Fahrenheit 9/11 - FilmReviews - www.smh.com.au

Fahrenheit 9/11 - FilmReviews - www.smh.com.au: "The job of an intelligence service, as we have been told a lot recently, is to speak truth unto power. At times, this is also the job of the documentary film maker, but Michael Moore inverts the role - he's an intelligence service for the rest of us. That is why he is a hero for the young.
Journalists are supposed to do this too, but I think one reason that his films are so successful is that journalists are failing in that task. The public no longer sees journalists as independent of the powerful, if they ever did.
Let me put it another way: when journalism becomes so degraded that Fox News can get away with the slogan 'We report, you decide', then Michael Moore is what you get in opposition. He makes no secret of his political aim - to unseat George Bush at the next US election. This signals that he is not a journalist, but a player. Mr Moore Goes To Washington, one might say, but he's a lot more savvy than Frank Capra's Longfellow Deeds.
Moore's standard of proof is sometimes too low. He does his cause no credit by making slippery conclusions and never giving anyone the benefit of the doubt. At the same time, he does us all a favour by his dogged pursuit of the powerful, and his refusal to cosy up to them."


By Paul Byrnes