Censorship

The Suppresion Of The Prosecution Of George W. Bush for Murder

Posted by on July 7, 2008 at 12:39 am. 1 Comments :

Former Los Angeles county prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, has published several best-selling books and received many awards for his writing. But he is still having trouble getting the media to cover the release of his current book, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.”

The book’s provocative title foretells a serious exploration of the legal case to be made for trying Bush for the murder of American soldiers killed in Iraq. The publisher describes the book as…

“…a tight, meticulously researched legal case that puts George W. Bush on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers fighting the war in Iraq. Bugliosi sets forth the legal architecture and incontrovertible evidence that President Bush took this nation to war in Iraq under false pretenses-a war that has not only caused the deaths of American soldiers but also over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women, and children; cost the United States over one trillion dollars thus far with no end in sight; and alienated many American allies in the Western world.”

But this successful, highly regarded author is being given a cold shoulder by the media who are instrumental in the marketing of such products. Bugliosi even reports that Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and MSNBC are declining to book him for interviews. He says that…

“They are not responding at all. I think it all goes back to fear. If the liberal media would put me on national television, I think they’d fear that they would be savaged by the right wing. The left wing fears the right, but the right does not fear the left.”

Even worse, Jon Meacham of Newsweek admitted that the reason Bugliosi is being shut out is that, “…there’s a kind of Bush-bashing fatigue out there.” The notion that editors are blocking the promotion of controversial works on that basis is rather chilling. Firstly, because there is no foundation for drawing such conclusions. While there is plenty of disdain for Bush, who many historians have crowned the worst president ever, I have seen no evidence of the public tiring of documentary proof of that designation. Secondly, because the merit of the content ought to be the determinative factor as to whether to engage the author. If the work is meaningful, well-constructed, and has value to our society and its institutions, the media ought not to bury it for reasons that are arbitrary or biased.

If someone of Bugliosi’s stature is inhibited in this manner, what does that portend for lesser known authors? What does that portend for free speech? Why can’t they just let the people decide?

Philadelphia Radio Station Blocks Democratic Ad

Posted by on July 3, 2008 at 5:48 pm. 7 Comments :

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has produced a radio ad for broadcast in 13 Republican held House districts. In the Philadelphia district served by Jim Gerlach KYW-AM is refusing to air this ad.

The advertisement features a George W. Bush impersonator pretending to be talking to the Republican representative and thanking him for standing by the administration’s agenda on behalf of Big Oil and the “Grand Oil Party.” But apparently that’s too much for the tender sensibilities of KYW’s audience, at least according to its general manager, David Yadgaroff.

“As an all-news station, we were concerned that our listeners would have been misled by usage of an impersonator in the creative delivery.”

Were I a Philly resident, I would be insulted by Yadgaroff’s condescension. Does he really believe that his audience is too stupid to figure out that this is a political ad? More importantly, does he have such disrespect for his community that he would engage in wholesale censorship based on such a disparaging assertion? Apparently so.

Clear Channel Bans Bushmen Ad

Posted by on June 27, 2008 at 10:50 am. 2 Comments :

Harry Shearer BushmenAuthor, satirist, and the voice of innumerable Simpsons characters, Harry Shearer, has a new CD coming out that typically skewers politics and culture. The title of the project is Songs of the Bushmen and features a debut single about the “935 Lies” told by the Bush administration in the run up to the invasion of Iraq.

Clear Channel, however, despite being an avowedly conservative media enterprise (they gave 77% of their $300K+ PAC contributions to Republicans in 2004), is demonstrating their opposition to free speech and markets by refusing to allow ads for Shearer’s work to appear on their billboards.

This is consistent with Clear Channel’s history of partisan censorship. They have previously refused ads for VoteVets and they nixed the Dixie Chicks from their radio network. And let’s not forget their ludicrous list of banned songs post-9/11.

Spin-Com: Obama And Clinton Step Up – Media Cowers

Posted by on April 29, 2008 at 12:32 am. NO Comments :

SpinComThe propaganda scandal uncovered last week by the New York Times has been virtually blacked-out by the rest of the media – particularly television. Even though this may be the most brazen act of disinformation ever perpetrated against American citizens. Why would the press seemingly act in concert to bury this story?

