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Scientology Ramps Up 'Going Clear' Smear Campaign, Targets Academy Members

CommunicatorIC

@IndieScieNews on Twitter
The Hollywood Reporter: Scientology Ramps Up 'Going Clear' Smear Campaign, Targets Academy Members

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/scientology-ramps-up-going-clear-829957

Video at link.

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Scientology Ramps Up 'Going Clear' Smear Campaign, Targets Academy Members

Oscar voters tell THR they have been targeted by the church as screenings prompt fights and police probe the mysterious apparent suicide of Jim Carrey's girlfriend.

By Rebecca Ford and Scott Johnson, The Hollywood Reporter

The Church of Scientology really doesn’t want Alex Gibney to win an Oscar for his documentary Going Clear.

Since the film — a scathing critique of the controversial church and its celebrity adherents, including Tom Cruise and John Travolta, based on Lawrence Wright's best-selling book — won three Emmys in September, the filmmaker says he has been the subject of an increasingly hostile harassment campaign that has included a Scientology-backed "documentary" and outreach to members of the Academy’s doc branch, the group that selects the Oscar contenders.

"In the last few weeks, Scientology has dramatically ratcheted up its corporate campaign against me and those in the film," Gibney tells THR.

The church has begun making its own film about Gibney and has reached out to several of his peers in connection with a planned profile in a Scientology magazine. Oscar nominee Rory Kennedy (Last Days in Vietnam), who, like Gibney, is a member of the Academy’s documentary branch and sits on the organization’s board of governors, says she recently was approached by a man who requested an interview about Gibney in connection with the Emmy wins. Kennedy says the man, who identified himself as Joe Taglieri, also separately contacted her husband, documentary writer Mark Bailey, and requested he participate in an article. Taglieri did not disclose his Scientology connection, although he has written for the Scientology magazine Freedom. "In this context, to not say [that he wrote for Freedom] was disingenuous, and I thought something was suspect," says Kennedy. "He definitely had an agenda."

Other members of the Academy’s documentary branch who have been contacted by the church include producers John Battsek (Searching for Sugar Man) and Jon Else (The Day After Trinity). While Taglieri did not initially identify what outlet he was writing for, when asked, he said he was a freelance writer working on a piece for Freedom.

Karin Pouw, a spokesperson for the church, acknowledges that "Freedom has been reaching out for some time for a piece about Alex Gibney’s propaganda film." But, she says, "this has nothing to do with the Academy."

Indeed, Scientology has been battling Wright and then Gibney since before the Going Clear book was published in 2013. But as the film has won accolades and taken on a trajectory toward Oscar consideration, the animosity has ramped up, and there has been increased aggression at public events where Gibney and the subjects of Going Clear have spoken. (The film, which received an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run this winter before airing on HBO in March, was rereleased in theaters in September, though church pressure contributed to at least two Florida cinemas refusing to show it.)

On Sept. 28, Gibney was entering the Linwood Dunn Theater in Los Angeles for a talk about his career to the International Documentary Association when a man named Randall Stith approached and told him he was making a movie about him. (According to IMDb, Stith has directed two films: Dead Wrong: How Psychiatric Drugs Can Kill Your Child and Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging. Scientologists adamantly oppose psychiatry and its associated medication.) Stith stayed for the screening of Going Clear, after which he, Taglieri and another Scientologist, Norman Taylor, spoke out during the Q&A session against Taylor’s ex-wife and former Travolta handler, Sylvia "Spanky" Taylor, who appears in the film.

"What is clear to us in all of this is that Alex Gibney can dish it out, but can’t take it," Pouw says. "He’s exceptionally thin-skinned to the point where he tried to censor and shame anyone criticizing him at public events. One would think a documentarian would be more tolerant and open minded."

At an Oct. 2 screening of the film at the Muvico 10 in Palm Harbor, Fla., less than 30 minutes from Scientology’s spiritual headquarters in Clearwater, a heated exchange took place during a Q&A with former high-level church members Sara Goldberg and Mike Rinder, both of whom appear in the film. Goldberg’s ex-husband Sheldon Goldberg and another Scientologist entered into what moderator Mike Deeson calls a "screaming match," aggressively attacking Goldberg’s and Rinder’s personal lives and saying people in the audience should visit FreedomMag.org to find out more.

