I’m pleasantly surprised to see this story starting to generate some real attention.
Days before its scheduled debut, the first major television miniseries about the Sept. 11 attacks was being criticized on Tuesday as biased and inaccurate by bloggers, terrorism experts and a member of the Sept. 11 commission, whose report makes up much of the [tag]film[/tag]’s source material.
The six-hour miniseries, “[tag]The Path to 9/11[/tag],” is to be shown on [tag]ABC[/tag] on Sunday and Monday. The network has been advertising the program as a “historic broadcast” that uses the commission’s report on the 2001 attacks as its “primary foundation.”
On Tuesday, several liberal blogs were questioning whether ABC’s version was overly critical of the Clinton administration while letting the Bush administration off easy.
I’d say the blogs were doing more than just “questioning”; blogs have pointed out specific problems with the [tag]docudrama[/tag], including its portrayal of events that simply did not happen.
The NYT piece did note a statement from ABC that explained the network’s perspective on the controversy. “The events that lead to 9/11 originally sparked great debate,” the statement said, “so it’s not surprising that a movie surrounding those events has revived the debate.”
By referring to the complaints as a “debate,” ABC seems anxious to characterize the [tag]movie[/tag]’s obvious mistakes as simply a matter of opinion. This, too, is a disservice to viewers. This film bills itself as an objective and factual recitation of real-life events, but it shows viewers incidents that have been created out of whole cloth. There isn’t a “debate” about the facts; there’s a debate about ABC’s culpability in intentionally misleading a national television audience about a national tragedy.
Since yesterday’s item on the docudrama, we’ve learned quite a bit more about the project’s serious substantive flaws.
For example, the movie relays a common myth circulated in conservative circles about the media inadvertently tipping off Osama bin Laden about U.S. surveillance. A CIA official is shown saying, “[E]ver since the Washington Post disclosed that we intercepted his calls, UBL [Usama bin Laden] stopped using phones altogether. He’s using couriers now, like they did a thousand years ago.” This myth, frequently used by conservative media critics to bolster their notion of reporters undermining national security, was debunked years ago.
In another bizarre scene from the movie, Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger is shown talking to a CIA agent who said he had bin Laden in his sights and wanted the go-ahead to kill him. Berger “freezes in dithering apprehension” and the agent never gets the green light. The scene is a particular favorite of the far-right. “[O]ne unbelievable sequence shows how … Sandy Berger … actually hung up the phone on the CIA agent on the ground,” one conservative blogger said.
This, too, is complete fiction. Berger said, “It’s a total fabrication. It did not happen.” More importantly, 9/11 Commission member Richard Ben-Veniste said he is “disturbed” by the scene because there’s no evidence to support it.
Digby, meanwhile, offers a couple of must-read items. One explains that this docudrama, instead of being based on the 9/11 Commission report, is actually more in line with a book written by ABC’s John Miller (a book which the network optioned for the project). The other explores Disney’s slide into conservative-ville. “Something very strange is happening in Mouseland,” Digby noted.
One other point to consider. CBS plans to air an actual documentary on the fifth anniversary of the attacks, which includes the only known footage from inside the Twin Towers that morning, and features real-life dialog from heroic firefighters who were on the scene. Several CBS affiliates are afraid to put it on the air — because the documentary shows some New York firefighters on 9/11 who used profanity.
Given the context, it’s an interesting dilemma — ABC has no qualms about showing a fake documentary with a political axe to grind, but CBS is afraid of airing a real documentary with real-life footage of heroes.
There’s something wrong with this picture.