It really doesn’t take much imagination to understand the panic these media outlets must be experiencing. The Pentagon-driven program of dispatching retired generals to serve as TV pundits with the intention of painting an artificially rosy picture of the war in Iraq poses a slippery dilemma. These TV networks were either pawns, dupes, or accomplices, in a scheme to mislead the country and enrich the players. Therefore, it is not surprising that the media has acted to sweep it all under the rug. To report on it would be to indict themselves.

Well, at least some of the candidates for president have finally weighed in:

Senator Clinton is very concerned by a recent press report that the Department of Defense (DOD) hid behind “an appearance of objectivity” in a concerted media “campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.” The report raises issues of credibility and trust at the Pentagon.

~~~

Senator Obama is deeply disturbed by this latest evidence that the Bush Administration has sought to manipulate the public’s trust. From its misleading case to go to war with a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, to its argument for keeping our troops in Iraq indefinitely, the Administration has depended on spin because its assertions have not been supported by facts.

Both Democrats are calling for various levels of investigation. So is the Pentagon, whose spokesman has announced that they are temporarily suspending the program “pending further review.” The only candidate to fail to take a position is that straight-talking maverick, John McCain. Of course he may be the only public official who has been even more unquestioningly upbeat than the bought and paid for war spinners.

This isn’t over. It is still possible to get the press to be responsible and to perform their duty to inform the public. Write letters and emails to any national and/or local media outlet you patronize. And be sure to visit FreePress where they are collecting signatures to urge Congress to further investigate this breach of the public trust.

Indiana Student Newspaper Honors Freedom Of The Press

Posted by on January 23, 2008 at 12:53 pm. NO Comments :

The Indiana Daily Student, a newspaper run by students at Indiana University, has taken a stand on press freedom that the professionals ought to take note of.

When Bush’s former deputy national security adviser, Meghan O’Sullivan, came to speak for the school’s Student Alliance for National Security (SANS), she insisted that the speech be off-the-record. This would not be out of character for an operative from the secrecy-obsessed Bush White House. O’Sullivan was also a top aide to Paul Bremer who led Iraq’s Coalition Provisional Government after the fall of Saddam. So O’Sullivan was a key architect of the administration’s disastrously failed policy in Iraq every step of the way.

Concerns were raised about O’Sullivan’s insistence that the lecture be kept private because it was to be given to a group of 70 students in a public hall and was paid for with university funds. That makes it a little difficult to assert that there was plausible anxiety that classified information would be revealed if the press were allowed to report on it.

To it’s credit, the Indiana Daily Student declined to agree to O’Sullivan’s off-the-record demands. Shortly thereafter, O’Sullivan canceled the event saying that she had become “sick to her stomach.” However, she appeared later the same evening at a private dinner with members of SANS. Her speedy recovery notwithstanding, she still refused to repay the fee she received for the lecture she never gave.

The Indiana Daily Student deserves to be congratulated for their adherence to journalistic ethics. It’s too bad that their elders in corporate media have let their idealism lapse so badly.

Fox News Is Scared Of Ron Paul

Posted by on January 1, 2008 at 1:04 pm. 3 Comments :

Fox canceledA Republican presidential primary forum in New Hampshire is set to proceed on January 8, two days before the New Hampshire primary, without the participation of Ron Paul. Paul’s exclusion has understandably infuriated his supporters but it has also revealed a(nother) gaping hypocrisy at Fox News.

Never mind for the moment that Paul is polling ahead of Fred Thompson, who has been invited to participate. And set aside the fact that Paul has broken fund raising records, accumulating over $19 million dollars in the last quarter.

The part of this story that I find noteworthy is that Fox News, who has lambasted Democrats for declining to appear in Fox-sponsored debates, is now using questionable criteria to decide whom they will permit to grace their debate stage. Fox thinks it’s inexcusable for Democrats to voluntarily refuse to subject themselves to the abuse of a network that has been overtly hostile to them, but that it’s perfectly swell for the network to involuntarily refuse to allow viable candidates to take part in their supposedly public forums.

