The Path to a Docudrama Debacle

September 9, 2006

Rumors about cancellation appear to have been exaggerated; “The Path to 9/11” is, at least at this point, going to air.

Walt Disney Co.’s ABC is forging ahead with plans to air a miniseries starting Sunday despite controversy over its efforts to dramatize — and some say unfairly politicize — the events leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Producers said late Friday that they had finished making minor edits to “The Path to 9/11” amid a firestorm of protests from leading Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who warned that telecasting “right-wing political propaganda” might violate the terms of ABC’s government-mandated broadcast license.

Critics say that, among other things, the film fabricates scenes and unfairly blames the Clinton administration for failing to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. The network, for its part, has urged critics to withhold judgment until the final version airs.

Thomas Kean, the 9/11 Commission chairman who served as a paid consultant on the project, continues to inexplicably defend the movie, calling it a “first-class project.” Confronted with complaints from President Clinton, lawmakers, and former high-ranking cabinet officials from both parties, Kean said, “That’s the blogosphere, frankly.”

Other docudrama-related items to consider today:

* The director of ABC’s controversial “Path to 9/11” docudrama has ties to an evangelical Christian group whose goals include “transform[ing] Hollywood from the inside out.” TP has more.

* There are now two former FBI agents involved in the project have come forward expressing their concerns about the movie’s accuracy.

* Al Gore, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton added their voices to the criticism yesterday.

* Apparently, the Washington Post isn’t happy about the fact that the movie includes a fictional scene about the Post helping Osama bin Laden.

* White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was mildly critical of the project yesterday, saying, “Presidents of all parties are absolutely serious about trying to keep the American people safe. I think the idea of pointing fingers of blame … is extremely nonproductive, unnecessarily divisive.”

* A growing number of TV critics, who are unconcerned about accuracy or politics, are saying that the docudrama just isn’t any good.

* And, in perhaps the strangest defense of the project yet, director David Cunningham told one reporter, “We have out [sic] CIA consultants and Clinton has his. It’s kind of a ‘he said, she said’ situation right now.”

Someone ought to remind him that he’s entitled to his own opinions, but he’s not entitled to his own facts.

“Rumors about cancellation appear to have been exaggerated; “The Path to 9/11″ is, at least at this point, going to air.”

Damnation! Have these people no shame at all??

  • FYI –

    this is the LATimes’ “most emailed story” today:

    http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-rutten9sep09,0,5194244.story?coll=la-home-headlines

    “ABC follows a path to shame – By Tim Rutten

    Surveying the smoking ruin that is ABC’s reputation after the “The Path to 9/11” debacle, it’s hard to know whether you’re looking at the consequence of unadulterated folly or of a calculated strategy that turned out to be too clever by half.

    At the end of the day, it probably doesn’t make much difference because, either way, the lacerating controversy surrounding the network’s docu-dramatic re-creation of events leading to Sept. 11 is an entirely self-inflicted wound. For most of the week, ABC rather haughtily attempted to characterize itself as the victim of philistines, or self-righteously as a champion of free speech or, more pathetically, as just plain misunderstood by people who just don’t understand how television is done.

    It is none of those things.

    It’s an opportunistic and self-interested organization that somehow thought it could approach the most wrenching American tragedy since Pearl Harbor with the values that prevail among network television executives — the sort of ad hoc ethics that would make a streetwalker blush — and that nobody would mind.

    That part of this whole shabby sequence of events is the hardest to fathom. It’s well understood, of course, that docudramas are seldom documentary and only sporadically dramatic. As a rule, they’re basically devices to free unimaginative writers from the burden of having to make up characters’ names. You simply appropriate the names of real people, then make them do whatever attention-getting thing fills the allotted time.

    But did the people who run ABC Entertainment — the network division directly responsible for this mess — really believe that Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger would watch themselves on television doing and saying thing they never did or said and not object? When these fictional incidents were portrayed as contributing to the deaths of nearly 3,000 innocent people, did they think that the former Clinton administration officials and others so caricatured simply would shrug and say, “Well, that’s dramatic license for you?” Did they really expect anyone to accept the preposterous notion that — as some at the network argued this week — the film’s facts were wrong, but its “essence” was true? These people really need to get out more.

