Altering the Truth

And the latest chapter in the Michael Moore fake headline scandal has appeared in The Pantagraph.  Once again, Michael Moore lies, distorts, and manipulates the facts, then hides behind his army of corporate lawyers, rather than simply admit his deceptions.

Moore lawyer responds to newspaper complaint
By Bill Flick
flick@pantagraph.com
BLOOMINGTON—The Pantagraph has received its first response from filmmaker Michael Moore about his “makeover” of a Pantagraph page in the hit movie, “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

Moore apparently is not going to say he’s sorry or pay the newspaper’s light-hearted, if not symbolic, request for $1 in compensatory damages.

But his company’s lawyer was willing to spend 37 cents—to send a letter suggesting Moore did little wrong.

New York-based lawyer Devereux Chatillon of the law firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal sent the letter to J. Casey Costigan, the Bloomington attorney representing the newspaper.

Citing several precedents, Chatillon suggested Moore was within his legal right to use a Pantagraph headline in the movie and that no “copyright infringement” occurred.

Further, the letter claims Moore did nothing “misleading” when the headline ("Latest Florida recount shows Gore won election") that originally appeared above a Dec. 5, 2001, letter to the editor was altered in both the font and size of the type for the movie and made to look like a news story from a Dec. 19, 2001, edition of The Pantagraph.

“Baloney,” said Pantagraph President and Publisher Henry Bird, in response to the letter.

Said Costigan, “I disagree that Michael Moore’s use of the headline falls under ‘fair use,’ and I think the letter also takes what Mr. Moore did out of context.”

Bird said the newspaper would consider pursuing the matter further and asked Costigan to send Moore a follow-up letter, encouraging him to explain why a Pantagraph page was altered without permission.

Although offering no apology, the letter from Chatillon, who represents Westside Productions, which produced “Fahrenheit 9/11,” did admit the date of The Pantagraph page flashed in the movie “was unfortunately off by a couple weeks.” But the mistake “did not make a difference to the editorial point ... and was in no way detrimental to (The Pantagraph.)”

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 and his associates’ ties to Saudi Arabian oil interests.

Repeated attempts over the past three weeks to reach Moore by telephone and e-mail have been unsuccessful.