Obsession the propaganda movie. Where did it come from?

A sophisticated looking DVD movie arrived in my newspaper this Sunday.  Packaged in a slick blister pack it touted itself as explaining "radical Islam's war against the West".   This item was a long way from getting an AOL gazillion hours free disk which had been the ubiquitous standard in the past.   This was bannered with awards from Film Festivals though I didn't know anything about the ones listed.  And it was asserted that 20 million viewers worldwide had seen this on CNN and Fox News.   Michael Medved was quoted as praising it.   "Wow" I thought,  someone's put a heck of a lot of money behind this.   The blister pack also listed dozens of newspapers into which it was inserted.   

Anything that slick from a source I've never heard of raises my curiousity,  so I spent a little time looking into The Clarion Fund which was listed as the "source" of this.   Online,  the Clarion Fund website pops right up.   It lists itself as a 501(c)3 educational non-profit.   And Obsession and similar movies appear to be its educational subject.  Somewhat to my surprise, though,  there was none of the other usual content for a non-profit website.  No button led to a list of board members,  a mission statement,  a staff list,  a page delineating programs.   So I clicked over to Guidestar,   a resource for finding out the publicly reportable facts about non-profits.   The Clarion Fund was listed but little further information was available there.   The government status does require Clarion to file a 990 Report annually,  but none had been made available to Guidestar.  The NTEE code, a classification system said Clarion's program area was "Television".  That seemed consistent with the DVD production though not the DVD itself.   No information was available about Board Members, Staff or Volunteers.   The IRS listings didn't have any further information.

I haven't opened the blister pack yet.  But I'm still searching.   While I haven't had time to read them,  I've noticed that other blogs are posting on this subject.   Without knowing more,  I still find it unsettling to have a message from an unknown source,  produced by very sophisticated means,  arriving on people's doorsteps.   How many people will open the blister pack and pop the movie in their DVD,  without asking where it came from.   Scary.   Very scary.