The liberal media did a terrible job covering the IRS scandal, but one conservative set out to expose the government agency with a documentary film.
National syndicated radio host and movie producer Craig Bergman’s movie, “UnFair: Exposing The IRS [1]” will be shown in theaters for one day only on Oct. 14 [2], There is also a book [3]accompanying the film which will detail IRS abuses, including the IRS targeting scandal.
IRS official Lois Lerner was at the heart of the scandal, involving the IRS targeting Tea Party and conservative groups for greater scrutiny when seeking tax exempt status. Later, Lerner refused to answer questions during the Congressional investigation.
Liberal media outlets did what they could to ignore the scandal, with the three broadcast networks [4] not mentioning it for weeks. The New York Times downplayed the scandal, burying an IRS apology on page eleven [5] in May 2013. The Times’ editorial board encouraged the IRS to target conservative groups before the November 2012 election.
The Times editorial said, “Taxpayers should be encouraged by complaints from Tea Party chapters applying for nonprofit tax status at being asked by the Internal Revenue Service to prove they are ‘social welfare’ organizations and not the political activists they so obviously are.”
ABC, NBC and CBS routinely downplayed the seriousness of the IRS scandal, on one day giving 17 times more coverage to Gov. Chris Christie’s, R-N.J., bridge scandal than the broadcasts had devoted to six months of IRS scandal [6]. Those three networks initially failed to report the fact that then-Attorney General Eric Holder had been subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee to testify about the IRS scandal [7].
Bergman said in the movie trailer that the film sets out to “make the moral case that it is unAmerican to violate your 1st, 4th, 5th, 7th and 8th Amendment rights with this system.” The movie included interviews of well known conservatives including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Glenn Beck and former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark.
His film did not just focus on the IRS targeting scandals, but documented difficulties adoptive parents and business have faced from the IRS too. Bergman said in an interview that the problems go all the way back to the beginning of the IRS in 1913 [8].
In interviews and the film trailer, Bergman called for repeal of the 16th amendment to the Constitution and the implementation of a Fair Tax, a sort of national sales tax. He went into detail about that in an interview with former Navy Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt [8].