ABC's "The Path to 9/11" vs. Orson Welles "War of the Worlds"

[McCamy Taylor]

After watching the trailer in which ABC promises to tell "The official true story" about 9-11 which can be see on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHgbeJu1WGk , I could not help but think of Orson Welles' famous or infamous CBS broadcast of "War of the Worlds" as a Halloween special. His radio play was framed as a live news broadcast, and it was timed so that most listeners would miss the initial disclaimer. The result was what he wanted. He scared the pants off a lot of people. http://history.acusd.edu/gen/filmnotes/waroftheworlds1938.html "A panic spread quickly among radio listeners. The CBS switchboard was overloaded, the New York Times took 875 calls, and AP issued a bulletin at 8:48 pm that there was no invasion from Mars. New Jersey highways were clogged with cars fleeing to New York and Philadelphia, and gas masks were donned by some residents around Trenton.... CBS had to settle lawsuits out of court for several thousand dollars and the FCC made an investigation but took no action. Hadley Cantril, a psychologist at Princeton, conducted a study of the panic, concluding that 2 million people thought it was real, especially affecting those with lower education living in the South."

The controversy about how much license radio and TV broadcasters can take when they pretend that fiction is real continues on to this day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(radio) "Because of the panic in the 1930s and 1940s associated with this radio play, U.S. TV networks have deemed it necessary to post bulletins to their viewing audience to inform them some TV stories were in fact fictional drama, and not really happening. Disclaimers of this sort were shown during broadcasts of the 1983 television movie Special Bulletin and again during the 1994 telefilm, Without Warning, both of which were dramas disguised as realistic news broadcasts (Without Warning, presenting an alien attack on Earth, acknowledged that it was a tribute to War of the Worlds and was broadcast on CBS TV on the 56th anniversary of the radio broadcast). NBC placed disclaimers in an October 1999 TV movie dramatizing the possible disastrous effects of the Y2K bug even though it was obviously drama and was unlikely to be confused with reality."

American broadcasters are well aware of the problems that arise when they market fiction as the gospel truth. Orson Welles made them all aware. It leads to confusion on the part of viewers, then anger when they realize that they have been deceived. Viewers lose respect for the broadcaster. Goodwill that has been built up over years gets flushed down the toilet. If the entertainment section can not tell lies from truth, then the news section can not be trusted either. ABC's well known parent company, Disney is especially vulnerable to bad pr. If ABC/Disney lies to children through its partnership with Scholastic can it be trusted with the nation's children?

It can not be ratings that ABC is after since it has been unable to line up commercial sponsors for this turkey---what company is going to risk a Democrat boycott? The production values apparently suck, so we are not talking Emmies here. So why is ABC doing last minute advertising for The Path to 9/11 as "the official true story?"

I can only surmise that ABC or Disney hopes to gain something that outweighs public trust, good will, critical acclaim and increased advertising revenue---the goodwill of the political party that controls the FCC, Congress and the White House. There are doubtless many things that Disney/ABC wants from the Republicans. Disney got one of them back in April, 2005, right about the time that production would have started on "The Path to the Path to 9/11". http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28496-2005Apr5.html Sen. Ted Stevens and Sen. John McCain were working on legislation that was going to hurt Disney's empire by allowing American consumers to pick and choose which cable channels to buy--which would have left Disney Channel out in the cold in many American households. Just think. No indoctrination in the rat. No chance for merchandising. No family trips to the theme parks. No sales of dvds. But luckily for Disney, the new FCC head was a reasonable man. It just makes you wonder what exactly was his reason for squashing legislation that the values wing of the Republican Party favored.

Anyway, when the shit hits the fan, ABC can not plead ignorance or artistic license or claim "We never expected that this would cause so much controversy." They have been advertising this as the official true story and those words will come back to bite them on the ass.