Reporting for Nightline from the Congo, it’s … Ben Affleck?
If you tuned in to Nightline last night, you saw a report from the Congo about the political and humanitarian crisis there. But, the interesting part about it was who was reporting the story: Ben Affleck.
According to Reuters, Affleck has made three trips out to the Congo, and he contacted ABC News to see if they wanted to send a camera crew along with him. He also wrote an essay about his trips for the late-night news program’s website. It’s a refreshing view from Ben, whose trips to the war-torn country have mostly been under wraps.
“I view this as a long and ongoing learning experience to educate myself before making any attempt to advocate or ’speak out,’” Affleck writes. He also says that “it makes sense to be skeptical about celebrity activism. There is always the suspicion that involvement with a cause may be doing more good for the spokesman than he or she is doing for the cause.”
What it looks like he’s doing is taking the George Clooney route when it comes to celeb activism: Do what you need to do in the background, and only speak out when you feel the time is right. Also, it seems that his message is a gentle one, unlike the annoying hectoring and overt showmanship we often get from the likes of Sean Penn and Tim Robbins (though Robbins isn’t nearly as bad as Penn).
If you want to see Affleck’s report, there’s a video accompanying his essay on the ABC News website.
[via Mediabistro]
Affleck Uncovers Congo Crisis
Ben Affleck’s latest small-screen appearance is unlikely to turn viral, but he hopes it will generate just as much publicity as his Jimmy Kimmel-kissing last one.
The actor-turned-activist, who in May returned from his third trip to the Congo in the past eight months, will appear in a special documentary on tonight’s edition of Nightline to shed more of a global light on the often overlooked, yet terribly devastated, region.
“It makes sense to be skeptical about celebrity activism,” Affleck wrote in an online essay about his trip. “There is always suspicion that involvement with a cause may be doing more good for the spokesman than he or she is doing for the cause.”
Affleck, however, urges viewers to look past whatever they may think of his affiliation with the project and simply allow themselves to become aware of the nation’s plight.
“More than 4 million people have died in conflict and conflict-related causes,” the 35-year-old said on Good Morning America. “My suspicion is not as many people are aware of that as probably ought to be and if they were then they’d probably think of it differently.
“Part of these trips for me have been about a learning experience. I didn’t think I could honestly do anything until I understood.”
During his trips, Affleck met with people on all sides of the conflict, visiting camps for people displaced from their homes, hospitals, gold mines, United Nations “sensitizing” centers, which aim to reeducate particularly vicious members of the militia, and talking to aid workers, child warriors and warlords.
“I don’t think it’s an intractable problem,” he told GMA. “It’s largely ignored in some sectors…certainly in the West it’s a lower priority than other issues.”
The goal for Affleck, however, is not to simply bump Congo’s troubles to the top of America’s fix-it list but to “create a broader sense of solidarity with people in this country.”
“I do not believe that we live in boxes, separated from one another by imagined boundaries,” he wrote. “Congo is a place that deserves, at the very least, our eyes and ears.”
ABC to woo Leno, move Kimmel to 12:30?
Bloomberg News (via the Chicago Tribune) has a story that, according to a media analyst, ABC is poised to go after Jay Leno and sign him to a contract after his NBC contract expires in 2009.
The analyst, David Miller from the Sanders Morris Harris Group, writes in a report that ABC would put Leno at 11:30, cancelling Nightline in the process. They will then push Jimmy Kimmel Live to 12:30. Both ABC and NBC spokespeople denied that there is any merit to this report, but you never know what’s going on in the background.
If I’m Jimmy Kimmel, I’d be pretty pissed about being pushed to 12:30 after what would be six years of dutiful service at midnight, especially for the comedy black hole that Leno has become. But Leno gets the ratings, doesn’t he? For ABC, it might be worth pissing people off.
Jimmy Kimmel Live renewed through 2010
Have you noticed that Jimmy Kimmel Live has slowly but surely become a big force at ABC? It doesn’t do Jay Leno numbers, but the ratings have increased in the past few months, the network has given him prime real estate on prime time during the NBA Finals, and there just seems to be a buzz about the show. ABC must have noticed too because they’ve extended Kimmel’s contract through the 2010 season.
This is good news for Kimmel fans, as there has been much talk about what would happen to Kimmel if ABC were to grab Leno after Leno exits his show on NBC and Conan O’Brien takes over. Would Kimmel be pushed to 12:35 if Leno comes aboard, or even later if ABC also decided to keep Nightline? Of course, there’s no word on whether or not this new contract guarantees Kimmel the 12:05am slot. Leno leaves his show in 2009.
I hope Kimmel stays around for a long time. I can’t get into his musical guests, but he has the best monlogue on late night, in my opinion.