [reporters] desperately hope the White House will call them back nowadays. Journalists who are not interested in handouts and spin -- who are willing to go it alone, peek under the tent to see what they have in store for us -- are the kind we need now. It's not easy to find this kind of journalist now, but these are the ones we should be looking for. If you're on TV today, you have to be popular... but it's hard to be popular when you're telling people things they're not interested in hearing.

Earlier this year, political journalism was dealt a severe blow when another favorite son of Cleveland and MSNBC staple Tim Russert passed away. He seemed to be tenacious. Were the two of you close? Are there journalists out there now that you have an affinity for, in terms of respecting truth and having a tenacity to report the facts?

Well, yes. Tim and I were friends and without him here to defend his position, I would say self-consciously that he was a supporter. He was always very positive with me and thought that my voice should be beard. He was very helpful in opening door for me when I was first hired at MSNBC, in the same month the Congress first passed the resolution for the Iraq War.

If you're interested in what happened with MSNBC, you can Google "Donahue MSNBC New York Times Memo" and you'll find some interesting stuff out there. You will find a memo written by consulting agency who reported that my anti-war stance was not a good idea when the rest of competition is waving the flag. This was advice coming from a consulting agency, hired by NBC, to tell them what people will watch. Like I said, being against the war is not good for business. It makes people angry, and they may or may not buy products sponsored on the network.

I can only assume, then, that it was incredibly energizing to be an independent filmmaker after four decades under watchful eyes?

Yes. It was quite a ride, but we have to connect to this community [defending us] and offer ourselves to help them whenever and wherever we can. We've been at this project now over three years -- for three years, we've had this very close-up look at young man trying to pick himself up out of the ashes and make a life for himself. He has pills to correct the side effects of his other pills. He suffers from depression, is jealous of people walking down the street and has plenty of other problems. And all because he answered the Commander-in-Chief's call with megaphone that we're gonna get the evildoers. That's why he signed up. Now he's saying, "Don't be as impetuous as I was."

Aside from achieving mainstream acceptance and financial success recently, it strikes me that independent documentary film is also becoming this generation's version of investigative, longform print journalism. What's your take on that?

I think it's very possible! A 9-year-old can make a documentary today, and the equipment is so different. Cameras weigh six pounds now.

Does it take a documentary film fan to make one? Were there specific docs you had in mind when creating Body of War?

There are some, but the hope for this film was always to tell the story of a heartland family split down the middle and struggling to carry on in the aftermath of a tragic event. This is the first time I've ever made a film and I knew what I wanted to do and was very lucky to work with the very talented [cinematographer] Ellen Spiro on it. Fate brought us together. I just got very lucky and she did a fabulous job.

We knew we couldn't be tedious and long with the film. There's no archival footage, nothing goes "boom," there are no Humvees, or bullets or napalm. Just one man's sacrifice... and the PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder] from this conflict will be rattling around out country for the rest of this century. And as the months and years go by, it's something that should concern us all. This movie will make you cry, no doubt, but will make you laugh and inspire you, too. You see a family gather around the oldest sibling at time of real crisis and you see a family's power in helping restore someone to a semi-normal life... I'm hopeful to get this story out in front of as many people as possible; no filmmaker makes a film that they don't want people to see.

I wonder if you can talk briefly about the how Cleveland served in your formative years and perhaps even informed your career.

Well, Peter, as you know I'm a West sider and my uncle served in WWII. I remember going to Kamm's Corners, sticking my hand out with a "V" for victory sign like Winston Churchill did. [Cleveland] is the place where a little boy nicknamed Philly began to wonder about the world and climbed a tree at Mrs. Gallagher's house on West 65th and Madison and could see the Terminal Tower from the fourth or fifth limb. You don't forget these things! I was in the first graduating class from St. Edward High School in 1953 -- a fabulous school that has done so much to educate young men. I was there when they opened the new building, when 100 of us we were always senior. There were no classes ahead of ours; no one was ahead of us in the school! That was a very special memory for me. Their educational [system] was excellent and the athletic programs are superior, too. I have faculty and pals coming from there. They're all good enough to be there when we show our film.

Thank you so much for your time.

Well, thank you, Peter. This is a very big deal for me. Thank you for letting us blow the whistle about what we’ve done. We think Body of War will move people to become more active citizens and refuse to maintain silence in situations where speaking out makes sense. Tomas made a sacrifice for all of us. He made them when he went to Iraq and when he came home. He was brave there, but even braver here. He's outspoken, has great street cred, and is an important voice in anti-war movement. Let's hope his voice through the film we made of his life will reach the hearts and minds of many.

We all have rights in America and to not use rights is to waste [soldiers'] blood. Speak up!! Do more than kneel down and pray, stand up and do. There are places if you speak out against the government, you end up in a shallow grave. If we all don’t start speaking out now about a lot of things, our Constitution could disappear for all of us. There's a large value in seeing it defended, and not just through war. Without the Constitution, we're just another nation led by autocrats deriving their power from others.

Phil Donahue will accept the 2008 Howard M. Metzenbaum Award from Ohio Citizen Action -- a nonpartisan grassroots consumer advocacy organization -- for his documentary this Sunday, September 14 at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, 11141 East Boulevard. The film Body of War, which features original music by Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, runs 87 minutes and will screen as a part of the presentation. The screening will be followed by a Q&A session and reception. Tickets are available now. Visit http://www.cia.com/cinematheque and http://www.ohiocitizenaction.org or call 421-7450 for details.

From Cool Cleveland Managing Editor Peter Chakerian peterATcoolcleveland.com

Photo taken by Thom Powers, Toronto International Film Festival 2007
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