Fox News, and their disciples, has said that Democrats are just scared to appear on the network. Now Paul has accused the network of being scared of him:

“They are scared of me and don’t want my message to get out, but it will. They are propagandists for this war and I challenge them on the notion that they are conservative.”

Chris Wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday, will be the moderator of the New Hampshire forum. But he and Fox News have declined to comment on the Paul controversy. Wallace didn’t have any such hesitation when called upon to comment on the Democrats:

“I think the Democrats are damn fools [for] not coming on Fox News.”

Well, Ron Paul wants to come on Fox News but Fox won’t let him. This is a thorough vindication of the Democrat’s decision to shun Fox. Now it’s the Republicans turn to suffer the prejudices practiced by Murdoch, Ailes, Wallace, etc. It serves them right. Perhaps now they will realize that a network that traffics in propaganda and bias is not beneficial even it is slanted your favor. If Republicans were interested in doing the right thing (for once), they would join the Democrats’ embargo on Fox and steer their candidates away. [For more on why all Democrats and progressives should stay the Hell off of Fox, read Starve The Beast]

Now, I’m no disciple of Ron Paul. In fact, I regard him as a dangerous political anachronism who would roll back gains in civil rights, foreign affairs, economic justice, and more. He advocates a deregulation agenda that would permit corporations to run roughshod over public interests including abandoning Net Neutrality. But Republican voters have made him a contender in their primary process and it isn’t up to Fox News to weed him out.

Hypocritical Standards Practiced At NBC

Posted by on December 9, 2007 at 1:34 pm. NO Comments :

A few days ago NBC rejected an ad from Freedom’s Watch, a pro-war conservative front group for Republican interests. This was the second time that FW submitted an ad that exceeded the standards for broadcast due to its overt political content. In the previous ad they asked viewers to call their representatives and voice their support for the President and the war, but the phone number went to an operator who asks if you agree with the ad. If you do, your call is patched through. If you do not, they hang up on you.

Now NBC has reversed itself and approved the new ad for broadcast. I don’t particularly have a problem with that since I have long been troubled by the way networks make judgments regarding political content. But I do wonder why NBC caved in to the former White House operatives at FW when they never did so with ads from progressive groups. For instance, in November of 2004, NBC rejected an ad from the United Church of Christ simply because they expressed an inclusive philosophy that welcomed all people, including gays. In October of 2006, they refused to air an ad for the Dixie Chicks documentary, “Shut Up & Sing,” because it was disparaging to the President.

Hypocrisy in the media is rampant, and this is just more evidence of it.

Fox News Censors Guantanamo Ad

Posted by on December 4, 2007 at 2:37 pm. NO Comments :

When the Center For Constitutional Rights submitted the ad below to Fox News, the network rejected it in a letter from Fox News account executive Erin Kelly:

“We cannot approve the spot with it being Danny Glover’s opinion that the Bush Administration is destroying the Constitution. If you have documentation that it is indeed being destroyed, we can look at that. Sorry about that,”

Does Kelly really think that the ad is asserting that the actual Constitution is literally being physically destroyed by George Bush? Or is she suggesting that documentation be provided to prove a metaphor for the administration’s anti-Constitutional behavior? Either way, she is treading dangerously close to clinical insanity.

More likely she is merely carrying out the policy of Fox News to suppress any and every critical opinion of their benefactors in the White House and the Republican Party. Censorship and propaganda once again rule the day at Fox.

Bill O’Reilly: Censorship, Lies And Plunging Popularity

Posted by on November 28, 2007 at 12:12 pm. 1 Comments :

A couple of days ago Bill O’Reilly again demonstrated his aversion to free expression as well as his penchant for dishonesty. An op-ed that appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (a paper that O’Reilly regularly castigates as “far-left loons”) laid out a case for Impeachment: If not now, when? The column was accompanied by a political cartoon that had Bush and Cheney dressed up for their mugshots.

That was more than enough to set O’Reilly off on a rant that amounted to a call for censorship (YouTube):

“Look at this. This is ridiculous […] It’s based on nothing […] I want you to excoriate them. Let them have it […] It’s wrong though for them to do it. Don’t you think that showing a mug shot of a sitting president, a sitting vice president is irresponsible?”

