Censorship

Iran, Iraq, America: Where Is The Press More Free?

Posted by on May 14, 2007 at 5:58 pm. NO Comments :

In a tale of three troubled and repressive regimes, there is news today of a puzzling variation of values. Stories from a trio of nations put on display the character of the media in our world and show how that world has been turned upside down.

The Iran Story:
The Associated Press reports that two pro-reform newspapers, which had previously been shut down, are now being permitted to resume publication.

“The decision to allow the papers to reopen appeared to reflect a feeling among Iran’s top leadership — made up of Shiite clerics — that the country must allow a margin of expression for the opposition amid mounting discontent with Ahmadinejad at home. The papers were allowed to resume publishing by a new order from the judiciary, which is controlled by the clerical leadership […] The clerical leadership may be hoping the return of some reformist newspapers will provide a safety valve for the discontent.”

The Iraq Story:
In Iraq, however, the press is being prohibited access to scenes of violence, which would make it near impossible to report on the conduct of the war. The result, of course, will be that the citizens of Iraq, as well as the citizens and lawmakers in the United States, will have even less of the information that is so crucial to their/our lives.

“In a move sure to provoke open contempt and a firestorm of protests from journalists and news organizations, the Iraqi government will soon routinely ban journalists from the sites of bombings and other violent incidents, Iraqi Interior Ministry Operations Director Brigadier General Abdul Karim Khalaf announced today.”

When a theocratic nation like Iran, that is known for abusing and jailing its critics in the press, can show up their Iraqi neighbors, who are supposed to be emblems of freedom’s virtue, as proffered by their American benefactors, there is something terribly wrong going on. But sadly, it isn’t terribly surprising.

The America Story:
Here at home, the Pentagon has announced that soldiers will not be allowed to access Internet sites like YouTube, MySpace, and others.

“Soldiers serving overseas will lose some of their online links to friends and loved ones back home under a Department of Defense policy that a high-ranking Army official said would take effect Monday.”

The soldiers will also be losing the opportunity to relate their experiences to a world that is being kept in increasing darkness. If reporters are not permitted to document the realities of this war, and soldiers are likewise silenced, the truth becomes an evermore distant memory. The White House frequently complains that the good news from Baghdad never gets reported. Now the Pentagon is making sure that those with the best perspective will be mute. What does that say about the Pentagon’s confidence in the stories that soldiers might tell.

With the muzzling of American soldiers and the censorship of the reporters in Iraq, this would have been a bad day for the media were it not for Iran’s demonstration of liberty for the press. How bizarre is that?

U. S. Military Justifies Censorship

Posted by on March 11, 2007 at 12:48 pm. NO Comments :

Last week it was reported that American soldiers in Afghanistan destroyed photos and videos taken by journalists in the aftermath of a suicide bombing. Witnesses reported that the Americans were firing indiscriminately at pedestrians and vehicles as they rushed from the scene. The photos and videos were said to have documented civilian casualties.

Now the military has responded to inquiries regarding their interference with the local media. Col. Victor Petrenko, chief of staff to the top U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan, said:

“Investigative integrity is one circumstance when civil and military authorities will reluctantly exercise the right to control what a journalist is permitted to document.” […and…] “When untrained people take photographs or video, there is a very real risk that the images or videography will capture visual details that are not as they originally were. If such visual media are subsequently used as part of the public record to document an event like this, then public conclusions about such a serious event can be falsely made.”

The Associated Press, responds on behalf of its reporters, who were amongst those whose work was confiscated:

“That is not a reasonable justification for erasing images from our cameras. AP’s journalists in Afghanistan are trained, accredited professionals working at an appropriate distance from the bombing scene. In democratic societies, legitimate journalists are allowed to work without having their equipment seized and their images deleted.”

The Army’s justification is not just unreasonable, it is entirely devoid of logic. If “investigative integrity” was at issue, the reporter’s visual records would be invaluable. By their actions the soldiers destroyed important and irreplaceable evidence. If the recordings proved to be tainted or unreliable, that could have been ascertained in the course of the investigation. Now, no one will ever know. It is the Army that has degraded investigative integrity and, in the process, trampled on the rights of journalists and citizens and all those who honor a free press. But that’s not how they see it:

“We are completely committed to a free and independent press, and we hope that we can help encourage this tradition in places where new and free governments are taking root. It so happens that on these two recent occasions, military operational or security requirements were compelling interests that overrode the otherwise protected rights of the press.”

So they are completely committed to a free and independent press unless they decide not to be. In which case, destroy all documentary records first so no questions can be asked later. If that’s their idea of encouragement, I’d sure hate to see what repression looks like.

NBC: Shut Up And…Oh Just Shut Up

Posted by on October 27, 2006 at 2:29 pm. NO Comments :

Following the recent announcement of censorship by CNN and NPR when they refused to air ads for the film, “Death of a President,” it seems the dawn is not yet here, because it’s still getting darker.

