Crossposted at Mass Revolution Now!
WCVB is the local ABC affliate here in Boston. Because ABC/Disney will not pull the plug on the lies and misrepresentations in its upcoming 2 part docudrama, “The Path To 9/11,” I propose we flood WCVB with requests not to air the show. The media blitz surrounding this entirely flawed show has been centered around right wing nuts and lunatics (Rush Limbaugh gives the movie two thumbs up!). For those of you who haven’t heard, the show more or less tries to pin 9/11 on Clinton. Subsequently Clinton, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, and former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger all asked for a copy of the movie, copies having been previously offered to various organizations, but Clinton, et al. were denied such a courtesy. Also, in a big media conference call to promote the movie several prominent left leaning blogs were denied access. But more than just shutting out the lefties what is so offensive is the notion that ABC/Disney gets to play fast and loose with the facts.
If you want more of the story you can pretty much check out any post at FireDogLake or AmericaBlog. I am asking everyone, please contact WCVB and ask them to pull the plug locally on these lies.
Here is some contact info, if anyone has more please drop it in the comments:
Call the station (781) 449-0400
Contact WCVB’s owner, Hearst Corporation
212.649.2000
Good post, Andy. My post has already shuffled off the recent posts list. Apparently ABC has agreed to add a disclaimer to the movie, hopefully only a matter of time before some affiliates cancel it altogether.
Think Progress is on it too.
<
p>
This whole thing is just surreal.
<
p>
WCVB seems to allow some public discussion here, but so far I don’t see anything about the 9/11 show. Has anyone tried to start a new discussion topic on it?
but my work blocks the website for some reason!! Ugh. I fired off my email this morning and plan on calling them later today.
There were warning signs in both administrations. Frontline did a piece on him.
What is in it that you don’t like?
They won’t let lefty types got a pre-release copy!! I have no problem looking at Clinton’s role because obviously he did have one given that Bush had only been president for a few months. However to put all the blame on Clinton is ridiculous. However it isn’t necessarily the substance, because I haven’t seen it yet, that bothers me. I am very, very annoyed with the way ABC is handling the release. There have been too many instances in which ABC has refused to deal with any left of center types about his film and that concerns me.
because Disney won’t acknowlede lefty blogs?
Shouldn’t you wait to see it, then comment on it?
<
p>
Why try and force a media outlet to deep six it?
That seems, oh I don’t know, fascist?
It’s responsible of us. If ABC airs something that is purely fictional right before a big race (’06) that is very partisan (it is), people will get the wrong idea, they might change their votes, even though many things are wrong or downright lies in it. Yes, they claim it’s a “docudrama” whatever the hell THAT is, but the word “docu” makes people think it’s mostly true.
<
p>
It’s been WELL DOCUMENTED by people who HAVE seen parts or much of the piece, that there’s MADE UP SHIT in it. Sorry, but if the righties can bitch and moan about a piece done on the Reagans (and win), we can be pretty upset at an obviously biased propaganda piece run just before a major election.
A made for TV movie. Tell me exactly what dialogue is wrong.
So I have to SEE it to document the wrongness? Give me a break. It’s been documented elsewhere. At first, these idiots were claiming it was truth based on the 9/11 Commission. Today, they admit to fictionalizing. Does that sound like a group of people who just have an “artistic vision” to you?
<
p>
As I just posted in an update on my blog:
“It is severely disrespectful, at best, to fictionalize a tragedy we all experienced, only five years ago this coming Monday. What possible artistic or entertainment purpose could this piece ever serve, other than to lie to the American people about what happened and influence their vote?
<
p>
The victims of 9/11, and this country which survived it, deserves a hell of a lot more respect. Its appalling, its blatently politically motivated…”
What specifically do you find so offensive that you support the efforts to have it banned?
and links. Nowhere I have seen what the script says. I do see some crying about lefty blogs being ignored. Haha
Christ the high pitched whine is like a dog whistle.
it was all good when the rightwingers were bitching at CBS about the Reagan biopic?
<
p>
Please.
<
p>
Two wrongs don’t make a right
By way of dKos:
<
p>
Bill Clinton strikes back.
<
p>
Lots of linky goodness in that diary. Lots of lefty blogs picking up the cause.
<
p>
Prior restraint be damned. Let’s get Michael Moore on it!
Is anyone going to court to stop this thing? Come on, gary. No one has a constitutional right to have Channel 5 air a particular show.
Look, the 9/11 commission established that the plotting for the attacks began as far back as 1996. While I’m more than willing to shovel blame toward the Bush administration for the criminally negligent way they treated the threat in early/mid-2001, if there is some blame to be bourne on the shoulders of the Clinton Administration, so be it.
