Yesterday, I sold stock in Disney that I had owned for a number of years. Here are the letters I sent to Disney investor relations, including their one response.
I have edited these letters only to remove personal or self-identifying information, not to improve what I wrote or remove errors such as initially referring to the Disney Corporation rather than the Walt Disney Company. To the list of requested actions I would add airing a full rebuttal by critics.
So what do we do? I don't want to waste effort on Disney that should go toward more important purposes, but I also don't want to let them off the hook for a terrible decision that associated this propaganda piece with the real tragedy of 9/11, inserting its misleading images and false dialogue into the national imagination just before a national election.
To Disney Investor Relations: (middle of last week)
I am a Disney stockholder, and I have always had a generally favorable view of the Disney Corporation, including on social responsibility, in the past, particularly because of Disney's willingness to provide domestic partner benefits.
However, I am very disturbed about what I am hearing about the "Path to 9/11" program to be aired soon, which apparently contains smears against the Clinton administration, and false information about members of that administration such as Madeline Albright. Also, it appears that more information in advance of the piece is being shared with right-wing groups than with the people being smeared.
I cannot believe that over $30 million dollars was spent to produce a piece of right-wing propaganda mixing fact and fiction in a manner viewers will not be able to separate, especially less than 60 days before an important national election. Who was behind this and how did it get produced?
This irresponsible program completely changes my view of the Disney Corporation, and if it is broadcast, or broadcast without full equal-time rebuttal by those blamed within it, I can no longer consider Disney a socially responsible investment.
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Dear Shareholder, (the next day)
Thank you very much for your interest in ABC TV Network programming.
"The Path to 9/11" is not a documentary of the events leading to 9/11. It is a dramatization, drawn from a variety of sources including the 9/11 Commission Report, other published materials, and personal interviews. As such, for dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue, and time compression. No one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticismsof film specifics are premature and irresponsible. The attacks of 9/11 were a pivotal moment in our history, and it is fitting that the debate about the events related to the attacks continue.
We hope viewers will watch the entire broadcast of the finished film before forming an opinion about it however if you are interested in providing feedback to the Company about The Path to 9/11 at this point, please call 818-460-7477 or log onto ABC.com, and click on "Contact ABC" at the bottom of the page. There you will see a feedback form to complete.
We appreciate the time you have taken to write to us.
Thank you for your interest in The Walt Disney Company.
Sincerely,
Kim McKiernan
Shareholder Services
Dear Kim, (last Friday)
As a shareholder, I have a stake in how the company's decision affects the company and its public perception, so I believe it is quite appropriate to comment to investor relations on a high-profile event such as the Path to 9/11 miniseries.
While it is true that I have not seen it yet, I find it quite offensive to be told that it is "irresponsible" to criticize the film at this point. It is clearly affecting the image of the company, and enough information has been released to see that this production stands to hurt the company, including the possibility of legal liability for defamation of members of the Clinton administration.
What is irresponsible is doing a "docudrama" or "dramatization" on 9/11 in the first place. I understand that it is not a documentary, and that is exactly the problem. It contains fictionalized material mixed in with factual material, and viewers will not have the means to distinguish which is which. It plays right into the hands of partisan politics within 60 days of a national election. There are credible reasons to believe that a right-wing agenda influenced the tone and plot of the dramatization, and such bias almost certainly cannot be removed by mere edits. There was clearly partisan bias in the marketing and pre-release information given to the likes of Rush Limbaugh but not those of other political persuasions.
No amount of editing will solve this problem. This piece simply should not be run, and I cannot consider the Walt Disney Company to be a responsible corporation if it runs this miniseries. Other television productions have been canceled in the past for similar problems, and this one should be canceled, too.
[no response from investor relations]
To investor relations and all at the Walt Disney Company:(today)
I am deeply disturbed by Disney and ABC's decision to air the Path to 9/11 "docudrama" on Sunday and Monday. To identify it as a right-wing election-season propaganda piece is clearly no longer "premature and irresponsible" (the insulting words used against investors who objected to this film based on credible reports of its content). From the falsified details to what was left out to the tone and slant of the entire program, the bias was blatantly obvious. The Walt Disney Company's decision to allow this to air was incredibly irresponsible and insensitive to the real tragedy of 9/11.
I have just sold the Disney shares I owned for almost a decade. As part of my work in social justice ministry, I am promoting divestment from Disney and boycotting of Disney and ABC in every way feasible.
I've seen some pretty bad examples of corporate irresponsibility, but I think this one takes the cake. To allow the story of 9/11 to be fictionalized to score political points...just shameful.
To mitigate the harm of this bad decision, Disney would have to:
1. Apologize to its viewers for the bias, innacuracy and misleading political agenda of the program, and apologize to all those defamed within it.
2. Cease all further distribution of the program in all markets, domestic and foreign.
3. Investigate how this travesty was produced and fire those responsible for it.
4. Begin work on an accurate, hard-hitting documentary (NOT a "docudrama") about the true story of 9/11, or better yet, the true story of the path to Iraq.
Your former investor,
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