TV ‘Revelations’

Concerning “ ‘Revelations’ of America Won’t Be Seen in L.A.,” Nov. 29: The documentary “Revelations,” what Times critic Howard Rosenberg calls “arguably the season’s best documentary hour to date,” is a dishonest, manipulative, vicious attack on easy targets, with no journalistic integrity.

These arrogant British producers manipulated their subjects and film materials to reinforce their predisposed belief that poor rural West Virginians are ignorant, hypocritical, gullible, war-loving fools--and need a smug BBC film maker to straighten them out.

The producers, in their editing rooms, created repeated reenactments, superimposing images from unrelated activities as though they took place at the same time--when in fact they did not. None of these re-creations was identified as such.

This kind of deceitful, insidious film making does not meet the standards of fairness and honesty KCET must maintain. That’s why we did not broadcast the program.

STEPHEN KULCZYCKI

Senior vice president

Station manager, KCET

“Revelations” co-producer Mark Samuels, in a Nov. 30 Hollywood Reporter article, denied the KCET accusations, saying “there are absolutely no re-enactments. . . . What (KCET) may be referring to is that there are some shots of a television set where we inserted a TV image into it. But there were no re-creations.” He also differed with the KCET characterization of the West Virginians in the film, calling Larry Smith, one of the documentary’s subjects, “an extremely articulate, thoughtful, middle-class American.”