Okay, I admit it, my curiosity got the best of me. So I decided to call a few ABC local affiliates and see what the deal is, specifically whether they were planning on airing ABC’s Path to 9/11 and whether they planned on airing any rebuttal to the alleged errors contained in it.
I tried to get through to someone at Boston’s WHDH. But I couldn’t find a number that anyone would answer. So I moved on to KABC, the LA station that I grew up watching. The woman who I spoke to informed me that, yes, they were airing it. And no there would not be any rebuttal. However, there was going to be a “disclaimer” shown “throughout” the two night presentation. I had a hard time getting down the whole text of the disclaimer she read out to me. So I asked if she could email it to me. But she said she wasn’t allowed to do that.
Anyway, after that, a few readers helpfully pointed out that the ABC stations in the biggest markets are pretty much all O&O’s. That is, Disney/ABC owns the stations themselves. So they’re not really affiliates and they have no independent choice whether to air the movie. Apparently, at least New York, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, Philly and Houston are all covered by Disney.
Do you live in a media market with an ABC channel that isn’t directly owned by Disney?
Late Update: My bad. The Boston ABC affiliate is WCVB.