O’Reilly is outraged that anyone would exercise their First Amendment rights to express an opinion about the criminality of this administration. He believes that such open expression “diminishes intelligent conversation,” (as if O’Reilly ever engaged in one) and his response is to shut down conversation entirely. Note that O’Reilly is complaining about the cartoon, not the content of the article. Although he does say that the cartoon is “based on nothing,” despite the fact that it is attached to a well-documented column that enumerates specific justifications for investigating the President and his administration.

After once again calling the paper “loons,” (an example of his idea of “intelligent conversation”) O’Reilly attacks the paper’s credibility by smugly declaring that it has lost 40% of its readers in the past ten years:

“Almost half of their readers have said ‘We don’t like you anymore, we’re not going to read you.'”

What O’Reilly leaves out is any actual context that would enlighten his viewers. The truth is that almost all major newspapers have suffered sharp declines in circulation over the past ten years. But more to the point, in only two years (Sept 2005 to Sept 2007) Bill O’Reilly himself has lost 33% of his total viewers and a whopping 59% of viewers in the all-important 25-54 age group. That’s more than half of his viewers saying, “We don’t like you anymore, we’re not going to watch you.”

This brief exchange reveals much about O’Reilly. It shows that while he is vociferously objecting to the free speech rights of others, he will use his own platform to misinform his viewers. No wonder they don’t like him anymore.

Clear Channel Refuses VoteVets Ad

Posted by on October 4, 2007 at 12:32 pm. NO Comments :

Radio giant Clear Channel Communications is refusing to air an ad by VoteVets, a veterans group protesting Rush Limbaugh’s recent assertion that vets who oppose the war in Iraq are “phony soldiers.”

VoteVets received a letter explaining that the ad would not run because:

“Airing anti-Rush Limbaugh ads during the Rush Limbaugh Show on WJNO would only conflict with the listeners that have chosen to listen to Rush Limbaugh.”

Once again, Clear Channel has taken it upon itself to stifle public debate and restrict the free flow of information. In refusing to air this ad, they are stepping on the free speech rights of the veteran activists at VoteVets. Clear Channel’s offer to air the ad at other times or on other stations denies VoteVets the opportunity to counter Limbaugh’s rantings in context. They fail to recognize the importance of directing the response to the audience that was subjected to Limbaugh’s insulting diatribes in the first place. And Clear Channel also makes the mistake of assuming that there aren’t any listeners who disagree with Limbaugh.

Clear Channel’s justification of their censorship on the grounds that it would create conflict is beyond absurd. This is the Rush Limbaugh Show we’re talking about. Conflict is part and parcel of the program’s mission. If Clear Channel is concerned about conflict, why do they let Limbaugh air audio of Democrats for the explicit purpose of denigrating them and thus, creating conflict? Why do they allow Limbaugh to take phone calls that have the potential to produce further conflict? Why do they let Limbaugh express any opinion at all at the risk of creating conflict wiht the many listeners who do not share his views?

To its credit, WJNO has a fairly balance schedule. Their weekday roster presents Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Randi Rhodes, Ed Schultz, and Sean Hannity. The problem is that Rhodes and Schultz are likely to address the VoteVets matter on their own. It’s the Limbaugh audience that most needs exposure to contrary arguments. I would have no objection to the GOP front group, Vets For Freedom, running ads on Schultz’s show. But I assume that Clear Channel would also think that that’s a bad idea too. What are they afraid of?

VoteVets is an advocacy group that supports soldiers and veterans. Unlike Rush Limbaugh, they fought for the rights enumerated in the Constitution, including free speech. But that right is being denied to them today.

You can call Clear Channel in Palm Beach at 561-616-6600 and tell them to air the VoteVets ad. Tell them that our veterans deserve the right to heard. Tell them that, as a listener, you don’t necessarily agree with everything (or anything) Limbaugh says. Tell them that you’re capable of enduring whatever conflict such an ad subjects you to. But what you are not capable of enduring is a giant media corporation infringing on the rights of citizens.

UPDATE: On his show today, Rush suggested that VoteVets run their ad on his program. Either he’s not talking to his ad sales people, or they’re not listening to his show.