No one else is pushing more boundaries than HBO right now. In just the past couple of months, the premium cable channel has broadcast a criminal mastermind ostensibly confessing to multiple murders, released a half-animated documentary about Kurt Cobain without interviewing Dave Grohl, and let a bird shoot [SPOILER ALERT] in the chest with a shotgun at point-blank range. Sorry.
For its next move, HBO has convinced Barack Obama to become the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. (Never mind the fact that it’s staggering to learn that a president has never visited an actual prison before.)
The White House has announced that President Obama — who recently said that criminal-justice reform would be a major focus during the remainder of his second term — will visit El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma, where he’ll meet with prisoners, staff, and law enforcement brass.
According to Deadline, President Obama’s tour of the facility and subsequent interviews will air in the fall as a part of a Vice‘s broader documentary on the prison system.
The Vice special will air this fall on HBO, offering an “in-depth look into the dire impact the current criminal justice system is having on millions of Americans.” The United States is home to 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prison population; prison population has risen 700% since 1970, the program said, without citing its source.
(Via Deadline)
However you feel about the President, it’s undeniable that HBO is making incredibly compelling television.
