Censorship

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.

Sally Field’s Emmy Speech Uncensored

Posted by on September 17, 2007 at 9:50 am. 2 Comments :

In accepting her Emmy award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role as the matriarch in “Brothers and Sisters”, Sally Field delivered an impassioned tribute to mothers everywhere in a message that spoke of world peace.

Unfortunately, it was too much for the censors at Fox who cut Field’s comments at a critical point.

The video above is from the Canadian broadcast that aired the speech unedited. The nannies at Fox snipped the remarks for U.S. viewers as Field said, “If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn’t be any…” The expunged ending of the sentence was, “god-damned wars in the first place.” Was it because Fox thinks that Americans are just too fragile to be exposed to such fiery language? Was it because they were seeking to suppress legitimate dissent in a public forum? Tom O’Neil at the Los Angeles Times reports that it may not have been a matter of shielding the network from liability for broadcasting an obscenity:

“Technically, Field’s censored words are not profane. A 2004 FCC ruling specifically stated no objection to the use of “god damn” on TV when making a judgment on the uproar over Bono swearing at the Golden Globes in 2003 where he used more colorful language.”

Backstage, Field spoke with reporters and responded to the controversy that was already swirling:

“I have no comment other than, ‘Oh, well.’ I said what I wanted to say. I wanted to pay homage to the mothers of the world. And I very, very seriously think that if mothers ruled the world we wouldn’t be sending our children off to be slaughtered.” […] “If they bleep it, oh, well. I’ll just say it somewhere else.”

This is the second instance of Emmy censorship this season, following Kathy Griffin’s remarks a night earlier when, mocking award winners who give credit to God for their victory, Griffin said that, “…no one had less to do with this award than Jesus.” Isn’t it interesting that in both occurrences of a clampdown on free speech, a reference to God was a key factor?

Networks Refuse To Air Liberal Ads, Too

Posted by on August 29, 2007 at 1:31 pm. NO Comments :

John Hinderaker at the Power Line blog is expressing some selective outrage over the alleged refusal of MSNBC and CNBC to air ads by a pro-war shadow press office for the White House. Led by former Bush press secretary, Ari Fleischer, Freedom’s Watch is seeking to target congressional members who aren’t sufficiently hawkish by placing ads that ask viewers to call their representatives and voice their support for the President and the war.

Hinderaker has republished a letter from Bradley Blakeman at Freedom’s Watch (FW) to NBC that says in part…

Your history of airing other issue advocacy advertisements makes the denial of FW advertisements troubling and raises the issue of whether your denial is based on an editorial disagreement with FW’s message.

NBC has yet to respond to the complaint so it is unknown at this time what their reasons for declining the ad might be, if in fact it was declined. However, both Hinderaker and Blakeman should be commended for their commitment to free speech. The only problem is that there is scant evidence that they exhibited similar concern for liberal victims of censorship on the commercial airwaves. Did they ever speak out against these abuses:

GOP Warns TV Stations Not to Air Ad Alleging Bush Mislead the Nation Over Iraq
Attorneys for the Republican Party are warning TV stations not to air a new commercial by the Democratic National Committee that charges President Bush misled the country in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.

NBC, CBS, ABC Reject Ad Criticizing Their News Coverage
American Progress created a television advertisement for BeAWitness.org, our netroots campaign that calls out the television news media for their deplorable coverage of the genocide in Darfur. Over the last few days, three Washington DC television affiliates, NBC-4, CBS-9, and ABC-7, informed us that they refuse to air the ad.

Prickly Peacock Nixes Chicks
The Weinstein Co. is claiming that NBC and the CW have refused to air national ads for the new Dixie Chicks docu “Shut Up & Sing.”

CBS, NBC Refuse to air Church’s Television Advertisement
The CBS and NBC television networks are refusing to run a
30-second television ad from the United Church of Christ because its
all-inclusive welcome has been deemed “too controversial.”

CNN, NPR Refuse Ads for Assassination Film
Two major U.S. news outlets, CNN and National Public Radio, will not air advertisements for a controversial movie depicting the assassination of President Bush, citing the film’s content, network spokeswomen said Tuesday.

