Lawsuit accuses A&E Networks of suppressing History channel's Watergate documentary out of fear of offending Trump supporters

The New York Times

Award-winning filmmaker Charles Ferguson made his four-part documentary with allusions to the Trump presidency. History Channel broadcast it over three nights in the days before last November's presidential election. The New York Times' Julia Jacobs and Nicole Sperling report that Ferguson "is now suing the company that owns the History Channel, A&E Networks, asserting it suppressed the dissemination of his mini-series because it was worried about potential backlash to allusions the documentary makes to the Trump White House. In the lawsuit filed Friday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Mr. Ferguson accuses the company of attempting to delay the documentary until after the 2018 midterm elections because a History Channel executive feared it would offend the White House and Trump supporters." Specifically, the lawsuit accuses A&E Networks executive Eli Lehrer of suppressing the documentary out of fear of its impact in red states.  The lawsuit describes the treatment of the documentary as part of a “pattern and practice of censorship and suppression of documentary content” at A&E Networks, and cites several others that it says were subject to attempted manipulation for political or economic reasons. A&E Networks responded by calling the lawsuit meritless and "absurd," saying its decision not to rebroadcast Watergate was based on lower than expected ratings. In a statement, the company said it has routinely given a platform to storytellers “to present their unvarnished vision without regard for partisan politics.”