Jim Jones, Jonestown, and People’s Temple : « Father Cares, » 1981 NPR radio documentary / Boing Boing
▻http://boingboing.net/2008/11/19/jamestown-30-years-l.html
Parfois on oublie à quel point les reortages radio peuvent être impressionnants. Voilà un exemple où ce format montre toute sa puissance.
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AkBaqnXlQw
Radio documentary that utilized taped recordings found at the Jonestown settlement after the mass suicide of the followers of Jim Jones. This was put together by Noah Adams and James Reston Jr. to promote Mr. Reston’s newly released book; Our Father Who Art In Hell. Wikipedia says this aired in 1983 but I’m 90% certain this aired in ’81.
While there is some strong language, this show was tastefully done and the tape recordings of actual suicides is not used. The narrator does recreate Jonestown’s final hours, however. If you must hear the actual tape, there’s several copies elsewhere on YouTube. The credits at the end of the program are missing. I ran out of tape. But, as far as I know, aside from the end credits, this is the show in its entirety.
I apologize for the quality of the audio. Please understand that this was made using 35 year old cassette tapes. I maximized the volume and put them through an equalizer but the last half hour has a muffled sound to it that I was unable to make clearer.
While this documentary is absorbing, I cannot recommend Mr. Reston’s book. I slogged my way through and found it very disappointing. Apparently James Reston Jr. is incapable of writing a book that does not go on and on about
...well, James Reston Jr.
There are many books about Jim Jones but most are poorly written. Some were written by well meaning people who didn’t know how to write a book. Some were published to capitalize on the tragedy (one such book was written by a reporter while he was still in the hospital recovering from his bullet wounds). Some are outright hoaxes (don’t waste your time with any book that claims to have been written by the ’sole survivor’. There were many survivors). The only book on the subject that I can recommend is Raven by Tim Reiterman. It’s the only book that I’ve found so far that is by someone that knows how to write and bothered to do some in-depth research.