RETROSPECTIVE
‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ 20 Years Later: The Antiwar Film Audiences Were Never Supposed To See
Michael Moore’s documentary is still the highest-grossing documentary at the United States box office
In 2003, millions of protesters around the world demonstrated against plans by the United States government to invade Iraq. But massive global opposition was not reflected in news media coverage.
Viewers of U.S. network newscasts, as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting documented, “were more than six times as likely to see a pro-war source as one who was anti-war; with U.S. guests alone, the ratio [increased] to 25 to 1.”
David Barstow later reported for the New York Times that the Pentagon had conducted an influence operation, which utilized approved “military analysts” as “message force multipliers.” The effort began with the run-up to the invasion of Iraq and continued into 2008.
“Most of the analysts [had] ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they [were] asked to assess on air,” according to Barstow. “Those business relationships [were] hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves.”