NBC has now refused to broadcast ads for the Dixie Chicks’ new movie, “Shut Up and Sing.” (See the ad here). This is the same NBC whose censors just finished editing Madonna’s TV special because they didn’t like the religious content. The distributor for the Chicks’ film, The Weinstein Co., says NBC told them that they…

“…cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush.”

Harvey Weinstein said in response…

“It’s a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America. The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is profoundly un-American.”

Indeed, the idea that a national broadcast network would abuse its power by prohibiting the use of public airwaves to promote a legal product on the grounds that it is “disparaging” to the president, is un-American and unacceptable. Since when is the characterization of a president a factor in whether or not a product can be advertised? This policy would also prohibit ads for “Dump Bush” t-shirts or even ads for car dealerships if they employed a silly Bush impersonator.

NBC is owned, don’t forget, by General Electric, the largest defense contractor in the world, and one of the biggest beneficiaries of Bush’s war industry as well as his pro-corporate tax giveaways. They also have a stake in the FCC’s determinations regarding media ownership and consolidation.

The Dixie’s doc tells the story of how they were silenced because they they chose to exercise freedom of speech. Now NBC is silencing them again for much the same reason. Their decision not to air these ads raises the question as to whether they were pressured by Washington to road block the movie, or are acting on their own to prop up their benefactor in the White House. Either way, they are demonstrating that their loyalty is reserved for politicos at BushCo, at the expense of the Constitution, the American people, and free expression.

Write to express yourself (while you still can):
Bob Wright, GE Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, NBC Universal
Jeff Zucker, Chief Executive Officer, NBC Universal Television Group
Randy Falco, Pres and Chief Operating Officer, NBC Universal Television Group
Keith Turner, President/NBC Universal Sales and Marketing
Marianne Gambelli, Exec Vice President/NBC Universal Sales and Marketing
Victoria Morgan, Vice President – Advertising Standards/NBC Universal

Other NBC Network Entertainment Sales & Marketing Contacts
NBC Advertising Standards Guidelines – PDF (See page 11).

Death Of A Prez Ads Nixed By CNN, NPR

Posted by on October 24, 2006 at 4:26 pm. 1 Comments :

Death of a President is a new film that has been generating both controversy and acclaim. It is the winner of the International Critics’ Award from the Toronto Film Festival. The film’s web site describes it as…

“a fictional TV documentary broadcast in 2008, reflecting on another monstrously despicable and cataclysmic event: the assassination of President George W. Bush on October 19th, 2007.”

Sadly, the media’s martinets of virtue are again patrolling the avenues of our psyches, deciding what is safe for our aesthetic consumption.

CNN and NPR are refusing to air advertisements for the film. There is nothing in the ads that is inappropriate for broadcast. Indeed, the ads were approved by the Motion Picture Association of America for all audiences. But that fact has not deterred the programmers from engaging in censorship. CNN issued a brief statement that virtually admits its intention to censor, saying that…

“CNN has decided not to take the ad because of the extreme nature of the movie’s subject matter.”

By basing their decision on the movie’s “subject matter”, they have installed themselves as the public’s nanny. They believe that they are in the best position to decide for us which subjects matter. While they are a couple of yards further over the line than NPR, the public radio network’s excuse is not much better:

“The movie is fairly likely to generate significant controversy and we’ll cover it as a news story. To take a sponsorship spot would raise questions and cause confusion.”

One wonders if that criteria also applies to sponsorships from Ford or McDonald’s. Surely they have generated controversy connected to their products. Has their sponsorship raised questions or caused confusion?

This film already has an uncommon burden to overcome as a result of its premise. Two of the nation’s biggest movie exhibitors, Regal Entertainment and Cinemark USA, have announced that they will not play the movie in any of their ~8000 theaters. Newmarket Films, the movie’s distributor, insists that they will be able to open in plenty of theaters. They say that they are getting support from many exhibitors including the Landmark Theater chain.

These broadcasters and exhibitors, who have appointed themselves the protectors of the public’s tender sensibilities, deny that any partisan motive is at play. But an objective observer would note that they all previously played nice with another controversial release distributed by Newmarket, “The Passion of the Christ.”

So what is the reason that this film is getting such a different reception? It couldn’t be the subject matter, could it? Look at the trends:

  • The Dixie Chicks criticize the president and they’re thrown off the radio. Has that ever happend to a right wing artist?
  • A network TV biopic about Ronald Reagan is protested by conservatives and it gets shuttled off to cable. But ABC’s Path To 9/11 airs despite opposition.
  • An artist exhibits a work entitled, “The Proper Way to Display the Flag,” and the gallery is told to shut it down. But when Bush walks on a flag at Ground Zero, it’s just another photo-op.

It appears that everyone has an equal right to protest, but only Republicans can turn their protests into edicts that deny all Americans access to the embattled works. It’s called censorship, and it’s alive and well in America.

Update: Tim Graham at NewsBusters takes issue with this story. Responding to my criticism of NPR he asks…

“Can’t this blogger differentiate between a Bush assassin and Ronald McDonald?”

