ABC follows a Path to Shame

ABC FOLLOWS A PATH TO SHAME
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times 9/9, AUTHOR: Tim Rutten]
[Commentary] 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. 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? 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.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-rutten9sep09,1,7622080.c...
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* The Fictional Path to 9/11
"Perhaps the entertainment industry will come up with a few lasting lessons from the outcry over ABC’s “dramatization” of the events leading up to the terrorist attacks on 9/11. One suggestion: when attempting to recreate real events on screen, you do not show real people doing things they never did."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/opinion/12tue2.html

* In response to complaints from former members of the Clinton Administration and their supporters, ABC edited several scenes in the film that critics said suggested Clinton officials had been negligent in their efforts to stop Osama bin Laden in the years leading up to the attacks, including historically inaccurate scenes that they said had been simply made up. But other disputed scenes remained, and several notable mistakes or inventions remained. Among them was the film’s opening scene, which showed Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the terrorists who hijacked four airplanes on Sept. 11, buying a ticket to board an American Airlines flight in Boston on that morning. In fact Mr. Atta boarded a USAirways flight in Portland, Me., which connected in Boston to an American Airlines flight bound for Los Angeles.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/arts/television/12path.html
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* With 9/11 Film, Kean Finds Tough Critic in Hamilton
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/11/AR200609...