United Flight 93's Rightwing ad campaign

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 12:49 PM on April 28, 2006.

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United Flight 93, the film depicting the events of the thwarted 9/11 hijacking has become the subject of a curious controversy.

After Crooks and Liars' John Amato first noticed that the film's marketing team purchased ads on every blog in the Conservative blog network -- and none from the liberal counterpart -- Chris Bowers got rolling.

In a heartfelt post on the film and the curious marketing campaign, the blogger and manager of the Liberal Blog Advertising Network asked:

"Why did the marketers of United Flight 93 decide to only advertise on conservative political blogs? The Liberal Blog Advertising Network is four times as large, and is even a 20-30% better deal per page view (or CPM, to use the relevant industry term). Do they think that attack is only relevant to red America? Do they think that only Republicans were attacked on 9/11? Do they think that only conservatives remember that day? Do they think that the only people who took action on United Flight 93 had voted for George Bush one year earlier?"

The Americans aboard Flight 93 were red and blue, male and female, white and not, gay and straight. They were all heroes, and all Americans recognize them as such. All of America was attacked on that day, and all of America worked to save lives that day. There have clearly been, and continue to be, disagreements about the appropriate course of action for us to pursue as a nation in response to that day. However, on September 11th itself, we were all united, including on United Flight 93.

Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.