Moore edits newspapers
 

Friday, July 30, 2004

Pantagraph to Moore: Headline use 'misleading'

Explanation, apology sought

By Bill Flick
flick@pantagraph.com
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BLOOMINGTON -- The Pantagraph has a message for Michael Moore, creator of the movie hit, "Fahrenheit 9/11":

If he wants to "edit" The Pantagraph, he should apply for a copy-editing job and not simply show made-over and "falsely represented" pages from the newspaper in his movie -- or he should at least ask for permission first.

In a letter drafted Thursday and sent to Moore and the movie's Santa Monica, Calif.-based distributor, Lions Gate Entertainment, the newspaper admonished him for his "unauthorized ... misleading" use of The Pantagraph in the film. He also was cited for copyright infringement.

The letter, drafted by J. Casey Costigan of the Bloomington law firm, Costigan & Wollrab, seeks an apology, an explanation of how such a strange discrepancy occurred in his movie and compensatory damages -- of $1.

"While we are highly flattered to be included in the movie," said Pantagraph President and Publisher Henry Bird, "we are a bit disturbed that our pages were misrepresented."

Previous attempts to reach Moore through Lions Gate by phone and e-mail were unsuccessful.

In the film, Moore criticizes President Bush's handling of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the president's and his associates' ties to Saudi Arabian oil interests.

In a moment early in the movie, newspaper headlines from around America that relate to the legally contested 2000 presidential election flash across the screen. One of them is purported to be from a Dec. 19, 2001, edition of The Pantagraph.

But a check of that day's newspaper revealed the large headline prominently flashed in the movie -- "Latest Florida recount shows Gore won election" -- never appeared in that edition.

Instead, the headline appeared in a Dec. 5, 2001, edition -- but not as a news headline. It was in much smaller type above a letter to the editor. Those headlines reflect only the opinions of the letter writer and are not considered "factual" news stories.

In the movie, The Pantagraph page, as shown, was not how a real page from the newspaper would have looked. Moore's version had a different typeface and a different headline size from what The Pantagraph uses. The newspaper's name, however, appears in the correct font.

The letter calls all of this a "misrepresentation of facts."

The discrepancy first came to light in a July 16 Bill Flick column.

Since then it has become a topic of newspaper articles, radio talk shows and various Web sites.

"In an instance that The Pantagraph prints materials in which there is a mistake," the Costigan letter to Moore reads, "it is corrected. It is our hope that you would adhere to the same high ethical standard and correct the inaccurate information which has been depicted in your film."

The letter calls into question the ethics of how Moore made his movie, a movie whose primary purpose is to call into question the ethics of the Bush White House.

Link

Sounds like he's up to his old tricks. This is the first proof I've seen that wasn't on an anti-moore site.

Why am I not surprised?

Welcome to the wonderful world of politics. Politics and the misrepresentation of facts are two peas from the same pod. The only distinction i see is that people on the right mainly think mm is full of shit while people on the left think the bush admin is full of shit. These are generalizations of course. There are lefties who know mm is full of shit and there are righties who know bush is full of shit.

Because you've already made up your mind about MM and nothing could sway you?

Moore is manipulative.

It's odd it took them so long to notice this.

ROTFFLMAO--

So now Moore has misled the country again by enlarging a letter to the editor? It gets better--he's so dumb that he actually left a trail that allowed people to check his "facts?"

But this hubbabaloo is over a fuqin movie?

This thread is going to become another waste of time for thinking persons...

what is this conservative obsession with michael moore about anyway?
and why dont they see that it is entirely self-defeating?
they are the best advertising a director could have.
they keep his name in the press and are still finding ways to do it.
their shrieking has no doubt contributed to the film's financial success.
the trivia-filled smear campaigns that follow one on the other keep revealing the nature of conservative pseudo-information sources and circuits.
if the right had wanted to do something to moore, they would have done better to ignore him.
but maybe it is better for the rest of us that they maintain their current procedure of self-delegitimation.

I have to agree with roachboy. If you keep scratching at him, he's just going to itch that much more. The conservative right would have been better served by following the example of most thinking liberals. Point at Moore, and laugh. Then just ignore him, like a teenager ignores his eight year old brother. Sooner or later, he'll get hungry (and from the looks of things, sooner), and go get a real job. Face it...the man thrives on all of this attention, and those who dispise him the most, are the ones feeding it to him. I don't get it.

