By: Valerie Milano

IFC, creator of series such as “Arrested Development” and “Office Space”, “creates and champions authentic, original content presented with an indie perspective”. Premiering May 24- 27 at 8 pm, IFC Media Project presents “Fear, War, Greed & Disaster”, a look at the stories behind today’s headlines.
Each day of the presentation, journalists explore the stories beneath those being reported in the media. Each segment explores the four subjects revealing a perspective not reported on by the mainstream media. The reporting is bright and thought provoking, the images are moving.
Monday, Max Blumenthal studies the Tea Party movement, the “grassroots uprising” and what they’re afraid of, thus the “Fear” segment in the title. Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and author who spent 6 years writing about the conservative movement and the far right. As the Tea Party springs up all across the US, Blumenthal hits the trail to see how they have reorganized and how they function and what they are afraid of. The film shows Americans party members in depth and apart from the skew of Fox News. Fear is a basic human instinct and he reports, “There is no better way to get people to vote than to scare them to death.”
“For Americans today, history began on September 11. They forget our deep role in creating the instability, we’re implicated in Afghanistan going way back to the late 70’s.” On Tuesday, journalist Nir Rosen covers the “War” segment, traveling to a power plant outside of Kabul, built with US taxpayer dollars and looks into America’s strategy on winning the war. While writing on American policy in Afghanistan and Iraq, Rosen was kidnapped by the Taliban and threatened with execution. Rosen is well versed on the Middle East, religious, political, interethnic and sectarian relations. “In a 24 hours news cycle, the war is good for ratings” reports Rosen with a look at what is happening in the middle east today.
Wednesday, writer, filmmaker and reporter Charlie LeDuff goes to his hometown of Detroit to report on “Greed” starting in the Detroit News offices. In the years since the economic collapse in the US, businesses have been bankrupted, home foreclosures are at an all time high, people are losing their jobs and life savings while the upper echelon of Wall Street received an influx of bail out money and gifted themselves annual bonuses. LeDuff visits Wall Street and DC looking for some answers.
“Disaster”, represented by taking a look at the devastation in Haiti after the 7.0 earthquake, will be aired on Thursday. Andrew Berends, photojournalist and documentarian went to Port-au-Prince for 6 weeks to examine how the media covered the disaster. Berends looks at the people and their lives since the disaster, and touches on at the role journalists play. Traveling from Port-au-Prince and throughout the countryside, the film includes footage and opinions Anderson Cooper, Ivan Watson and local journalists.

The Chicago Daily News called the series a “hip, progressive, youth-oriented 60 Minutes”, which is an apt description. The “IFC Media Project” is an interesting, fresh and intimate perspective of current events in America today.