two sides of the same coin
I wonder how many of the people who are now hyperventilating over ABC’s decision to show The Path to 9/11 just two months before the 2006 election, were ecstatic over the screening of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 just before the 2004 election? And vice versa?
September 8th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
Good Question.
September 8th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
There just might be a difference between showing something in a theater that people have to intentionally put money on, and broadcasting a show on tv, in primetime. I don’t think the networks ever ran Fahrenheit 9/11. Showing them side by side, there might be fairer.
September 8th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
To be even more to the point than Kevin: ABC and WKRN use public airwaves. Theatres and film are entirely privately-owned. Hence, television companies are more responsible for being impartial or at least more balanced when they utilize a public medium. Bob, if these are coins, they are pennies and quarters rather than two sides of the same nickle.
September 8th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
Okay, but what about the various newsmagazine profiles praising F9/11 as part of it’s theatrical juggernaut? Do we say that 60 minutes shouldn’t profile Moore’s movie because that’s tantamount to advertising it and getting the message out there over the free airwaves?
At what point do we decide that public ownership of the airwaves should curtail all political speech on those airwaves?
September 8th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Depends on whether 60 minutes presents opposing viewpoints. I did not see the profiles of which you speak, but the times I’ve watched the programs, they are pretty good at getting alternative points of view to their subject matter.
September 8th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
And who gets to decide what is fair? The government? Does fair change when different parties control government?
That’s a damn scary prospect.
September 8th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
It is just a movie gang. But I agree with Krumm, it is sorta ironic how those champions of “free speech” are taking it.
September 8th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
Off the deep end you go. I certainly have not advocated that the government should take away anyone’s free speech. This is not a 1st Amendment issue. It is fundamentally about the professional impartiality of the media that uses public airwaves, especially in an election cycle. It is also about the difference between the facts of an event that it has taken America some time to come to grips with (if we have) and an imaginary world where actors improvise what they think happened before 9/11 rather than actually acting out what did happen.
September 8th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Sorry Mike, but I call bullshit.
This is so about the 1st Amendment it isn’t even funny.
This is a form of speech dealing with current events, current leaders, and current issues. This is the highest level of speech out there, and Democratic lawmakers are sending threatening letters to network executives because they don’t like how they’re portrayed.
Alter this program we don’t like or we’ll try to take your license if you don’t.
God, if that doesn’t send a chill through your supposed civil liberties bone, nothing can or will.
September 8th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
This is not about bullshit and I haven’t sent a threatening letter to anybody.
September 9th, 2006 at 7:32 am
Where were all these 1st Amendment freedom-loving folks when CBS was planning to air that bio-op about Reagan. Oh yeah..CBS caved because of the threats and spun the show off to Showtime.
This is about fairness. Michael Moore’s picture wasn’t going to convince anybody about anything EXCEPT the people who already believed Moore’s line.
Here we have an election in two months, and the guy in power is doing everything he can to make terror an issue and show that HE is the guy who can prevent another 9/11 from happening. Here comes a film that tells an emotional public that the Dems are weak on this, and therefore, thank God we have the firm Republicans. Personally, I think it is a ‘load’ but the timing just plain stinks.
I know the network would like to run a 9/11 doc., but why can’t they run that Frenchman’s film that shows how brave our policeman and fireman are. Why can’t they followup with the families who lost loved ones. Pay Oliver Stone a ton of money and show his movie…
Save the political film for after the elections and show it til’ the cows come home, and then how about a show that details the utter chaos and horror that is currently life in Baghdad. Betcha if one of the networks tried to show a documentary like that right now, along with actors portraying the people who falsely ramped this war up, the same people that are applauding the 9/11 film would be SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER.
I’m not going to write a letter or call. ABC has the right to show what they want to show. I just wish they would wait on this one.
September 9th, 2006 at 8:47 am
I agree with John H. on this one.
ABC has the right to run the movie if they want to. I also have the right not to watch it.
And the Reagan comparison is a good one. Moore’s movie was a theatrical release. If ABC runs this movie, there are valuable arguments regarding the movie and its timing. And questioning the timing is valid. Moore’s film changed few minds in all honesty, and I don’t think that this movie will send people to the streets either.
Just another distraction from what is really going on in this nation.
September 9th, 2006 at 9:49 am
So, basically, ABC’s “freedom” (which is bought and paid for as one of the high bidders, by the way) means that they can show whatever they want to about any subject (as long as they don’t cuss or flop out a tit) irrespective of the general effects on perceptions of the facts of 9/11. And they are under no obligation to provide balance in exchange for use of public airwaves.
What a world it has become.
September 9th, 2006 at 10:23 am
. . . they [ABC] are under no obligation to provide balance in exchange for use of public airwaves.
Precisely correct. And thankfully so. Because, who would determine where to place the fulcrum of fairness? You? Me? The government?
I think not. Governmentally enforced fairness is inherently unfair.
Instead, fairness can only be found in a laissez-faire marketplace that encourages the unencumbered free exchange of ideas.
Thank God for the First Amendment that prohibits (or should prohibit) the government from punishing ABC for airing this movie, just as it prohibited punishment of CBS for airing a 60 Minutes advertisement for Fahrenheit 911 (to say nothing of that other notorious 60 Minutes fabrication that similarly aired two months before another election). And shame on those in power who implicitly threaten ABC with retaliation.
Finally, I’ve never engaged in a campaign to silence “art” that expresses a competing idea. In part, because it’s a self-defeating endeavor. The resultant tumult is the very best form of free advertising ever devised by man.
Whether the object of your scorn is The Road to 911 or Fahrenheit 911, Passion of the Christ or Piss Christ, every one of those events enjoyed a far wider audience than would ever have been possible if their detractors had just kept their mouths shut.
September 9th, 2006 at 10:27 am
“Fairness” directly relates to “whose ox is gored.” In this casr it reminds me of Rett’s comment to a cyring Scarlette, that she was like the burgular who was “not sorry he stole but terribly sorry he got caught.”
September 9th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
You honestly can’t tell the difference between a documentary shown in the movie theaters with actual footage of the events in question, and a fictional dramatization broadcast on the public airwaves? I call bullshit.
September 9th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
In some places this “fictional dramatization” (which was not characterized as such until the public outcry started), is being marketed by Disney/ABC as “exactly what happened.”
September 9th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
I just posted the entire Australian commercial on Enclave. It claims that the mini-series is the “official true story” of 9/11. Is that what they mean by “fictional dramatization?”