From ThinkProgress:
Dear DUers,
In the last 24 hours…
Yesterday afternoon, we learned that Scholastic, a major educational publishing company that had been working with ABC, is putting the brakes on its plan to distribute a study guide on the movie to 100,000 high school teachers. Scholastic "determined that the materials did not meet our high standards for dealing with controversial issues."
ABC and Disney have been inundated with emails, calls and faxes over the last week, and our pressure is working. Network executives are reportedly huddling right now trying to figure out how to manage the firestorm you have created.
But time is short, and it's crucial to keep the pressure on. While ABC is a national network, they rely on affiliate television stations across the country to air their programming. Affiliates are in a unique position to influence ABC's decision, since many of them have the authority to preempt network programming.
Today, we need to send them a message that politicizing the facts about 9/11 is wrong. Tell your ABC affiliate to stand up for the truth and refuse to air this so-called "docudrama."
http://thinkprogress.org/abcaffiliates">Find your local ABC affiliate phone number and email address here. Remember to copy us on your emails or tell us about your phone calls at tellabc@americanprogressaction.org
Today is the last business day before "The Path to 9/11" is scheduled to air. Contact your station manager now, before millions of Americans see this skewed, inaccurate version of history that purports to be "based on the 9/11 Commission Report."
Here are some simple talking points that you can use:
-ABC still says this movie is
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/08/911-commissioners-abc=">"based on the 9/11 Commission Report." But numerous 9/11 Commission members have said the miniseries actually directly contradicts their report.
-This is not a partisan issue. Numerous conservatives – including
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/07/bozell-edit=">Brent Bozell, former Reagan aide
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/08/video-bill-bennett-says-abc-should-correct-those-inaccuracies-in-path-to-911=">Bill Bennett, author
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/07/miniter-911=">Richard Miniter, and others – have said that ABC should correct the factual errors in the series.
-ABC has marketed this miniseries to
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/05/abc-distribution=">thousands of high school teachers, urging them to have their students watch. American high school students shouldn't be taught the history of 9/11 using a politically slanted, factually inaccurate docudrama.
If affiliates put this program on the air, more viewers will see it than will ever read the 9/11 Commission Report. ABC is abusing their public trust and doing a disservice to their audience by presenting fiction as fact.
Remember to copy us on your emails or tell us about your phone calls at tellabc@americanprogressaction.org
Remember, you can keep up with latest on our blog: www.ThinkProgress.org