Bush Helps CBS, CBS Helps Bush
While advertising industry sources say CBS will air a pair of advocacy commercials prepared to advance the agenda of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the network has refused to accept an advertisement prepared by critics of the man who currently occupies the White House.

When Might Turns Right
L.A. Weekly has learned that CBS, NBC and ABC all refused Fahrenheit 9/11 DVD advertising during any of the networks’ news programming. Executives at Sony Pictures, the distributor of the movie for the home-entertainment market, were stunned. And even more shocked when the three networks explained why. “They said explicitly they were reluctant because of the closeness of the release to the election.”

ABC Refuses Outfoxed Ad, Censors Boston Legal
[T]hey have refused our money, refused to make suggestions to the ad so they would run it, and in short have said no!

Networks Refuse To Air Soldier Ad
Now a non-partisan, pro-soldier activist group is having trouble getting an ad featuring a wounded soldier on the air. Operation Truth executive director Paul Rieckhoff told GNN, “the bottom-line is there are some networks who don’t want to hear the truth because the truth is a little too abrasive for people to handle.”

Fox and CBS Refuse To Air Condom Ads
…Fox and CBS networks recently refused to broadcast condom advertisements. Had they somehow missed the memo that there are 19 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) each year…

To the hypocrites on the right, free speech is reserved for the narrow constituency of the elite and the sycophants of the powerful. To any objective observer it is obvious that the media has an historical pattern of tipping the scales against progressive views. And this applies to news content as well as to advertising.

I generally lean heavily in favor of unfiltered and unfettered expression, but FW’s croc tears just don’t make me misty. I would be a little more sympathetic to FW’s complaint had anyone connected to it ever lifted a finger in support of free speech in any context other than that which is in their own interest.

It would also help if the ad in question weren’t so deceptive. At the end of ad there is a telephone number displayed for viewers to call Congress and express their opinion. But in a perverse game of bait and switch, the number actually connects 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. I would not be surprised if that is the reason NBC hung up on FW.

Pearl Jam Censored At Lollapalooza By AT&T

Posted by on August 9, 2007 at 11:25 am. NO Comments :

If we really needed proof that the Big Telcos are lying through their teeth when they celebrate themselves as defenders of free speech and open access, we couldn’t do better than this. AT&T, the sole provider for the webcast of Pearl Jam’s performance at Lollapalooza, and noted opponent of Network Neutrality, cut out politically charged portions of the band’s performance. I’ll let them tell it via their website:

After concluding our Sunday night show at Lollapalooza, fans informed us that portions of that performance were missing and may have been censored by AT&T during the “Blue Room” Live Lollapalooza Webcast.

When asked about the missing performance, AT&T informed Lollapalooza that portions of the show were in fact missing from the webcast, and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them.

During the performance of “Daughter” the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” but were cut from the webcast:

  • “George Bush, leave this world alone.” (the second time it was sung); and
  • “George Bush find yourself another home.”

This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media.

AT&T’s actions strike at the heart of the public’s concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media.

Aspects of censorship, consolidation, and preferential treatment of the internet are now being debated under the umbrella of “NetNeutrality.” Check out The Future of Music or Save the Internet for more information on this issue. [Ed: Save the Internet has clips of both versions of the song here]

Most telecommunications companies oppose “net neutrality” and argue that the public can trust them not to censor.

And if you can’t trust a giant, multinational, consolidated, communications conglomerate like Ma Bell, who can you trust? AT&T has shown that they cannot be relied upon to manage vital national resources like the Internet. They want to own it and constrain its use to the sole purpose of enriching themselves and shaping public opinion to their liking.


 
 
Don’t let them do it because, as Pearl Jam says…

This Is Not For You!
“And you dare say it belongs to you…to you…
This is not for you
This is not for you
This is not for you
Oh, never was for you…fuck you…”

First Amendment Repealed For Students

Posted by on July 30, 2007 at 3:04 pm. NO Comments :

A report in the Chronicle of Higher Education states that the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the former editors of the student newspaper at Kansas State University in a First Amendment case:

“The students asserted that the university had violated their First Amendment rights by removing their faculty adviser from the newspaper staff following criticism of the Collegian’s coverage of minority issues.

