{"id":18864,"date":"2019-12-20T15:11:03","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T23:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=films&#038;p=18864"},"modified":"2025-10-14T15:26:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T22:26:22","slug":"recorder-the-marion-stokes-project","status":"publish","type":"films","link":"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/recorder-the-marion-stokes-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A fiercely intelligent, radical activist who became a fabulously wealthy recluse in her later years, Marion Stokes was dedicated to furthering and protecting the truth \u2014 so much so that she recorded American television 24 hours a day for over 30 years. <\/span><b><i>Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> peels back the curtain on her life, through a mix of Stokes\u2019 own archive of recordings and interviews with those who knew her best.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Long before the term \u201cfake news\u201d entered the national conversation, the Philadelphia-based Stokes recognized the shifting nature of the media and the importance of protecting the truth. Working in television in the late 1960s, she believed in the power of the medium to inform or misinform the public. Stokes determined that a comprehensive archive of national media would one day be invaluable, and began recording television broadcasts in 1979, starting with news broadcasts of the Iranian hostage crisis at the dawn of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, and continuing until her death in 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Spanning 70,000 videotapes that captured revolutions, lies, wars, triumphs, catastrophes, bloopers, talk shows, and commercials, Stokes\u2019 visionary and maddening project nearly tore her family apart.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A fiercely intelligent, radical activist who became a fabulously wealthy recluse in her later years, Marion Stokes was dedicated to furthering and protecting the truth \u2014 so much so that she recorded American television 24 hours a day for over 30 years. Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project peels back the curtain on her life, through [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":19558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"topic":[1225],"class_list":["post-18864","films","type-films","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","topic-politics-and-government"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>RECORDER: THE MARION STOKES PROJECT | Activist Seeking Truth on TV 24\/7 | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Radical activist-turned-recluse Marion Stokes videotaped everything on TV for thirty years in the name of truth.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/recorder-the-marion-stokes-project\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"RECORDER: THE MARION STROKES PROJECT | Film | PBS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Radical activist-turned-recluse Marion Stokes videotaped everything on TV for thirty years in the name of truth.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/recorder-the-marion-stokes-project\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Independent Lens\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-14T22:26:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/recorder-sig-image.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1281\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"RECORDER: THE MARION STROKES PROJECT | Film | PBS\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Radical activist-turned-recluse Marion Stokes videotaped everything on TV for thirty years in the name of truth.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/recorder-the-marion-stokes-project\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/recorder-the-marion-stokes-project\/\",\"name\":\"RECORDER: THE MARION STOKES PROJECT | Activist Seeking Truth on TV 24\/7 | PBS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/recorder-the-marion-stokes-project\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/recorder-the-marion-stokes-project\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/recorder-sig-image.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-12-20T23:11:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-10-14T22:26:22+00:00\",\"description\":\"Radical activist-turned-recluse Marion Stokes videotaped everything on TV for thirty years in the name of truth.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/recorder-the-marion-stokes-project\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/recorder-the-marion-stokes-project\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/recorder-the-marion-stokes-project\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/recorder-sig-image.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/recorder-sig-image.jpg\",\"width\":1920,\"height\":1281,\"caption\":\"A vintage television set screen shows an image of a Black woman's face. 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