A screening of the documentary “Tiananmen Tonight” will take place on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. in Grewen Auditorium.
This award-winning documentary focuses on CBS News and its coverage of the Tiananmen Square Uprising in 1989. “We feel like it’s a terrific example of the commitment that major news networks have had to covering the news,” said Michael Streissguth, an English and communications professor at Le Moyne who produced and co-directed this documentary.
While examining the uprising and the news coverage surrounding it, the documentary also comments on modern news coverage. According to the Filmmakers’ Statement on tiananmentonight.com, “…even though technology has enabled faster access, the networks are not able or willing to provide the in-depth coverage that was so important at Tiananmen.”
Streissguth first thought of the idea for this documentary after writing an article for The Washington Post for the 20th anniversary of the uprising. While he and Bestor Cram, the other co-director of the film, started production in 2019, that effort was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was hard for us to fundraise money … we couldn’t do in-person interviews,” said Streissguth.
But in 2023, they were able to “restart [their] engines” and start production back up. They finished the documentary in late summer of 2025.
It had its first film festival premiere in September, and from then to now, this film has been screened across the country in states such as New York, Virginia, Massachusetts and California. It has also won the 2025 Cantwell Prize for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking at the Alexandria Film Festival in November.
When asked about a specific screening that stood out to him, Streissguth mentioned a particularly emotional watch in Los Angeles at the June 4th Memorial Museum, a museum dedicated to the events of the Tiananmen Square Uprising.
Streissguth recalls the response from audience members, some of whom were present at the uprising, as emotional. They were grateful that he and the others working on the film were still raising awareness about the event.
“Words really can’t describe how moved I was,” Streissguth said.
In addition to the screening in Grewen Auditorium, there will be a panel discussion immediately afterward with Streissguth and Tom Bettag, a former executive producer of the CBS Evening News and an integral voice in the documentary, where they will discuss the film and answer questions.