The judges ruled that the plaintiffs’ status as graduates made their claims moot because, as alumni, they are not subject to censorship by the university.”

What an atrocious ruling. How can a First Amendment violation be wiped away just because the victim’s academic status has changed? There was still a violation. This ruling would effectively repeal the First Amendment for students because in almost every case the student will have graduated before the case comes to trial. Knowing that, the university would be able to censor students with impunity.

Would this ruling extend to victims of racial discrimination who graduate before the court rules? Would it extend to employees of a company whose rights were violated if they no longer worked for the company when the trial took place? Would every violation of the Constitution be rendered moot just because the relationship between the victim and the violator had changed?

This ruling by a three member panel of the 10th Circuit is nothing but an unconstitutional constriction of long-held civil liberties. It is an attempt to repeal the Bill of Rights. It must be struck down by the full court, or the Supreme Court, without ambiguity.

The Fear Of Censorship

Posted by on May 15, 2007 at 4:56 am. 6 Comments :

John Roberts has been CNN’s senior national correspondent and its anchor of the awkwardly-named This Week at War (sounds like a VH1 Top 20 Countdown). He was recently named a new co-host of CNN’s American Morning. In his former position at CBS he served as the network’s White House correspondent and was embedded with Marines during the invasion of Iraq. Now, in an interview with Broadcasting & Cable, this experienced and connected professional speaks out about the handling of the coverage of the war in Iraq and, despite his participation, he has some rather unflattering critiques of what transpired.

In the article, Roberts concedes that the media was unprepared to properly cover events on the ground and should have been more vigilant in the run-up to the war. But by far the more notable observation that Roberts imparts is one that reflects on current coverage:

“If we showed people the full extent of what we see every day in Iraq, we would either have no one watching us because they couldn’t stand to see the pictures, or we would get so many letters of complaint that some organization would come down on us to stop.”

With current polls showing that two thirds of the American public are already opposed to the war in Iraq, the notion that we have not yet reached the nadir of our disapproval is somewhat unsettling. Especially if the reason is that, as Roberts contends, the “full extent” of what the press sees every day has been withheld from us by a media establishment that is afraid of mail and of losing viewers. And I get no consolation from Roberts’ informing me that things are much worse than I ever imagined.

Indeed, the pictures that are presently darkening our TV screens with bloodshed, blasts, and blackened smoke, are enough to sow depression in the most optimistic amongst us. But that is not sufficient reason for responsible journalists to soft-peddle even a harsh reality. In an open democratic society, citizens need to be fully informed because, contrary to the monarchal delusions of President Bush, we are the deciders. If exposure to the truth produces more dissatisfaction, it is not up to editors and programmers to shield us from our own tender sensitivities. That is not the way to cultivate an informed electorate. That is not the way to promote Democracy.

The public’s appetite for this war has steadily declined over the past four years and would likely have declined further and faster had the news been presented impartially and honestly. In fact, we might never have gone to war in the first place if the vigilance of which Roberts spoke had been practiced at the outset by a conscientious and ethical press corps.

There are two problems (at least) with Roberts’ statement above. One is that he gives too much weight to the notion that Americans don’t have the stomach to manage the nation as our Constitution requires. The other is that his fear that “some organization” would put a stop to honest, unfettered reporting, resulted in that fear becoming manifest. The fear of censorship produced censorship and the people were deprived of knowledge. The only organization that profited from this suppression is an administration that was predisposed to execute a war of aggression and preferred to avoid the pesky interference of the will of the people.

To paraphrase Roberts:

If we, the people, show the full extent of what we see and feel every day about Iraq, they would know that we are watching, and they would get so many letters of complaint that our organization of citizens would come down on them to stop suppressing the truth; stop embracing unscrupulous pseudo-leaders; and stop this god-awful war.

This practice of Nanny Journalism is all too common in American media. They think we can’t handle the truth. But it’s funny (by which I mean pathetic) that they keep coming back after the fact to confess their mea culpas.