"It’s really pretty bizarre to me that they just keep doing this crazy stuff that is such a clear-cut demonstration of the veracity of both Larry’s book and Alex’s film," says Rinder.

Pouw counters that the church can't comment on the actions of its individual members, "any more than you can assign to the Catholic Church the protest actions of any Catholic who feels strongly about an issue." She acknowledges Norman Taylor, whom she calls "a prominent Los Angeles lawyer," attended the L.A. event and challenged Gibney on why the filmmaker did not "check with him to confirm the lies" Spanky Taylor told in the film.

The increased hostility comes at a tenuous time for the Church of Scientology, which, in addition to dealing with Going Clear, is in the spotlight for its association with Cathriona White, a 28-year-old Irish makeup artist and girlfriend of Jim Carrey who died of a suspected suicide Sept. 28. White, who was found with pills — including Ambien, Percocet, Propranolol and Zofran — had been active in a Scientology-sponsored “Survival Rundown” therapy program, and several mysterious guards were present at her home in the days following her death (though they were gone when THR visited the home Oct. 6). According to former Scientologists, the "SRD" therapy can be destabilizing.

"The purpose of some of those processes is to learn the ability to be controlled and to control others," says Mark Headley, an ex-Scientologist who says he is familiar with the techniques. "You’re being indoctrinated into how to do this." (Scientology has denied any connection between the church and White's tragic apparent suicide.)

As Gibney and Going Clear make a run at an Oscar, the stakes are perhaps higher for Scientology. If Gibney wins and is given a worldwide stage on which to speak out against the church (with Travolta, Cruise or other Hollywood Scientologists possibly sitting in the audience), it would be a public relations nightmare for the church and its leader, David Miscavige.

"The church of Scientology stakes a claim on Hollywood, and so it’s not surprising that it would be threatened by the possibility that that community would examine the church more closely," says Wright. "That’s what I think is causing the more feverish attention to the documentary."

For this reason, Rinder believes the actions by Scientology members against the documentary are being "at least approved, if not dictated" by Miscavige himself.

"I guess their intention is to intimidate or to get people to think that they should be afraid of speaking out," Rinder says. "But honestly, I think they have exactly the opposite effect."

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Entertainment.ie - Church of Scientology targeting Oscar voters, says Going Clear is a ''propaganda film''

http://entertainment.ie/cinema/news...s-Going-Clear-is-a-propaganda-film/371245.htm


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According to reports, Scientologists have been turning up at screenings and Q&As of Going Clear and engaged in harassed both Alex Gibney and interviewees in the documentary themselves. There's more. Members of the voting committee for Best Documentary in the upcoming Academy Awards have said that they've been contacted by Scientologists about the documentary.

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HT - The Wrong Guy On WWP:

https://whyweprotest.net/threads/alex-gibney-going-clear.121403/page-39#post-2558690


https://whyweprotest.net/threads/alex-gibney-going-clear.121403/page-39#post-2558708
 

CommunicatorIC

@IndieScieNews on Twitter
Scientologists are going hard trying to cock block Going Clear

Scientologists are going hard trying to cock block Going Clear.


Jezebel: Scientologists Really Don't Want Going Clear to Win an Oscar for Some Reason

http://jezebel.com/scientologists-really-dont-want-going-clear-to-win-an-o-1735169650


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Clover Hope

Filed to: SCIENTOLOGY

10/07/15 2:15pm

In incredibly surprising news, Scientologists are going hard trying to cock block the chances of the Scientology documentary Going Clear winning an Oscar.

According to director Alex Gibney, the Church has been looking to use its persuasion tactics on members of the Academy. Gibney told The Hollywood Reporter that, “in the last few weeks, Scientology has dramatically ratcheted up its corporate campaign against me and those in the film.”

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CommunicatorIC

@IndieScieNews on Twitter
Mike Rinder: Going Clear Paranoia

http://www.mikerindersblog.org/going-clear-paranoia/


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An article in THR today:

Screenshot-512.png






They send goons to screenings and have Freedom “reporters” doing clumsy, noisy investigations.

Contacting Academy Members to try and influence them not to vote for Going Clear is such typical ham-fisted Miscavige “PR”.

He never ceases to amaze. HBO should send him a large fruit basket when Going Clear is nominated. And they should take out a full page as in the NY Times thanking him for his contribution if it wins Best Documentary.

