Scholastic, the long-respected kids’ publishing company, has decided to pass on linking up on its website with ABC’s highly controversial “The Path To 911” docudrama and encouraging schools to use the movie as part of classroom study. It’s website announces:
Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company, today announced that it is removing from its website the materials originally created for classroom use in conjunction with the ABC Television Network docudrama, “The Path to 9/ll,� scheduled to air on the ABC Television Network on September 10 and 11, 2006. A new classroom discussion guide for high school students is being created and will focus more specifically on media literacy, critical thinking, and historical background.
“After a thorough review of the original guide that we offered online to about 25,000 high school teachers, we determined that the materials did not meet our high standards for dealing with controversial issues,� said Dick Robinson, Chairman, President and CEO of Scholastic. “At the same time, we believe that developing critical thinking and media literacy skills is crucial for students in today’s society in order to participate fully in our democracy and that a program such as ‘The Path to 9/11’ provides a very ‘teachable moment’ for developing these skills at the high school level. We encourage teachers not to shy away from the controversy surrounding the program, but rather to engage their students in meaningful, in-depth discussion.�
The new guide clearly states that Scholastic had no involvement with developing the ABC docudrama, and that the company is not promoting the program, but that the program can provide a springboard to discussion about the issues leading up to 9/11, terrorism and the Middle East.
This represents the company inching away from getting enmeshed in the controversy over the program, which was given wide advance viewing opportunities via DVDs to Republicans, conservatives and other administration critics but was unavailable to some key Democrats — such as former President Bill Clinton, who is criticized in the film.
CNN notes:
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Clinton Foundation head Bruce Lindsey and Clinton adviser Douglas Band all wrote in the past week to Robert Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Co. , to express concern over “The Path to 9/11.”
The letter writers said that the miniseries contained factual errors, and that their requests for an opportunity to see it had gone unanswered.
In a statement released in apparent response to the growing uproar, ABC said, “No one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible.”
That still leaves this problem: critics of the Clinton administration did not encounter the same problems seeing the unaired film as Clinton, Albright, Lindsey and Band apparently had. AND:
It’s new guide states that it had no involvement with developing the ABC docudrama and that the company is not promoting the program.
The new guide will be available on Friday, Sept. 8, the company said.
So what will the new guide focus on? These areas:
1. Media Literacy – what is a docudrama; how does it differ from a documentary; what are the differences between factual reporting and a dramatization?2. Background to 9/11 – what are some of the causes of unrest in the Middle East and other parts of the world that give rise to attacks on the U.S. and other countries?
3. Geography and Culture — there is a long history of conflict in the Middle East. How well do students understand each of the countries involved and what influences their behavior?
Number one is important: the company is using the ABC film to raise the issue of what a docudrama is — which could make young people not only a bit cautious in believing what they see but perhaps make some of them curious enough to do some research to see how what is on the record stacks up to what they see in future docudramas (or screen biographies, for that matter…).
The other aspect of Scholastic’s action is that it strips away another layer of legitimacy away from the movie. If you couple the fact that it begged off linking up with ABC on this due to the controversy, plus it’s including a look at how accurate docudramas are in comparison with documentaries in the new course of study, it doesn’t enhance the film’s stature.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.