The Paper Never Lies

A couple of days ago we blogged on a story about a possible incident where Moore fabricated a newspaper headline in F9/11.  (See the article for a screen capture of the paper.) A reader named Stuart contacted the paper about this very issue.

Dear Mr. Flick,

Regarding the “The Bloomington Pantagraph” appearing in “Fahrenheit 9/11,” I have recently heard that the headline “Latest Florida Recount Shows Gore Won Election” was actually the title given to a Letter to the Editor; not the headline for a news article, and that the letter ran in the Wednesday, December 5, 2001 edition instead of the Wednesday, December 19, 2001 edition.

Is all of this true?

Sincerely,
Stuart

Mr. Flick then responded:

That’s all correct, Stuart.

Keep me posted with what you’re doing.

This is all getting fun.

So, the “headline” you see in the film is actually a letter to the editor.  Stuart then followed up:

So it IS true that the headline is really the title of a Letter to the Editor, and that it was from Wednesday, December 5, 2001.

Could it be that someone working on “FahrenHate 9/11” fudged the date because he or she knew that, if someone actually checked out the archives of the paper, it would be discovered that the headline was from a Letter to the Editor and not a straight news article?

That wouldn’t make sense, though, because whoever fudged the date would have to know that, if someone looked in the Wednesday, December 19, 2001 archives, the headline wouldn’t be found.  And the fudger would have to know that, if Michael Moore shot back that whoever second-guessed him was wrong because the headline did appear in the December 5 edition, that would still bring to light the discrepancy between the letter’s real date and the one from the film.

So not only am I completely in the dark as to why the date was changed, but I’m at square one over any conceivable explanation.  I can’t assert any theory over motives for the change, but it is a fact that the headline was from a Letter to the Editor and that the real publication date doesn’t match the one in the movie.

Beats the crap out of me, too.  Why, with all the headlines relating to the 2000 election, would Moore need to manufacture one from some relatively obscure newspaper?  The mind boggles.  Any of you Moore fans out there have any idea why your hero would find this necessary?