And if it does win, and I get a chance to say anything about it, I will personally thank him and Tom Cruise for making it all possible.

Meanwhile, a few selected bits from the article are worth noting (read the whole thing, the article itself in the most influential trade publication is a good indication of how well this stunt is going over).


[SNIP]


Hahahaha — this is the funniest line of all. Remember when this was the line they used for the “Squirrelbusters” in Corpus Christi? They maintained that bs all the way til Bert Leahy stepped forth and spilled the beans, the letter from Allen Cartwright was exposed and then Tommy Davis was caught lying through his teeth in deposition about going to try and recover JB. Then scientology admitted “yes, they were being funded by the church and we did know what they were doing, but it’s “free speech.””

Anyone knows that these actions are not random and uncoordinated. These people would be declared if they were doing this without permission. Going to an SP Film, consorting with SPs in the audience AND generating bad media coverage isn’t looked upon lightly by Mr. Miscavige.

He literally does not know what to do and is flailing around like a fish on a dock.


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CommunicatorIC

@IndieScieNews on Twitter
Courtesy The Wrong Guy on WWP: https://whyweprotest.net/threads/alex-gibney-going-clear.121403/page-39#post-2558738

Inside the Fascinating Oscar-Season Subplot Involving Scientology | Vanity Fair

The organization is reportedly planning a smear campaign for Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/10/oscar-season-alex-gibney-scientology

DOC NYC Announces 'Short List' Program of 15 Documentaries, Including 'Going Clear' and 'Amy'

http://www.indiewire.com/article/do...taries-including-going-clear-and-amy-20151007
 
Note to Dave Miscavage: Please wordclear, M9 and do a clay demo on the Streisand Effect. Your life will be easier when you do:

The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet.

It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose 2003 attempt to suppress photographs of her residence in Malibu, California, inadvertently drew further public attention to it. Similar attempts have been made, for example, in cease-and-desist letters to suppress numbers, files, and websites. Instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity and media extensions such as videos and spoof songs, often being widely mirrored across the Internet or distributed on file-sharing networks

Mike Masnick of Techdirt coined the term after Streisand unsuccessfully sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for violation of privacy.[3] The US$50 million lawsuit endeavored to remove an aerial photograph of Streisand's mansion from the publicly available collection of 12,000 California coastline photographs.[1][4][5] Adelman photographed the beachfront property to document coastal erosion as part of the California Coastal Records Project, which was intended to influence government policymakers.[6][7] Before Streisand filed her lawsuit, "Image 3850" had been downloaded from Adelman's website only six times; two of those downloads were by Streisand's attorneys.[8] As a result of the case, public knowledge of the picture increased substantially; more than 420,000 people visited the site over the following month.
from wiki

Your friend,

Mimsey
 
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CommunicatorIC

@IndieScieNews on Twitter
Huffpost Entertainment: Scientologists Deny Campaign Against 'Going Clear' For Oscar Win

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/scientology-going-clear-oscar_56156ee8e4b0fad1591a8177

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Joe Satran

Staff Writer, The Huffington Post

Can the Scientology documentary "Going Clear" follow in the footsteps of last year's "Citizenfour" by winning both the Emmy and the Oscar for Best Documentary?

HBO hopes so.

In March, the network debuted "Going Clear" on the big screen in New York and Los Angeles, making it eligible for an Academy Award. And the movie -- directed by Alex Gibney and based on a non-fiction book by Lawrence Wright -- took home the Emmy last month.

But there's one major obstacle in its way: The Church of Scientology.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Scientology is waging an aggressive campaign to prevent "Going Clear" from winning an Oscar. The magazine writes that in recent weeks at least three prominent members of the Academy's documentary branch -- Rory Kennedy, John Battsek and Jon Else -- have been approached by members of the group. Simultaneously, the Church of Scientology is allegedly producing a documentary about Gibney, and commissioning a profile of him for its official magazine, Freedom, in an effort to discredit the director.

"In the last few weeks, Scientology has dramatically ratcheted up its corporate campaign against me and those in the film," Gibney told The Hollywood Reporter.

In an email to The Huffington Post, Scientology spokesperson Karin Pouw described claims of a campaign against the movie as "yet another publicity stunt by Alex Gibney to try to get an award."

"We know Alex Gibney is obsessed with his awards, but we aren’t," Pouw wrote. "We wouldn’t even know who the Academy members are. This only proves he can dish it out, but can’t take it."


