KEN BURNS

Burns says that he wanted to cover Ali's life from his boyhood in segregated Louisville until his death five years ago of Parkinson's Disease.

The legendary boxer and activist gets the Ken Burns treatment in a four-part film premiering Sept. 19 on PBS. Burns' film " Muhammad Ali " explores the life of the boxer who floated and stung his way into greatness. “There are a lot of really, really great documentary films on Muhammad Ali. I think the opening half-hour, 20 minutes of Michael Mann’s ‘Ali’ is one of the finest openings of any film, ever,” Burns said. I was waiting to take it out and I turned around and in a booth, there was Muhammad Ali.

The number of movies, documentaries and other entertainment vehicles made about Muhammad Ali would make it seem that there’s not much left to offer.

— (AP) — Stephen B. Oates, an award-winning Civil War historian who wrote biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Clara Barton, William Faulkner and others, has died. In 1993, the Civil War Round Table of Chicago awarded him the Nevins Freeman Award for Civil War scholarship and biography. He was also a key consultant on filmmaker Ken Burns' 1990 documentary series “The Civil War." “Stephen was an extremely valuable advisor to our Civil War series and an informed and passionate participant,” Burns said in a statement released by UMass. A memorial service is planned at UMass Amherst in the spring.

Stephen Oates has died after a life that saw him become an award-winning Civil War historian who wrote biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Clara Barton, William Faulkner and others.

Dan + Shay, Luke Combs, Rascal Flatts and more country artists celebrated alongside prominent songwriters, producers and industry leaders at the Academy of Country Music Honors awards show.

PBS has announced $11 million in grants to boost diversity among documentary filmmakers months after an open letter accused the service of unfairly favoring white creators.

PBS Diversity FILE - PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger speaks during the PBS Executive Session at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour on Feb. 2, 2019, in Pasadena, Calif. PBS is taking steps toward increased diversity to be overseen by a new executive hired for the task. Cecilia Loving is joining PBS as senior vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion, reporting to Kerger. Loving has been serving as a deputy commissioner and chief diversity officer for the New York City Fire Department. On Tuesday, Kerger said her understanding of how PBS approaches diversity has grown since those remarks, based on conversations with the filmmakers and what she called a variety of stakeholders. PBS highlighted the intended effect on PBS Kids’ programming and its mission.

The chief executive of PBS says the public broadcasting service has fallen short on some aspects of diversity.

Country stars Keith Urban, Toby Keith and Carly Pearce will perform at the Academy of Country Music Honors this month, to honor Loretta Lynn, Dan + Shay and Luke Combs among others.

The filmmaker known for his exhaustive documentaries on American subjects gives Scott Pelley a glimpse into how his films are made, the message he wants to convey with them and how he became the person he is today.

In Questlove's documentary “Summer of Soul” a musical flood, too long dammed up, is finally released.

Hosted by Lee Cowan. In our cover story, Erin Moriarty reports on the Sackler family, whose name has become a controversial flashpoint in the opioid epidemic. Also: John Dickerson sits down with former House Speaker John Boehner, who has written a scorching memoir, "On the House"; Mark Whitaker interviews documentary filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick about their PBS series on Ernest Hemingway; Lesley Stahl talks with Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty about her new biography of first lady Nancy Reagan; Michelle Miller interviews Jamie Foxx and his daughter, Corinne, who are collaborating on a new Netflix comedy series, "Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!"; and Mark Phillips looks back on the life of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who died this week at age 99.

A new documentary on the life of Ernest Hemingway is shedding new light on one of America's greatest writers.

On "Facing Forward," Margaret Brennan talks with documentary filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick about filmmaking during a pandemic and their new documentary Hemingway

FILE - Ken Burns, director of the PBS documentary series "Country Music," takes part in a panel discussion during the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour on July 29, 2019, in Beverly Hills, Calif. Speaking Monday, Feb. 1, 2021, to the Television Critics Association in a virtual Q&A, PBS chief executive Paula Kerger rejected a filmmakers claim that public TVs long relationship with Burns has come at the expense of diversity. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)LOS ANGELES – The chief executive of PBS rejected a filmmaker’s argument that public TV's 40-year relationship with documentarian Ken Burns has come at the expense of diversity. “We create lots of opportunities for many filmmakers,” Kerger said. "The stuff that’s coming up is incredibly diverse in every sense of the meaning of that word,” Burns said.

