Media Giants Work Washington To Avoid Political Backlash From Oliver Stone's WTC

Media Giants Work Washington To Avoid Political Backlash From Oliver Stone's World Trade Center...

LA Times | Jim Puzzanghera | Posted July 30, 2006 05:32 PM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/0...g_n_26107.html

It wasn't a new White House initiative or pending bill that preoccupied Rep. Peter T. King one day this spring.

It was Oliver Stone...

...King, whose Long Island district was home to scores of 9/11 victims, peppered Paramount Pictures representatives with questions as they showed him the trailer in his Capitol Hill office in May....

...The meeting was part of a quiet, preemptive effort by Paramount and parent Viacom Inc. to head off any political backlash to Stone's movie.

Executives have been reassuring congressional leaders, White House staff members and lawmakers who represent the New York area, such as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), that Stone is telling a nonpartisan tale of heroism, not advancing his political agenda...

...Viacom's effort to reassure lawmakers underscores how important having smooth relations in Washington is to the media giant, which has at stake such issues as indecency and cable-TV regulations. Viacom this week showed lawmakers the movie, which opens Aug. 9 and tells the story of two Port Authority police officers trapped in the rubble of the twin towers.

Read entire article here.

Screen Cap of the opening comment.

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