The phrase "single-issue campaigns, the decline of civil discourse and smear campaigns against presidential candidates" sounds like something you might hear on cable news these days, but that's how Ken Burns set the scene for his newest documentary 'Prohibition.'

Burns stopped by 'Good Day New York' (weekdays, 9AM ET on Fox) to preview the three-part documentary, which chronicles the rise and fall of the 18th Amendment.

The documentary filmmaker described American pre-prohibition drinking habits as an around-the-clock boozefest. "People had booze at breakfast ... the President of the United States John Adams would take a ladle-ful of hard cider," he said. In response, the Temperance Movement was born, which relied on the "insane idea that if you got rid of drink ... everything would be alright."

You'll recall my recent post where I said Ken Burns documentary about World War II angered some in the Latino community for its lack of coverage of Latinos who fought in the war. Well, Burns apparently took the protest to heart and has decided to not only go back and retool his 14-hour documentary to include the overlooked footage, but has also hired a Latino producer to help him create the new content. The War is scheduled to hit PBS in September. The series will focus on four communities in the United States and how they were impacted by the war.

As I said in my previous post, it has to be almost impossible to make a documentary about something as substantial as World War II and not inadvertently leave some stuff out. I do think it's admirable that Burns has decided to go back and amend his documentary, but at the same time I wonder what else he may have overlooked, and whether or not more people will come forward to accuse his documentary of being incomplete. People have the right to protest, of course, but I imagine pleasing everyone is almost impossible.

War, what is it good for?

It's good for Ken Burns, we know that much. The documentary filmmaker behind the hugely popular Civil War documentary series is preparing to delve into war yet again with a new PBS documentary about World War II. Burns originaly didn't want to do another war documentary, but decided the story needed to be told while there were still people alive who fought in the war.

The War will air starting on September 17 and will be the first new series created by Burns after he inked a deal to have his work shown exclusively on PBS until 2022. The 14-hour documentary does include some swearing from soldiers who describe their time serving during the war, which means two versions of the series might be offered to stations who want to avoid any FCC problems. I would hope stations opt to show the uncensored version, since a few curse words seems perfectly appropriate when describing one's personal war experiences.