:toast:
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/09/nsa-story-v-911-film-liberal-msm.htmlNSA story v. 9/11 film -- the "Liberal MSM" strikes again
(updated below)
The reason why there is so much intense objection over ABC's 9/11 propaganda film isn't merely because it inexcusably relies on total fictions in order to assign blame for 9/11 -- although that would be cause enough for protests. Well beyond its fabrications, what makes it so inexcusable is the timing of the film -- two months before a critical election -- along with the fact that it is tailor-made for advancing the Republicans' central electoral strategy of hyping the terrorist threat and blaming Democrats for failing to confront that threat.
Path to 9/11 is basically one big five-hour, prime-time Republican propaganda political commercial on the most important political dispute our country faces, masquerading as a film by ABC, which is broadcasting it for free. It is its intended impact on the imminent election which is what makes Disney/ABC's conduct so uniquely appalling here.
Contrast Disney's conduct with what The New York Times did with regard to the NSA warrantless eavesdropping story prior to the 2004 presidential election. When the Times first published the story on December 16, 2005, it admitted that it sat on the story for some time, but misled its readers -- as its own Public Editor, Byron Calame, recently noted -- by claiming that it "delayed publication for a year," meaning beginning in December, 2005, after the election. But it was then later acknowledged by Bill Keller -- accidentally, during an online chat with readers -- that the Times actually had the story in final draft form ready to go in late October/early November, 2004 -- prior to the election.
After giving all sorts of shifting and contradictory reasons as to why the Times held the story, Keller finally admitted in an interview with Calme that part of the reason for holding the story was a fear of unfairly influencing the election. As Calme reported:
Holding a fresh draft of the story just days before the election also was an issue of fairness, Mr. Keller said.We're not talking here about a fictionalized film, but one of the most important journalistic stories of the last decade -- and the Times held it, in part, out of fear of unfairly influencing the election. If anything, the Times ought to have rushed to find a way to publish the story before the election precisely to avoid a situation where voters were electing a President without knowing that the President was violating the law by eavesdropping on them without warrants (and they could then decide that they approved of that program as a necessary counter-terrorism measure or disapproved as a lawless act). But they withheld it until after the election.
What possible justification, then, exists for ABC to broadcast this mini-series now, as opposed to, say, three months from now? Jane Hamsher and others have suggested that delaying the 9/11 broadcast until after the election would be a fair compromise -- it would allow ABC to broadcast this propaganda if it really wants to while avoiding undue influence on a major national election by injecting into it a bunch of fictionalized propaganda manufactured on behalf of its entertainment division and one of the two political parties contesting the election. Major networks are trustees of the public airways, and the last thing they ought to be doing is trying to sway imminent elections by taking sides -- via a work of admitted fiction -- in the most critically important political disputes our country has.
...
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
