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Interactive Special Premieres Live On PBS And PBS.org September 18

Endgame: Ethics And Values In America

PBS is airing a live show where you can: voice your approval or disapproval of what the characters are doing, interview the characters to learn more about their motivation, question a panel of experts about the moral implications confronting the characters:

    Endgame: Ethics and Values in America premieres live on PBS Wednesday, September 18, 2002 at 8 pm ET (check local listings). This groundbreaking special enables viewers to enter the lives of fictional characters forced to make critical decisions with profound moral, ethical or social implications. With daily revelations of fraud in our boardrooms, scandals in our churches, and plagiarism in our schools, the program’s focus on ethics and values is timely and important, providing a forum for individuals to explore the boundaries of personal responsibility.

    Endgame: Ethics and Values in America is created by Emmy Award-winning producer Scott Goldstein and hosted by Peabody and Emmy Award-winning journalist Carol Marin. The panel includes ethicist Michael Josephson, David Kaczynski, brother of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, and Olympic medallist Jackie Joyner-Kersee. David Kaczynski will address the moral conflict between adherence to the law and loyalty to a loved one.

    The program begins with a fifteen-minute original film, which poses an ethical dilemma. At key points in the drama, viewers are invited to vote at pbs.org/endgame on the decisions made by the film’s characters, and are asked “What would you do?” Results are televised live throughout the program, triggering discussion among the panelists, live audience, and home viewers via the Internet.

    Endgame: Ethics and Values in America will be carried live in seventeen markets (New York, Boston, Atlanta, Detroit, Tampa, Cleveland, Orlando, Maryland, Hartford, North Carolina, Cincinnati, Columbus, West Palm Beach, Virginia, Nashville, New Orleans, and Oklahoma City). Stations unable to carry the live program will broadcast from tape. Viewers in those markets will still be able to cast their votes on the characters’ actions and indicate what they would do, with the updated polling data appearing live on Endgame’s Web site.

And over the Web:

    The companion Web site to ENDGAME: ETHICS AND VALUES IN AMERICA is available at www.pbs.org/endgame. Prior to the broadcast, visitors will be able to learn more about how they can participate, access background information on the program’s host, panelists, and creators, watch a preview, take a poll, and check out the latest examples of ethics issues in the news.

    Once the broadcast begins, the ENDGAME’s Web site will host the interactive portion of the program, inviting viewers to vote on the characters’ actions in the drama, indicate what they themselves would do, view live polling results, and contribute to the live, on-air discussion.

    After the show, additional site features include a version of the film for viewers who missed the broadcast, discussion boards, aggregate poll results from the broadcast, video of the drama’s primary characters responding to questions about their decisions and actions in the film, experts’ opinions on the subject of ethics and values, and links to related sites and resources.

This could be a very telling referendum on the state of our national sense of ethics.

About Eric Olsen

Career media professional and serial entrepreneur Eric Olsen flung himself into the paranormal world in 2012, creating the America's Most Haunted brand and co-authoring the award-winning America's Most Haunted book, published by Berkley/Penguin in Sept, 2014. Olsen is co-host of the nationally syndicated broadcast and Internet radio talk show After Hours AM; his entertaining and informative America's Most Haunted website and social media outlets are must-reads: Twitter@amhaunted, Facebook.com/amhaunted, Pinterest America's Most Haunted. Olsen is also guitarist/singer for popular and wildly eclectic Cleveland cover band The Props.

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