Republicans blast TV networks for Hillary shows

Agence France-Presse

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GOP committee urges CNN and NBC to abandon film projects on former secretary of state

FRONT RUNNER. Mrs. Clinton has not yet made an announcement

WASHINGTON, USA – The Republican Party on Monday, August 5, threatened to prevent two US television networks from carrying party primary debates if they don’t abandon their upcoming films on Hillary Clinton.

NBC Entertainment is planning a miniseries and CNN is working on a documentary about the former secretary of state as she mulls over a potential second run for the White House in 2016.

READ: Hillary Clinton miniseries in the works

“As an American company, you have every right to air programming of your choice,” Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus wrote to CNN president Jeff Zucker and NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt.

“But as American citizens, certainly you recognize why many are astounded at your actions, which appear to be a major network’s thinly veiled attempt at putting a thumb on the scales of the 2016 presidential election.”

Clinton, a former first lady and US senator whose turn as America’s top diplomat earned her acclaim, is seen as the clear Democratic front runner in 2016.

She has made no announcement but the RNC letters  more than 3 years ahead of the 2016 election  show the party’s nervousness about a run by Clinton, who narrowly lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama in 2008.

“Your credibility as a supposedly unbiased news network will most certainly be jeopardized by the decision to show political favoritism and produce an extended commercial for Secretary Clinton’s nascent campaign,” Priebus wrote to Zucker.

In a separate statement, Priebus blasted the networks, saying “their actions to promote Secretary Clinton are disturbing and disappointing.”

In his letters, Priebus said that if CNN and NBC go ahead with their productions before the RNC convenes on August 14, he will seek a binding RNC vote “stating that the committee will neither partner with you in the 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates which you sponsor.”

In its statement, CNN said RNC shouldn’t make “premature decisions about a project that is in the very early stages of development and months from completion.”

The cable news channel also questioned RNC’s threat to decline hosting the Republican debates, saying that limiting such participation would “be the ultimate disservice to voters.”

NBC issued a statement simply saying “NBC News is completely independent of NBC Entertainment and has no involvement in this project.”

NBC Entertainment announced in July it was producing “Hillary,” a four-part miniseries starring Diane Lane.

CNN’s film division said it has commissioned Academy Award-winning director Charles Ferguson to do a feature-length documentary to run in theaters in 2014 before it is aired on cable television. – Rappler.com

Hillary Clinton photo by fotostory from Shutterstock

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