It's unfortunate that the story's author found it expedient to write that his hero-reporter began exposing police torture and framing of innocent people by solving the racially motivated arson murder of a Hispanic family in Philadelphia. The true facts of that case, which was actually solved by ATF special agents, are detailed at length in a book titled "Very Special Agents" by James Moore (Pocket Books, 1997; reprinted by the University of Illinois Press, 2001).Reporter Jonathan Neumann did write about this case for Philadelphia newspapers but all of his facts came from ATF reports and the trial of homicide detectives convicted of framing the man they accused of the crime in order to please their superiors and protect a local politician. As a result of the ATF investigation, the victim whom detectives framed was freed and the detectives were sentenced to Federal prison for terms exactly matching the years their victim had served. So much for Helfgott's story "based on true facts." It'd also be noice if, amidst all his awards, reporter Jonathan Neumann had the integrity to correct this phony aspect of the story. Oh well, maybe journalistic integrity is elastic, like that of the detectives in this film.
Review of The Thin Blue Lie