<
p>
I’d like all the arguments laid out on the table so we can continue to learn how to prevent a tragedy of this magnitude from ever happening again. If Bill Clinton has a problem with anything said, well…it’s not like he won’t be able to find a podium somewhere to point that out.
but you won’t get “all the arguments laid out on the table” from a fictionalized “docu-drama” produced by a right-wing activist.
so what did y’all think of Farenheight 9/11?
<
p>
I hope your reaction was exactly the same!
You know, because fahrenheit 911 was totally true and this is totally not.
Without conceding the point, Fahrenheit 9/11 was not broadcast on public airwaves.
<
p>
Nor, I’m sure, was it used as a teaching tool by Scholastic.
was anything credibly refuted from it.
<
p>
Moore is biased and partisan, but no where in the whole damn movie did he pass off FICTION as FACT. Sure he picked and chose what to show, but there’s a world of difference between bias and libel/slander.
isn’t that a decision I can make on my own? If I don’t like it, I’ll change the channel, or debunk the thing on my blog or this one.
<
p>
I don’t like it when people, Republican or Democrat, tell me I shouldn’t see something for my own good. The conservatives on this site are right about this. Would we think the same thing about the airing of Fahrenheit 9/11? Isn’t a petition to stop the airing of this special antithetical to the premise of BMG, whereby all points of view are expressed?
Making up scenes which did not happen is not a point of view. You can question Michael Moore’s viewpoint, but none of the footage in his films is created by actors in a studio.
There are so many things wrong with this. Welcoming all points of view is appropriate in a debate setting among openly partisan or opinionated individuals. This “docu-drama” is passed off as a non-partisan account broadcast on public airwaves for educational purposes, so no, it does not get a free pass for having “it’s own point of view”.
<
p>
And oh by the way…how about the interesting timing with respect to the national elections?
<
p>
No. Never mind. ABC’s board of directors should be allowed to express their point of view.
/sarcasm
If you want to hit WCVB where it hurts, watch the local news tonight, write down the names of the advertizers, and call them and complain.
<
p>
Also, anyone with kids should find out if their schools have received the materials from Scholastic. ABC can maybe get away with airing a “docudrama,” but do you think Scholastic will want its reputation tarnished from putting out false information?
Some listed here.
Apparently, you cannot start a discussion at those forums, you can only “suggest” a discussion. I did, but I have a feeling they won’t be starting one.
Josh Marshall reports that WCVB is telling viewers that they have no choice but to run the piece. WCVB is owned by Hearst, a separate company from Disney/ABC, so this would appear not to be true, unless they mean that Hearst management gives the local Boston people no choice. (There are numerous examples of non-network-owned stations declining to run particular network programming, such as the Sinclair stations that rejected the Nightline with the names of Iraq casualties.
<
p>
With the Sinclair Swift Boat business in 2004, there was some evidence that local Springfield Channel 40 staff did not want to run the offending piece, but Sinclair insisted.
Neither do I. The right-wing media machine had that dramatization cancelled because of what they called bias and factual innacuracies in the dialogue.
<
p>
The difference here is that ABC is refusing to even let the subjects of the show see the script or screen the series.
Exactly.
A new film, being released in English and Arabic, it makes its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on Sunday. It is a mockumentary depicting the assassination of President Bush, and its aftermath.
<
p>
You all willing to protest that too?
for the same reason I’m not protesting this one. And this is exactly why.
<
p>
For every TV show, movie, or “documentary,” that comes out that a liberal has a problem with, there are probably two more that a conservative will have a problem with. We could spend the rest of our lives having these discussions about what people should see, rather than simply letting people make up their own minds about what the they want to watch.
<
p>
Someone made a point above about the Reagan movie, and thought that that example proved his point about why we shouldn’t see THIS movie. Actually, it doesn’t prove that point at all. Just the opposite! I WANTED to see that Reagan movie, and thanks to conservative whining and bitching, I couldn’t.
<
p>
Now I might (might) want to see this one, but you guys have already made the decision that I shouldn’t, based on….some reports on some blogs? Protests by the Clinton administration? Hey, less time flirting with interns, more time hunting terrorists, ok? Short of libel, you get what you get on this one, Bubba. And that goes for you too, W.
<
p>
On top of all that, don’t we have better things to worry about? How many people died in Iraq today, anyway?
1. It’s labeled as and clearly is a mockumentary.
<
p>
2. It does not concern past events, particulary events so important as those leading up to the attacks on September 11th, 2001.
<
p>
3. It is not being broadcast on public airwaves two months before a national election.
Remarkable how bringing up a different film on a different issue in a different country somehow pierces straight to the heart of the current debate…
Watching the right complain about the Reagan mini-series and watching the left complain about 9/11 is great:
<
p>
Right: Pull the series or we’ll never advertise with you again. Plus, we’ll burn your house and eat your children.
<
p>
Left: It’s not fair, there’s lies being told, there’s an election coming up, what about the whales, well ok maybe it is fair I’m not sure, I only listen to NPR so it doesn’t matter….
Just a really good opinion commentary