A real threat to expression?

This is a tale of two companies and of the vague new world into which corporate accumulation of news and entertainment media has led us.

The unlikely protagonists are Academy Award-winning agitprop filmmaker Michael Moore, the Walt Disney Co., ABC journalist Ted Koppel and Sinclair Broadcasting, a Maryland-based chain of television stations.

At first blush, it would appear that Moore vs. Disney and Koppel vs. Sinclair are similar controversies. In the former case, Disney has come under fire for declining to distribute Moore’s new documentary, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” though it was financed by Miramax, a Disney subsidiary. In the second instance, Sinclair refused to allow the seven ABC affiliates among its 62 stations to air last Friday’s installment of Koppel’s “Nightline,” which was entirely given over to the names and photos of servicemen and women killed in Iraq.

Two cases, in other words, of politically motivated corporations moving to crush the expression of ideas concerning vital national issues. Right? Well, not exactly, and here’s why:

Moore’s film is a highly critical exploration of President Bush’s alleged links to prominent Saudis, including members of Osama bin Laden’s family, and of the chief executive’s performance before and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The news that Disney would not distribute it first broke this week in the New York Times. That account noted that Disney came under fire from conservatives last May, when Miramax agreed to finance Moore’s film. The story also quoted Disney spokeswoman Zenia Mucha, who said the company had informed both Miramax and Ari Emanuel, Moore’s agent, back then that the company would not distribute the movie.

Emmanuel told the New York Times that Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner informed him at the time that the company feared the film would anger the president’s brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who might go after the “tax breaks” Disney receives for its theme park, hotels and real estate developments in that state.

Disney executives denied that, but the Times quoted one unnamed corporate official as saying, “It’s not in the interest of any major corporation to be dragged into a highly charged partisan political battle.”

Corporate timidity?

Probably.

Corporate venality and a threat to free expression?

Not so clear.

Certainly, that’s the way Moore wants us to see it. In an open letter to fans posted on his website, he wrote: “I would have hoped by now that I would be able to put my work out to the public without having to experience the profound censorship obstacles I often seem to encounter. For nearly a year, this struggle has been a lesson in just how difficult it is in this country to create a piece of art that might upset those in charge.” (Moore’s last film, the Oscar-winning “Bowling for Columbine,” grossed $21 million in North America, a record for a documentary. His book, “Stupid White Men,” sold more than 1 million copies.)

Elsewhere on the site, Moore calls attention to the New York Times’ report on Disney’s alleged concern with its Florida tax breaks without noting that the paper was quoting his own agent on the issue.

And what about those alleged tax breaks? As Mike Thomas wrote in the Orlando Sentinel this week, Jeb Bush can’t do anything about anybody’s taxes -- including his own -- without the state Legislature’s consent. Moreover, “Disney pays the same state taxes as any other corporation doing business in Florida. Disney’s one big advantage is that it enjoys governmental powers on its property through the Reedy Creek Improvement District [a real estate development], but this has been in place since 1967.”

And after alleging in his letter that he learned of Disney’s decision Monday, Moore told CNN this week: “Almost a year ago, after we’d started making the film, ... Michael Eisner, told my agent that he was upset that Miramax had made the film ... and he will not distribute this film.”

As Jeb Bush told Thomas, “I am an unwilling participant in the rollout of his new film.”

With “Fahrenheit 9/11” just days from its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, the very shrewd Moore and Miramax’s canny co-chief, Harvey Weinstein, now find themselves in the midst of a potentially lucrative controversy -- distribution deal or no distribution deal. Does the name Mel Gibson and the title “The Passion of the Christ” suggest anything to anybody?

Other points to consider: In this election cycle, according to public records, 62% of the $424,810 that Disney employees have donated to political candidates has gone to Democrats. Another Disney subsidiary, Hyperion, is the publisher of Pacifica Radio commentator Amy Goodman’s virulently anti-Bush book, “Exception to the Rulers.”

And finally, there’s the matter of Koppel and the controversial “Nightline” broadcast. ABC News, which produces the program and employs its anchor, is -- in case anybody missed it -- a property of the Walt Disney Co.

So much for partisan corporate centralism, at least in this instance. Sinclair Broadcasting’s conduct is something else entirely. Sinclair, in fact, is the very model of what Disney is not, a media company with an unabashedly right-wing slant and a tight hold on the news decisions of its stations, some of which air a company-produced newscast that includes commentary by Sinclair’s corporate spokesman, Mark Hyman.

Hyman, in fact, told the Baltimore Sun that Koppel’s broadcast was an “attempt to disguise political speech as news content” and that “there is no journalistic value here.”

In the last presidential election cycle, Sinclair employees donated $174,496 to political candidates, and 98% of that money went to Republicans. The company’s chief executive, David Smith, is a strong supporter of the war in Iraq and of President Bush’s reelection.

He clearly has an appetite to muzzle opposing views. Even in this era of media accumulation, though, suppressing thoughtful journalism of the sort Koppel and his “Nightline” colleagues practice can be an unexpectedly tricky business.

ABC easily lined up other, non-affiliate stations to air that particular “Nightline” in the markets where Sinclair attempted its blackout. Nationally, the program’s audience was 22% larger than the previous Friday and 29% bigger than any other broadcast that week.

The broadcast was titled “The Fallen,” and, according to the people who measure such things, 4,769,600 American households turned on their television sets to watch it.