OSIA has responded to PBS's modifications of their "Medici; Godfathers" Web Site
by insisting on more substantial changes in "content" rather than just "titles".

Albert De Napoli, Esq.National President of OSIA pointed out that:

(1) Descriptions of the reported sex lives of the Medicis and the Popes, included gratuitous details that smacked of "yellow" and "tabloid" journalism, rather than cultural research recommended for school children

(2) No other great world civilizations that PBS has profiled, such as Egypt, Greece, Islam and Japan among others, were treated in such a "low brow" manner, inferring an Anti-Italian bias.

(3) Insufficient credit was given to the Medicis and their enormous contributions to civilization which was one of the more important influences of the Renaissance, that extricated Europe from the "muck" of the Middle Ages, where it was mired for a thousand years, after the "barbarians" toppled the Roman Empire.

(4) PBS does the Medicis further GREAT injustices.
       (a)  To act as if "age old" less than humanitarian techniques used historically
              by powerful states, were UNIQUE to the Medicis.
       (b) To equate the Medicis to a criminal enterprise, which by PBS definition
              must then include all historical world powers, AND wanna be powers.
       (c) Then to rather associate Medicis with a petty Italian associated crime group,
             and ignore the far more extensive and greater corrupt Robber Barons, Wall
             Street Scandals, the Military-Industrial complex, with all the burdens, and
             NONE of the benefits of Medicis.

Deputy Director of OSIA, Dona DeSanctis urges all concerned to keep up the pressure on PBS to change this scandalous portrayal of the Medicis on its interactive Web site by sending copies of your letter to those addressed at the end of our letter. Luara Savini is the only one with an Email address provided.
=============================================
Pat Mitchell, President and CEO April 13, 2004
Public Broadcasting System
1320 Braddock Place
Alexandria, VA 22314

Dear Ms. Mitchell:

We have received your letter of March 18 to our national president, Joseph Sciame in which you informed us that PBS has changed its interactive Web site based on your four-part series The Medicis: Godfathers of the Renaissance.  [www.pbs.org/empires/medici.]

As president of the Sons of Italy Commission for Social Justice (CSJ), our anti-defamation arm, I have reviewed these changes and find them a step in the right direction, but unfortunately only a very small, cosmetic and superficial step.  While you have changed the titles to some of sections on the Medicis and their history, the sections themselves are unchanged.

For example, the section How to be a Medieval Mobster is now called Snapshots: The Medicis, but the text still describes famous Medicis as Mafia chieftains and presents their bios as police rap sheets.

The former Guys and Dolls section has been renamed Private Lives but the contents still contain lurid descriptions of the reported sex lives of the Medicis and the Popes, including gratuitous details of "young boys leaping naked from cakes" and a woman "famously impregnated" by a Medici.  We are surprised that you recommend teachers use this site in their classrooms.

The rise of the Medicis is a remarkable story.  They acquired power through many means that included business loans, real estate, political patronage and good relations with the powerful.  The same tools are used today in business and politics in this country and the rest of the world.

Your site, however, makes it appear by using these techniques the Medicis "clawed their way to the top, sometimes through bribery, corruption and violence."

We have also examined the Web sites PBS created for the civilizations of Egypt, Greece, Islam and Japan among others.  None of these Web sites uses scandalous and salacious details to attract and engage young minds or panders to pop culture.  Your letter conveniently ignores this issue.

In the case of the Medici site, however, it is painfully evident that PBS determined the only way to interest young people in the Renaissance is to turn its chief architects and patrons into Florentine "Tony Sopranos" and his crew.

By doing so you demean the Medicis and their enormous contributions to civilization; you underestimate the intellectual capacity of young people and you betray your own mission as emissaries of culture and education.

We hope you will change this Web site to one that gives the Medicis the same treatment as the historical figures on the other sites that make up your "Empires" series.

Please be advised that we are prepared to alert our supporters as well as the larger American viewing audience of  PBS's failure to correct this situation and urge them to remove their support of PBS.
 

Awaiting your kind reply, I remain

Yours truly,
Albert De Napoli, Esq.
National President
 

cc:
Alberto Ibarguen, Chairman, PBS Board of Directors,
& publisher, Miami Herald, One Herald Plaza, Miami, FL 33132-1693

Ron Devillier, President & CEO, Devillier, Donegan Enterprises,
4401 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20008

Cynthia Johanson, PBS Sr. Vice President, Interactive & Education
       [responsible for Web site]

Laura Savini, WLIW/PBS V.P., marketing and communications, New York City
             [Email:  Laura_Savini@wliw.pbs.org]