    What’s easier to understand is what ABC thought it was up to with its marketing of “The Path to 9/11” and why it thought a successful marketing campaign might lead our politically polarized nation to feverishly overlook the network’s irresponsibility toward history. After all, why should the many thousands of Americans still grieving for loved ones lost five years ago care about an accurate account of the governmental decisions that may have contributed to those deaths when they could get a good dose of “essence”?

  • “A growing number of TV critics, who are unconcerned about accuracy or politics, are saying that the docudrama just isn’t any good.”

    This is surprising? Has anyone ever seen any right wing “art” that was any good? Actually, “totalitarian art” is a better term, from the no-perspective amateurish crap that dominated western art from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance, to the Nazi Art Hitler put out, to the “socialist realism” of Stalin and Mao, to the “uplifting art” of Thomas Kincade.

    Go look at Cyrus Nowasteh’s resume: the two biggest clinkers in “Into the West,” the hagiography of “The Day Reagan Was Shot”. As far as Cunningham’s work is concerned, the lad should have studied Leni Riefenstahl a bit more, but then she was using original thought with her work, and you’re unlikely to find that when you’re raised from birth in some fundamentalist cult by a whacko father.

    Rutten is definitely right with this point:

    “It’s an opportunistic and self-interested organization that somehow thought it could approach the most wrenching American tragedy since Pearl Harbor with the values that prevail among network television executives — the sort of ad hoc ethics that would make a streetwalker blush — and that nobody would mind.”

    Among writers here in Okeefenokee West, Disney is known for being the worst of all on this level (they’re all bad, but there are degrees of “bad”). I remember 15 years ago a friend calling me up and giving me a phone number to call to “listen to the answering machine message.” It was being passed around among people. I was surprised, since I recognized the number as a friend of mine, a woman who’s a TV writer with lots of credits. So I called and got the machine. In her very nice polite voice, my friend told the caller they’d reached her, she wasn’t there, and to leave a message – then there was a pause, and in a not-nice-at-all tone she said “And if this is one of you cocksuckers from Disney, go die alone in the dark of a socially-unacceptable disease, you shithead.” This was what had everybody calling. I later found out she was in the midst of the famous Disney “development process” (wherein you submit a 100-page script and get 35 pages of “notes” from a minimum of ten “development executives” – a synonym for “otherwise-unemployable USC grad” – and you have to answer each and every point, regardless of its usefulness, intelligence or relevance).

    There’s a reason the place is known as “Mauschwitz”.

    It’s not surprising that our boy Cyrus is a graduate of the USC film school, which is known for being “a mile wide and an inch deep”.

  • I suspect no matter what that ABC/Disney will air this show, and that no amount of crawls or announcements will offset the impression that what airs on TV must be the truth.

    We have been given a gift, but only if we accept it by making it an issue. So we must make lemonade out of some lemons:

    1) Another show, this one titled:

    The Swiftboating of America

    A dramatic re-enactment of a plan by a bunch of radicals to steal an election with lies and propaganda. A “fictional” account. Broadcast it the night before the elections.

    2) Please President Clinton take them to court and sue. Keep it on the front page every day from now until November.

    3) Discuss it with everyone: Wow, did you see all the lies? Don’t these people have any decency for the dead?

    This show is what it is – another in a long line of lies by President Bush/Republicans designed to keep him in power despite the enormous incompetence, mistakes, and outright lies. The problem is that ignorance and lies don’t protect us from very real terrorists (as we found out on 9/11), or help us fix the huge mess President Bush created in Iraq. If all the President’s men could actually concentrate on beating our all too real enemies rather then treating US citizens as enemies (or acting to make boatloads of MORE enemies in Iraq) we probably would have crushed Al Qaeda a long time ago.

  • Methinks its time to hit ABC/D in the only place those schmucks can still feel a damn thing…

    In addition to anything sprinkled with mouse turds:

    Mammoth Records
    Lyric Street Records
    Buena Vista Music Group
    Hollywood Records

    Hollywood Pictures
    Touchstone Pictures
    Miramax Films
    Pixar

    Touchstone TV
    ESPN (Drat!)
    SOAPnet
    Lifetime TV (figures)

    BuenaVista Games

    Hyperion Books for Children (AKA Coming soon to a theatre near you with many expensive tie-ins.)

    Avoid ’em like the hanta virus.

    [NB: This list was created quick n’ dirty from Wikipedia. Feel free to add/subtract, just don’t buy.]

