“And one blatant omission had managed to hurt the reputations of a prominent academic, a Hollywood superstar and an esteemed public television broadcaster.” The NYT on how Ben Affleck’s request to omit details of his slave-owning ancestor took down a PBS show produced by Henry Louis Gates Jr. (In the spirit of transparency, this is probably a good time for me to confess that my great uncle occasionally argued that Archie Bunker “had a decent point.”)