Shownotes Transcript
It's time for our documentary of the week with Tom Powers and Raffaella Neuhausen. They are the co-founders of the Doc NYC Festival and the Pure Nonfiction Podcast. Tom has this week's pick. The Japanese religious sect known as Aum perpetrated a deadly sarin gas attack in Tokyo subway in 1995.
Their story is told in Om, the cult at the end of the world. British journalist Andrew Marshall was among the few reporters raising an alarm. You know, I'd written this story and in it there'd been this prediction that there would be this subway attack. I mean, I know on a rational level that...
The publication and writing of that story didn't cause the attack, but I still felt this kind of guilt that this awful thing that had been predicted in the article had come true. The gas attack was one of many crimes ordered by Ohm's leader, Shoko Asahara. Japan's police chief, who has been leading the investigation into last week's gas attack on the Tokyo Underground,
The subway attack made international headlines, but Japanese journalist Shoko Ogawa says her country's media should have done more in advance.
She says the media amplified the silly and entertaining side of the group and wound up increasing its popularity. OM, the cult at the end of the world, is now playing at New York's IFC Center. For more information, visit wnyc.org slash docs.