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CommunicatorIC

@IndieScieNews on Twitter
Church of Scientology contacts Academy members in campaign against 'Going Clear' | 89.3 KPCC

For more on the story we called up Rebecca Ford
, who writes about film for the Hollywood Reporter, who has written about the Church’s tactics. We asked her what precisely the Church of Scientology is doing to make sure “Going Clear” doesn’t snag an Oscar.


6:25 audio clip:

http://www.scpr.org/programs/the-fr...h-of-scientology-contacts-academy-members-in/


Courtesy of The Wrong Guy on WWP: https://whyweprotest.net/threads/alex-gibney-going-clear.121403/page-40#post-2558747





 

programmer_guy

True Ex-Scientologist
As usual, the CofS does the wrong things for their own survival, over and over again. :duh:
Why is that? :coolwink:

Major complaints about CofS (for decades) are not fixed. Just crazy denial.
Why is that? :coolwink:

All that CofS needs to do is STOP fighting and denying these major complaints and just FIX THEM.
Even though it will still be based on pseudo-science.

What CofS does in the face of major criticism is lunacy!
Why is that? :coolwink:

The CofS is responsible for its own condition. (I couldn't resist saying this. Ha!)
 
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Leland

Crusader
AWESOME stuff....WOW...just WOW.

Everyone in the "Industry" reads the Hollywood Reporter....

This is a tremendous black eye for the Cult.....

YEH!

:biggrin:
 

CommunicatorIC

@IndieScieNews on Twitter
Alex Gibney, Director of Going Clear, Awarded First Hitchens Prize for Journalism

Alex Gibney, Director of Going Clear, Awarded First Hitchens Prize for Journalism.

Vanity Fair: Alex Gibney, Director of Going Clear, Awarded First Hitchens Prize for Journalism

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/alex-gibney-christopher-hitchens-prize

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The award was established to honor the ideals of the late Vanity Fair correspondent Christopher Hitchens.

BY TINA NGUYEN

Documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney has been named the inaugural recipient of the Hitchens Prize, an annual award established in memory of Christopher Hitchens, the renowned author, journalist, and longtime Vanity Fair contributor who died in 2011 after a battle with esophageal cancer.

Created by the Dennis and Victoria Ross Foundation, the Hitchens Prize will grant $50,000 each year to writers and journalists who embody the qualities of its namesake: “a commitment to free expression and inquiry, a range and depth of intellect, and a willingness to pursue the truth without regard to personal or professional consequence."

Gibney has often worked in that mold. His documentaries include the Enron exposé Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and the Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, which examined America's use of torture in the post-9/11 conflicts. He recently won several Emmys for his HBO film Going Clear, a damning investigation into the Church of Scientology.

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DeeAnna

Patron Meritorious
:biggrin::biggrin::biggrin: :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin: :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin: :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:

This year has been and continues to be a really, really, REALLY bad one for the Church of $cientology! And it's not over yet...

And it has been such a really, really, REALLY good year for those of us on the fringes of the internet. And it's not over yet...


:yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes:
 

ThetanExterior

Gold Meritorious Patron
When you do auditor training in scientology you are told that this attitude of "I'm right, you are wrong" is an aberration called a "service facsimile" and it can be cured.

Therefore, as a former auditor and case supervisor myself, I recommend that Karin Pouw a.k.a. David Miscavige be programmed for auditing up to Grade IV completion. That should do it.:yes:
 

oneonewasaracecar

Gold Meritorious Patron
:biggrin::biggrin::biggrin: :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin: :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin: :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:

This year has been and continues to be a really, really, REALLY bad one for the Church of $cientology! And it's not over yet...

And it has been such a really, really, REALLY good year for those of us disaffected apostates on the fringes of the internet. And it's not over yet...


:yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes::yes:
fixt
 
When you do auditor training in scientology you are told that this attitude of "I'm right, you are wrong" is an aberration called a "service facsimile" and it can be cured.

Therefore, as a former auditor and case supervisor myself, I recommend that Karin Pouw a.k.a. David Miscavige be programmed for auditing up to Grade IV completion. That should do it.:yes:
You aren't wrong, but what keeps reoccurring in my poor brain is "What you resist, you become" It seems the more they resist bad press, the more they get it.

Mimsey
 
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