  • We need to add to that list above:

    4) President Bush plans to interrupt the last hour of the show to make a speech. Will wonders never cease? Can the DNC request time immediately after the speech for a response? I suggest Howard Dean, President Clinton, Al Gore, Senator Kerry, Madelaine Albright, Sandy Berger, etc.

    We only make good lemonade if we go head-on at this thing and keep it on the front page all the way to November.

  • It’s to bad the Democrats couldn’t come up with a response to this docudrama with our own five hour, commercial free, prime time TV documentary. Call it “The Road to Fascism” and start the timeline in November 2000. David Niewert has written enough about this to make such a documentary several times over. We need such an effort to fully pull the mask off of the right-wing regardless of the outcome of the November elections.

  • American’s are already badly informed about 9/11 in ways that favor the Bush administration.

    For example, 43% of Americans believe Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks (see http://edition.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/06/iraq.poll/), and 64% of Americans believe that Saddam had “strong ties” to al Qaeda (see http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=684).

    And now ABC wants to broadcast a partisan retelling of 9/11 which will worsen the situation. A film about 9/11 should unite us, not divide us. The story should be told in a non-partisan way.

  • If the director’s group has ties to a Christian evangelical group worried about Hollywood, shouldn’t they focus on stories about selling Christianity? Like a movie about the great works of Billy Graham, Mother Teresa or Pope John Paul II? Or how someone like Bill Mariott can have strong faith and still make a boatload of money? Somehow they feel discrediting Bill Clinton dovetails with promoting Christianity.

  • Channeling Polyanna, I think that although ABC is still going to show the movie and that this publicity will raise the movies profile that the good thing is that everyone who watches the movie now will have a question in their mind about it. It won’t just be passed uncritically into their brains.

    Small comfort. I think I’ll have some Southern Comfort too.

  • from the article jc posted:
    “It’s an opportunistic and self-interested organization that somehow thought it could approach the most wrenching American tragedy since Pearl Harbor with the values that prevail among network television executives — the sort of ad hoc ethics that would make a streetwalker blush — and that nobody would mind.”

    How strange they would bring up this bit about that American tragedy/disaster, didn’t the Mouse greenlight a movie about Pearl Harbor and turn into one big stinking shit fest of a movie?

    Well, suck back those rat turds! They did. The whole excreeable production was a Touchstone production (a wholly owned subsidiary of Diznee) and they butchered history to in an attempt to sell tickets and turn it into another Titanic. A bit less sleazy than allowing debunked lies, but should be no shock as they’d do anything for the almighty $$.

    Stuff like this makes me wonder darkly if prostitution is not just the oldest profession, but the ONLY one…

  • When the Dems retake power, they should do 2 things post haste: Reinstate the broadcasting Fairness Doctrine. Then launch a campaign to decentralize media ownership. And the very first on that docket should be forcing Disney to divest itself of ABC.
    When a major network and studio to team up to produce a partisan hack-job during the election season, it is nothing short of rape of the public trust. Disney/ABC should be so thoroughly raked over the coals, and so drastically punished, that no media exec would dare consider such a stunt again. The more I think about this, the more convinced I become that this should be a no holds barred, no mercy ass whompin on Disney/ABC.

  • I have no intention of watching this propaganda. The far right wing has taken too much of my time already. However if there turns out to be any commercials aired during the program, I hope I’ll see them listed on this blog. That way I’ll know who to boycott.

  • Let’s put the pressure on Steve Jobs, Disney’s largest shareholder. Hopefully Al Gore, who is on the Apple board of directors, is pushing him as well.

  • Things I learned listening to Tom “That’s the blogosphere, frankly” Keane:

    Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger and Madeline Albright run every one of the liberal blogs in the world.

    Even if those millions of blogs were written and maintained by as many people, Keane thinks ABC can afford to alienate us because we automatically don’t comprise any of their viewership.

    The liberal blogsphere cannot be trusted in any way, shape or form but the conservative blogosphere, which championed the Swift Boat Veterans for Truthiness, Jeff Gannon and a whole host of other fraudulent assclowns, can.

    Gotcha.

