Comment on Email: Affleck asked PBS to not reveal slave-owning ancestor

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Sun, 04/19/2015 - 3:45am

Email: Affleck asked PBS to not reveal slave-owning ancestor

BOSTON (AP) — Ben Affleck requested that the PBS documentary series "Finding Your Roots" not reveal he had a slave-owning ancestor, according to emails published online by whistleblower site WikiLeaks, and the information never appeared on the program. PBS and Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, host of the show that traces the ancestry of well-known guests, said in separate statements that they didn't censor the slave-owner details. [...] more interesting ancestors of the actor emerged and Gates chose to highlight them in October's segment featuring Affleck, they said in the statements posted on the PBS website. The email chain between Gates and Sony Pictures co-chairman and chief executive Michael Lynton was part of a trove of hundreds of thousands of emails and documents from last year's Sony hack that WikiLeaks put into a searchable online archive on Thursday. A PBS spokeswoman said in an emailed statement Saturday that PBS did not know of the exchanges between Gates, Sony and Affleck and wasn't part of editorial decisions made by Gates and his producers.

 

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