Living, studying and working in New York was an underlying topic throughout the event. Before beginning the discussion, Hackford said a few words about – and asked those present to toast – Sydney Pollack, who was a founding member of the Leadership Council.
Hackford then began the discussion by highlighting the Congressman’s longstanding commitment to protecting civil liberties and civil rights, which he has done ably as Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. He noted that the Congressman has been a staunch supporter of issues of great importance to the Guild like copyright protection, the federal production incentive and the fight against the ClearPlay provision in the Family Movie and Entertainment Act.
The Leadership Council members then spoke in depth about these and other issues that concern them including media consolidation, production incentives and the “Pandora’s box” of the Internet-related issues that impact their work.
Congressman Nadler took a few moments to address the points raised. He began by emphasizing the importance of civil liberties, which he noted “are under tremendous assault.” Regarding media consolidation, content control and censorship, the Congressman stated, “If you want to have a free society, you cannot have content control by government, period. The price of content control is always too high.” With respect to the complicated issue of network neutrality, he noted that the Internet offer tremendous open opportunities at a time when “more and more content is being supplied by fewer corporations, which have more and more control, and there are fewer outlets for your work, and fewer outlets for expressions of divergent opinions.”
Congressman Nadler was first elected to Congress in 1992. This was Congressman Nadler’s first visit to the DGA. It was the 58th such meeting hosted by the DGA PAC Leadership Council.