  • ABC/Disney’s pretty controversy-shy…I have no idea why they wouldn’t pass on this project when it was offered to them; they have a pretty rigorous programming review process. Considering the subject matter, I can’t imagine that the network legal department wouldn’t have raised som red flags. So my question – the one that really isn’t being asked – is why ABC/Disney chose to give this project the greenlight.

    What is the broadcast of this ‘docudrama’ contributing to Disney’s interest?

    Ratings: Are a one-weekend non-sweeps bump in the ratings enough to justify it? Not really.

    A pre-election smear tactic? Yeah, but why would ABC/Disney participate in it so obviously? Their concern is making money, not taking sides…

    …Unless it was in their own interest. I know about significant investments in Disney properties by Prince Al-Walid bin Talal, a Saudi prince with signifcant ties to the Saudi royal family…which has strong ties to Bush. But that’s a bit to conspiracy theory-ish, even for me.

    Jesus, I hate how this administration makes everything look like to a conspiracy to me; they’ve broken my trust that much.

    But if Dubya does interrupt the last hour of the show as suggested above, does anyone think it’s a coincidence that it’s during the part showing him sitting and reading My Pet Goat?.

  • “Someone ought to remind him that he’s entitled to his own opinions, but he’s not entitled to his own facts.”

    C’mon – that’s unfair asking them to stick to proven facts. As Stephen Colbert says “The truth has a well known liberal bias”.

    Where would they be if they stuck to the facts? We’d be deprived of such gems as:

    Saddam Hussein wouldn’t let the UN inspectors in.
    We’ve found WMD in Iraq.
    The majority of the Bush tax cuts goes to lower income people.

  • 9. sublime33:

    “If the director’s group has ties to a Christian evangelical group worried about Hollywood, shouldn’t they focus on stories about selling Christianity? Like a movie about the great works of Billy Graham, Mother Teresa or Pope John Paul II?”

    A good question, except the average Evangelical thinks people like Mother Teresa & Pope John Paul II are Satan’s little helpers. Well, the Pope is Satan’s left hand man.
    I attended an Evangelical church with a friend’s family at the tender age of 13. Friend’s mom told these fine folks my family is Catholic. It was nice, being told I and everyone in my family was going straight to Hell by a bunch of concerned adults. Since then I’ve been told by several seemingly sane people to renounce all ties with the RC lest I spend eternity as a pitch fork decoration.

    As much as I hate to make a sweeping generalization about a religious group, membership in the Evan. branch of Christianity seems require denigrating everyone who doesn’t follow The Word. They give me the creeps. I know the RC has huge problems but I’ve never heard a priest say “Go out and tell people they’re going to Hell.” (Not that I attend Mass that often, but anyway…)

    So, yes it would be nice if instead of lying (which is a sin, last I heard), the producers did inspiring work or work focused on their religion, but they don’t have time for that. They have to control the world because they’re the only one’s who know what God wants and everyone else is evil.

    Hmmm. Does this sound familiar?

  • I will watch this program—and so will a great many of my friends—so that when we rip ABC into a pile of quivering shreds upon the stage of pedagogy, none of their neoconservative, theofascist friends can play the “How-do-you-know?” card.

    However, we will gather together in groups to watch videotaped copies of the program, courtesy of “stacked” videotape machines connected to one specific television set—thus denying “Das ReichsMaus” their precious ratings. I doubt they’d have the audacity to threaten civil action for videotaping their collection of lies—and copyright laws allow “temporary” copies for “educational use.”

    We will employ the Scholastic study-guide to discredit every incorrect assumption and every intentional lie of this treasonous piece of “fantasia-like”*** historical revisionism, and present that material to each and every one of our colleagues and students—thus mounting a total assault upon ABC and their malignant parent with a weapon forged by their own alliances.

    It has become clear, through numerous actions such as this most recent and intentional subterfuge by ABC and its parent firm, the Walt Disney Company, that the intermingling of ultraevangelical radicalism and neoconservative profiteers has but one goal: to establish a Theofascist dictatorship in the United States of America, by means of an “invasion from within.” Thus, let these enemies of the Constitution hear, once again, those words spoken by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on December 8, 1941:

    “Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us.”

    “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.”

    “I believe I interpret the will…of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.”

    “Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

    “…with the unbounding determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.”

    “…that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack…a state of war has existed….”

    If these fearmongers want a fight, then by all means—let it be given them. Task for task, blow for blow—let it be given them….

