NEW YORK The controversial ABC film "The Path to 9/11," which concluded its two-day run on Monday night, has been hit for alleged political bias, and fictional or compressed events, but a major corporation has now denounced its treatment in the movie, as well.
The film in both its first part and second part appears to suggest that chief hijacker Atta was flagged as a security risk at Boston's Logan Airport by American Airlines personnel. According to the 9/11 Commission Report that incident occurred earlier that morning, in Maine, and the airline was US Airways.
Late Monday, American Airlines released the following statement: "The Disney/ABC television program, 'The Path to 9/11,' which began airing last night, is inaccurate and irresponsible in its portrayal of the airport check-in events that occurred on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
"A factual description of those events can be found in the official government edition of the 9/11 Commission Report and supporting documents.
"This misrepresentation of facts dishonors the memory of innocent American Airlines employees and all those who lost their lives as a result of the tragic events of 9/11."
American said it will have no further comment beyond the statement at this time. But earlier in the day it had sent a letter to those who had contacted the company with the same complaint, inspired by liberal blogger John Aravosis of Americablog. He received a letter which read:
"I think it is important for you to know that ABC had factual errors in its dramatization, and we are looking at possible legal actions as a result. ...Please know this was a tragic incident in our company's history and we hope you will be
sympathetic to our employees and our airline on this day especially. Again, we are outraged by this situation, and we alerted ABC about its gross error. It is very unfortunate."
It was signed by Roger Frizzell, Vice President, Corporate Communications & Advertising, American Airlines.
I'm not sure what else I can say, except that American Airline's lawyers are probably looking very closely at the ABC mini-series, the 9/11 Report, and the libel and slander laws to consider the legal actions they can pursue against not only ABC, but also the parent company Disney. And it is not just American Airlines that may be considering legal actions--how about Sandy Berger, Madeleine Albright, and Bill Clinton?
This is a huge clusterfrack on ABC's part. They decided to take on this huge, five-plus hour political campaign commercial for the conservative establishment, without considering the political backlash such a venture may entail. ABC gave the project to an extreme right-wing conservative to write the screen-play, gave the director's chair to a conservative director, who was the son of the founder of Youth With A Mission YWAM--a right wing conservative Christian group. And now, the story is unfolding that The Path to 9/11 may have been both produced and financed by right wing conservatives and Christian evangelicals. It is like the people who were making this mini-series were more interesting in spinning their own political agenda here, rather than seriously checking the facts. And ABC was dumb enough to go through this entire project without not just checking the facts and details of the script, but also without considering the legal consequences of airing this mini-series.
Now the question is, when will ABC actually be sued for this PR mess?
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