FILE - "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl poses for a photo in her office at the "60 Minutes" offices, in New York on Sept. 12, 2017. It's not the first time that's been said about “60 Minutes” since its 1968 debut. After executive producer Bill Owens turned the show primarily over to COVID-19 coverage last spring, “60 Minutes” has returned to its traditional format while being focused on being timely. “60 Minutes” this fall has featured interviews with fired government cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs, former President Barack Obama and poisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Original executive producer Don Hewitt often ran “60 Minutes” as an island unto itself.

NEW YORK – One of the five teens wrongly imprisoned for the assault on a Central Park jogger has a memoir coming out in the spring. The five Black and Latino teens were coerced into confessing to a rape they didn’t commit in 1989. Ken Burns made a documentary about them and Ava DuVernay directed a Netflix series. “One of the most powerful lessons I learned while being wrongfully incarcerated was that instead of going through something, I was going to grow through something," Salaam said in a statement. “Punching the Air,” co-written by Ibi Zoboi, came out in September.

11/8/2020: Counting the Vote, Operation Warp Speed, Ken Burns Pennsylvania election officials detail their vote count, share experiences from election week; Then, planning the distribution of a future COVID-19 vaccine; And, Ken Burns speaks with Scott Pelley about how his films are made, the message he wants to convey with them and how he became the person he is today.

Ken Burns speaks with Scott Pelley"Us," the American struggle to forge union from diversity, has been Ken Burns' obsession since he was 11 years old at the end of this lane in Ann Arbor, Michigan. But it wasn't until his seventh that America returned Ken Burns' affection. Ken Burns' moment came in 1981 with his first subject, the Brooklyn Bridge, which no one thought was a good idea. Ken Burns: And he said, "I bet you blew out your candles as a child, as a boy, wishing she'd come back?" They are, together, the story of a people straining for union, a theme Ken Burns has explored from his very first film which was, after all, about a bridge connecting America to America.

Ken Burns speaks with 60 Minutes correspondent Scott PelleyFilmmaker Ken Burns says issues of race are a theme throughout almost all of his documentaries. Scott Pelley profiles Burns on the next edition of 60 Minutes, Sunday, November 8 at 7:30 p.m., ET and 7 p.m. PT on CBS. "I told people that 'Baseball' was the sequel to 'The Civil War,' and I meant it. "How we play games, and the nature of immigration, and the exclusion of women, and popular culture, and advertising, and heroes, and villains, and our imagination, and race, and race, and race are who we are." Pelley interviewed Burns in Walpole, New Hampshire, where he lives and works on numerous projects at a time.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Ken Burns, the renowned documentarian known for bringing American history to vivid life, debuts his latest effort on Sunday, "Country Music." "We say about country music, 'Oh, it's about pickup trucks and good ole boys and hound dogs and six packs of beer.' "We tend to think of country music as one thing, but it's always been many things," says Burns. In Burns' view, the genre has also minted some of the finest songwriters in popular music, country or otherwise. That's country music."

Filmmaker Ken Burns has spent more than 35 years telling America's story in documentaries, but now he's releasing his first children's book called "Grover Cleveland, Again!: A Treasury of American Presidents." Burns joins "CBS This Morning" to discuss the inspiration behind the book as well as his latest political project, Historians on Donald Trump, which addresses why the presumptive GOP nominee's campaign is "so troubling from a historical perspective."

With the New York primary race heating up, “Face the Nation” has the latest from the campaign trail with Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, GOP candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, and others.

Ken Burns talks with "Face the Nation" about his latest documentary, which explores the life and legacy of baseball great and civil rights pioneer Jackie Robinson.

Renowned documentary filmmaker Ken Burns says Americans today are quick to make instantaneous judgments in the political arena. Yet put into larger context, today's circus-style run-up to the presidential elections is no dirtier than years past.

Renowned documentary filmmaker Ken Burns says the American narrative has been "bedeviled by a question of race" since the days of Thomas Jefferson. Burns says politics today is still caught on the subject of skin color.

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns says he burst into his tears while converting his 1990 PBS doc “The Civil War” into ultra high definition. Overwhelmed by new details, Burns says the new release has reminded him of the centrality of the war between states.

Open: This is Face the Nation, September 14 The latest on the fighting in Iraq and Syria, the domestic violence controversy facing the NFL, and the latest Ken Burns documentary, with Secretary of State John Kerry, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, Ken Burns, and others.