Only the minority party? And only if it’s the Democrats? There are reports that part 2 of this movie “smears” Bush, you know. Are you concerned about that as well?
Why do you guys keep calling this “news”? It’s a movie. OTOH, the Dan Rather fubar was news. And despite what **DtC **says, the contents of the forged documents were not true. So fess up. Either you want the government to censor the news or you don’t-- you can’t have it both ways.
As for the OP, this is a really stupid move for the Democrats. Let the moveon.org types threaten a boycott or whatever, but Congress should stay out of threats to the networks. If they think the truth has been compromised, then they should make an effort to get what they think is the truth out there. Remember, the antidote to misinformation is not censorship, it’s more and open free speech.
You keep sayin’ that as if it is no problem that the senate wants a particular show off the air. Maybe you even believe it.
I’d then go a little further. Maybe the senate majority leader could decide who gets the lead in the next movie of the week, open casting calls in the senate chamber.
Read the preceding posts; Cheesesteak and BobLibDem already addressed this point upthread. As Bob noted, the difference is that Michael Moore was not granted access to the public airwaves to show his work.
And as Little Nemo noted, in a previous case that was parallel to this one—when the network CBS was planning in 2003 to air a movie about the Reagans that Republicans considered biased and inaccurate—the 'Pubs did complain to the network, and persuaded CBS to drop the show. From Nemo’s link:
Well, here’s what’s next. Like it or not, the government does get to make rules about issues like fairness, accuracy and decency when it comes to broadcasting over the publicly owned airwaves (which is why, as Dio noted, they can fine a network for inadvertently showing Janet Jackson’s nipple). So controversial items on network TV can be used as political footballs in ways that aren’t possible for privately produced and distributed works like Michael Moore’s.
You may feel that fostering this kind of controversy is counterproductive, and I may agree with you, but don’t pretend that the Republicans don’t do it too.
They’re billing it as a “docudrama” and calling it “educational/” They are deliberately trying to create an impression that this is a journalistic presentation of facts rather than a right wing piece of fiction.
Yes they were, it just wasn’t the original doocument. So fess up. Either you want the government to censor the news or you don’t-- you can’t have it both ways.
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It’s not about censoring news, it’s about regulating what can be CALLED news over public airways.
A disclaimer would fix everything, by the way. All ABC has to do is run some bumpers during the broadcast admitting that it’s fiction and there won’t be any problem.
From This Review (which is extremely critical of the show, FWIW)
That’s what I thought. You see docudramas all the time “based on a true story” or “based on actual events” that are just as inaccurate as this thing is. Oliver Stone’s “JFK” is pretty batshit crazy, yet ABC could air it commercial free and not be called for innacurate news reporting.
I admit the cite is not exactly impartial, but it seems the fakeumentary has a message and that message is Clinton Administration failures.
Not when they bill it as based on a government report and offer it up as “educational”. The public has come to expect documentaries near anniversaries of historic events, the timing of its showing was meant to play on that expectation.
They’re not going to do that, you know. I’m sure they will place a disclaimer on it, but it will probably say that it’s based on true events although some scenes have been altered for dramtic effect. Or something along those lines. Just because the thing has a few questionable scenes doesn’t make it “fiction”, btw. You’re acting as if the entire movie were made up. Frankly, just marketing it as a movie as opposed to a documentary should be enough. No movie ever gets all the facts right.
I know the FCC has the authority to regulate indency. However, please show me a statute or regulation that says it can police misuse (with a definition of “misuse”), fairness, or accuracy. I don’t think they can do so.
The only contribution I can find by Eisner is one to Arlen Specter, who is barely a Republican. I looked through the list and saw who was listed as an executive, and most other Disney executives listed by opensecrets.org gave to Democrats.
When the government regulates what is called news, that means it censors it. When you have government approving or penalizing a station due to the content of its news stories or dramatic programming, that’s censorship. There’s nothing else to call it.
There is material in the movie which is blatantly false and defamatory. It’s NOT based on “true events,” and it’s not based on findings of the 911 Commission despite the false claim that it is. There needs to be a disclaimer that some “facts” have been invented or else you can welcome a world of politically produced fake news on public airwaves.
What the government can regulate is where this material is broadcast, not what it is. ABC can still show their little piece of shit, drunken, right wing, jerk-off fantasy on the Disney Channel if it wants to.
It’s not news. Nowhere do I see it claimed that it is news, except for you guys right here. Did ABC News produce it? No? Then it’s not news, any more than a drama about Jon-Benet Ramsey or Terri Schaivo or any other noteworthy person or event would be news. The ABC entertainment division produced what will probably be a piece of crap, but it is allowed to broadcast it, and the argument that it is news is disingenuous.
Again, Diogenes, please give me a statute or a regulation that backs up your claim that the government can force a broadcast channel to alter or prevent it from broadcasting a news/drama that has factual inaccuracies.
Take a look at how the show is being marketed overseas and tell me that they are selling this as fiction. Somehow calling it the true story of what really happened and how one decision (spoken as the fictitious event about not authorizing binLaden’s killing unfolds) changed history and LATER in the US, saying “it’s only fiction” doesn’t ring true does it?
I’m sure it is based upon the 9/11 report, in the same way that a movie like Invincible is based upon its source, or Friday Night Lights, or any number of movies that take a few things and alter the rest. So yes, it is undoubtedly “based on true events”.
If they’re claiming it’s an “educational docudrama” based on fact, they’re creating an impression that the claims made within it will be factually accurate. All they have to do is run a disclaimer that it’s NOT factually accurate, that some facts have been invented or altered to serve a partisan, ideological agenda, there will be no problem. They also need to quit saying it’s “educational,” because that’s just a lie.
The Democrats are attempting a form of prior restraint. While it’s not, in the strictest sense, prior restraint, it is members of the government trying to use their access to governmental power to prevent something they don’t like from being aired.
As a Democrat, I’m ashamed. But, as a Democrat, I’m getting used to that.
What you say here is exactly right (in your first paragraph…can’t speak to the second! )
I don’t know exactly what in this movie the Democrats believe will be so damaging to them, or why they believe they will come off looking worse than the current administration. But, I think their leadership should stop and ask themselves whether the action they have taken so far is going to be more damaging to them in the long run than this silly movie ever could be. Let’s face it, as is evidenced in this thread, people are going to believe it or not believe it along party lines anyway. Certainly, if the Dems want to be known as the party of free speech, and hold up the Republicans as the oppressors, this is not the approach I would recommend.
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