It's the same obsession and advertising the left gives Limbaugh.

They are one in the same. They both take slivers of fact and use those slivers to get away with "creative ambiguity". So when you do check the facts they can say "well, it was implied in there."

Limbaugh and Moore are both guilty, and they both have people that love them, but make their fortunes off the ones that hate them and advertise what they have to sell. Then there are the ones that see these 2 as they are, entertainers who have agendas. The more attention the left gives Limbaugh or the right gives Moore the more their product sells.

IMHO, they are just entertainers, I take what they say with a grain of salt and believe very little out of either (Limbaugh can be very funny and has his good points as does Moore).

The problem I have with their agendas is that they both contribute to hate politics and divide the country further and hatred and divisiveness are the last things this country needs. Eventually and I see a tide coming, where hate politics will start dying then neither Limbaugh nor Moore will have jobs.

Excellent observation. As is with most things, it is the smallest of factions, in this case those factions being those residing on the extreme right, and the extreme left, that make the most noise. Make enough noise, however, and their rantings begin to take on a semblance of plausibility. Personally, I sit back in quiet amusement. The more that the Democrats and Republicans tear at each other...the better we Libertarians start to look to a larger segment of the population. Beware the quiet man. He's not wasting his time talking...he's doing.

pan:
in a general kind of agreement, but------

i'm sorry, but i do not see the equation of moore to limbaugh at all.

nor do i understand on what possible basis you characterize moore as engaging in the "politics of hate"...that seems warped as a perspective on his work (all of which i have seen)

the full disclosure part: i am not particularly a fan of moore--it is a pain, because i agree in principle with his positions---but i do not think that he argues his positions well intellectually---he is a better filmmaker than a spokesmodel for progressive politics.

Roachboy,

Moore blames everything on the right (read Stupid White Men).
Limbaugh blames everything on the left.

Neither focuses on how to better the country, they just try to stir up reasons to not vote for the other side.

It is easy to blame someone for the past, but true visionaries and great men focus on how to better the future and don't blame the past on any man or party but knows the past happened because we are all human and make mistakes and none of us are perfect.

A true visionary will say together we can make the country better and this is how.

A true visionary will use his rival's ideas if they work and will give credit where it belongs because he knows it unites and makes us better by doing so.

Moore and Limbaugh both say this is why we are in this mess and it's their fault. And the only solution they offer is to vote for their party because the other side is fucked up.

Neither says, we can do better and this is how. If anything they talk down to people and criticize and bully people into seeing their respective side and will not give any ground.

To me that's hate politics.

I think you are greatly oversimplifying Limbaugh's politics. He has chastized Republicans (Bush specifically) many times for giving in too often to Democrats and straying from a "Reaganesque" smaller-government mindset. Limbaugh does not love all Republicans, and he doesn't exempt himself or Republicans from all blame. He sensationalizes, but I think that is the most serious charge against him.

My vote for most serious charge is that he's a filthy liar.

pan:
ok---when things slow down at my end of the cosmic debris field, i'll maybe read moore's book--but like i said earlier, i am not a fan of his when he is not making films, so i havent read any of his stuff up to now.

i have--for better or wrose--checked out limbaugh pretty extensively--learning the enemy, dontcha know---and unless moore's book is just goofy, i would be inclined to argue for a difference between them at some point.

but i'll wait until i read the book or at least some of it (assuming the kind of irritation that prompted me to throw alan blooms wretched "closing of the american mind" around my apartment when i had to read it might return)

thanks for the explanation....

The fact that they demanded $1 in compensation and that they have the paper's humor columnist (Bill Flick is a kind of watered-down dave berry wannabe) writing these articles should give you an idea how serious this issue is. It's hilarious that the paper is trying to maintain its objectivity and, at the same time, produce something intended to be picked up by other media outlets. The Pantagraph does have a notoriously conservative editorial board. For anyone who really cares here is an update from today's paper:

I am so tired of Michael Moore. He just can't control himself. He is so passionate about his beliefs that he is willing to blur the lines (and frequently erase them) between truth and fiction. While I like the fact that he raises questions and challenges the administration, his work harms his causes as much as it helps them.