NY POST CRITIC BLASTS GRANT TO PROMOTE OBAMACARE IN MOVIES, TV

A conservative film critic for the New York Post has jumped on a report by Deadline.com that a program conceived by the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center has received a $500,000 grant for its Hollywood Health & Society program to promote the Affordable Care Act. Kyle Smith, who frequently chastises film producers for allegedly foisting liberal opinions on their viewers, quoted a spokesperson for the program as saying that the grant “will allow us to ensure that industry practitioners have up-to-date, relevant facts on health care reform to integrate into their storylines and projects.” Smith notes that previously the program was able to persuade produces of films and TV shows to include storylines that raised public awareness of serious diseases. “But no one is pro-breast cancer, whereas Obamacare is controversial,” he noted in an article appearing on the Post‘s website today (Wednesday) and is due to appear in print on Sunday. Smith notes that most of Hollywood’s recent anti-Iraq War dramas have flopped, but adds: “At least those films weren’t planted by the White House, though. This time it’s different. An industry that loves to trumpet its fierce devotion to the First Amendment is putting itself at risk when it willingly becomes another tool of the DC power elite.”