    ***NOTE—We might refer to this nauseous piece of tripe as “Fantasia 2006—The SwiftMousers.”

  • Steve, #19

    Taping the show and watching as a group to deny ABC the “interest” ratings is a good idea. Apparently, there are also others, even more “expressive”, if you own a TiVo 🙂
    http://xnerg.blogspot.com/2006/09/down-rate-abc-on-your-dvr_08.html

    *That* should take care of bumping their ratings up nicely 🙂

    The idea comes from Daily Kos via ThinkProgress. I highly recommend visiting Think Progress and reading their “Think Fast” section for today; it’s dedicated, entirely, to the ABC and its Twisted Path to Truthiness and full of tasty bits worth exploring (following up on)

    Also… On Raising Kaine (a blog dedicated — mostly — to getting our Senate challenger for VA out and winning), a radio announcer asked people in the area to watch part one and call him the next day with outraged responses (he’ll be on air Monday, but not Tuesday, hence only the part I). To be sure, that will bump his program’s ratings some, but I don’t begrudge it. And I suppose people in other areas could do the same on their local stations, even without specific encouragement, no?

  • jc@12:38 — You left out the stinging part of that article — the last several paragraphs.

    One of the most unfortunate consequences of all this was that most of the news media completely overlook a stunning affront to 1st Amendment freedoms that occurred when the Democratic leadership of the U.S. Senate sent Iger a letter Thursday appearing to threaten the network’s licenses unless “The Path to 9/11” was altered or killed:

    “The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest … ,” the lawmakers wrote. “We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold your responsibilities as a respected member of American society and as a beneficiary of the free use of the public airwaves to cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program.”

    We’ve all become accustomed to a Congress that behaves as if it’s divided between Bloods and Crips rather than Republicans and Democrats — but this was a thuggish new low. If we were inclined to dramatic license, the guys with thick necks in “On the Waterfront” would come to mind, though it’s doubtful even Harvey Keitel could plausibly play Harry Reid as threatening.

  • pol, #21- I loved his article up until that part. I think if he’s going to call someone thuggish, he needs to say why they’re wrong. Why is the Democrats’ telling ABC that they have a solemn public duty wrong? Would any reasonable person think that lying about 9/11 is upholding their solemn public duty? Anyone? Surely the author of the article wouldn’t, unless the content that came before it was said as a joke. I think the Democrats have every right to protest a broadcaster who lies to the American people and that includes threatening their license.

    Some might say that this is a slippery slope. I say that these are lies we’re talking about. Not opinions… not commentary. Lies. No broadcaster should have the right to lie to America. This should be obvious. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to the author, who other than this erroneous comment, wrote a very good article.

  • ” …unfairly blames the Clinton administration for failing to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.”

    The truth is so unfair.

  • Mr. Forward drooled “The truth is so unfair. “

    It’s unfortunate that you’re so unfamiliar with the actual unvarnished truth that you’d think that way. The Clinton record of anti-terrorism is a solid one, but it’s attempts to expand it’s scope were often blocked by the Republican congress. Citing privacy concerns, they denied Clinton tools far less invasive than the warrantless wiretapping they now tout as necessary.

    Pre-9/11, the Bush policy on terrorism seems to have been “ignore it and it’ll go away.” This policy of neglect led directly to the ignored August 6, 2003 PDB titled “bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US”.

    And we all know how that turned out.

  • The other thing about blaming Clinton and the like:

    –his record on terror is not perfect, nor even close, really. But it’s a far cry from saying that than it is to MAKE IT UP OUT OF WHOLE CLOTH, and suggest they had bin Laden surrounded!!! and then said, “Well, never mind.” Mr. Forward, if you can’t understand that, well, you’re either insane or just really really stupid.

  • Nowrasteh, Cunningham and their band of erstwhile evangelical partisans have already begun work on their next project, “Grassy Knoll Gunman – The Clinton Connection to Dealy Plaza”.

  • Does nobody else see a major problem with Al Gore being on the board of directors? I expect no better from politicians of any stripe. They all talk big, and do little. I expect that when the democrats take over it will be business as usual. I bet my life that the fairness in broadcasting act will NEVER be reinstated. Partisan hackery will live on forever.

  • “So, what do you think Sandy Berger was hiding in his pants?”

    Dick Cheney’s maps to Iraq’s WMD stockpiles.

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