Death by a Thousand Cuts

“I'm talking about it because I think it's important for people to know the little ‘death by a thousand cuts’ that are happening. I don't think that appeasement is the way to maintain our free speech rights and our democracy.” - Alicia Sams

In fall 2021, independent filmmaker Grace Lee launched Viewers Like Us, a six-part podcast series that asked: What will it take to restore the entire public to public media? Now, four years later, public media funding is under fire from the Trump administration, and Grace is hearing disturbing stories — directly from fellow filmmakers — of censorship within the PBS system.

With so much of our journalism being targeted, we want to show up for our community of independent filmmakers, storytellers, and journalists, as well as document how PBS is responding to these threats. 

In the coming weeks, VLU will publish six new episodes, giving the mic to different voices — starting with Emmy-Award winning producer/director Alicia Sams — to share their experiences of this moment and figure out how we move forward together, in real time. 

To kick off season two, Grace and Alicia discuss how PBS censored her recent film on Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman, how the filmmakers responded, and what these actions might mean for independent filmmakers moving forward.