Tim is veering off on a detour to address a point that’s right in the middle of the road. If NPR declines an ad for this movie because of the appearance of bias in the event that they cover it editorially, doesn’t that same consideration come into play for any sponsor that they might cover editorially? And by the way, I can differentiate between a Bush assassin and Ronald McDonald. The Bush assassin in the movie harms no one except another character in the film. Ronald McDonald’s influence on real children harms thousands of them every year.

Fox Pulls Clinton Video From YouTube

Posted by on September 25, 2006 at 3:51 pm. NO Comments :

This weekend’s big interview was the Chris Wallace ambush of Bill Clinton. After promising to divide the time between Clinton’s Global Initiative and everything else, Wallace sandbags Clinton by asking why he didn’t do more to get bin Laden. Clinton wouldn’t take the bait, but did lay into the Fox correspondent, calling it a “conservative hit.”

Ever since, the piece has been replayed and talked about throughout the TV, radio and Internet universe. So, predictably, it ended up on YouTube where its various submissions received more than a million views.

That was until Fox got jealous and insisted that it be removed. This is a perfect demonstration of a corporate media megalith misunderstanding the new media playing field. And it also underscores the necessity of keeping Internet media independent. Just imagine the kind of censorship that would prevail if Fox owned YouTube (or if Viacom, who is currently sniffing around it, did).

Deep In The Heart Of Dixie Chicks

Posted by on September 19, 2006 at 1:26 am. NO Comments :

The Toronto International Film Festival recently screened the documentary, Shut Up and Sing, chronicling the travails of the Dixie Chicks after their righteous slap at Crawford’s Lost Idiot. In remarks at a post-screening news conference, the Chicks demonstrate their grasp of the hazards of institutional media:

…the Chicks say they have absolutely no regrets about speaking their mind. If anything, the experience made them realize just how vulnerable to censorship we are in the world of consolidated media ownership and nationally uniform radio playlists.

“Consolidation means one guy at the top decides everything and I don’t think the media has been successful in pointing out why it’s so dangerous,” [Emily] Robison says.

Of course “the media has been [un]successful in pointing out why it’s so dangerous.” The handful of corporations that control the media are the architects and beneficiaries of consolidation. That the Dixies recognize the significance of this issue speaks to the fact that they are well informed and aware of the forces that they have learned, the hard way, are dangerously encroaching on press and creative freedom.

Since the media cannot be depended on to act in the interests of the public, it is up to all of us to act in our own interests. Visit Stop Big Media, bookmark it, and email the link to your friends and family. Contact the FCC and tell them that more consolidation does not create competition. It is critically important that people realize that we cannot solve any of our society’s problems without solving the problem of the media first. No matter what your pet issue is, you need access to communication channels to produce movement. Without a free, diverse and independent media, those channels will be denied to us.

The Dixie Chicks get it. They continue to be impressive, both artistically and socially. Their honesty and courage shines through the mud that is hurled at them. And throughout the ordeal they’ve refused to back down as evidenced by their hit single “Not Ready To Make Nice” and by the audacious declaration in the documentary that Bush is a “dumbfuck“.

Ah…the simplicity of truth.

MySpace – The Predator’s Feeding Ground

Posted by on May 12, 2006 at 11:19 am. NO Comments :

News Corpse readers know that I am not a fan of MySpace. But they will also know that I am even more opposed to government intrusion into civil liberty and free expression. Consequently, I find myself in the awkward position of defending MySpace from the congressional thought police.

The truth is that DOPA, the “Deleting Online Predators Act” (PDF), is an assault on much more than MySpace. This bill, offered by Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA), purports to protect minors from sexual deviants patrolling the Internet by banning access to social networking sites on computers in schools, libraries and other federally funded property. Here’s how the bill defines “social networking”

“…a commercially operated Internet website that allows users to create web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users and offers a mechanism of communication with other users, such as a forum, chat room, e-mail, or instant messenger.”

That definition is so broad that it would also prohibit access to sites like Flickr, Wikipedia, DailyKos, and virtually every public blog on services like Blogger and Live Journal. Even Instant Messaging services would be at risk.

Fitzpatrick, the bill’s author, argues that the bill is necessary because,

“…this new technology has become a feeding ground for child predators that use these sites as just another way to do our children harm.”

Trying to blame social networking for the behavior of sexual deviants is short-sighted and distracts from efforts to implement effective legal reform. While the incidence of online child assaults has been sensationalized by the media, it’s actual occurrence is much less than that of the offline variety. Many more children have been assaulted by teachers, but I don’t hear calls for banning children from schools. The practical effect of this legislation, other than arbitrary censorship, is that children from low income families will be disproportionately excluded from access because they are less likely to have computers at home and are more dependent on public terminals.

But protecting children isn’t really what these folks are after. DOPA is the product of the House Suburban Caucus. Its founder, Mark Kirk (R-IL), recently commissioned a poll to identify issues that would appeal to suburban families and take attention away from the bigger issues facing the nation like Iraq, NSA wiretapping, gas prices, etc. The caucus now includes 18 Republican members. They are gaining some measure of influence and have recently met with Karl Rove and Denny Hastert.

In the end, this is just another cynical political scheme by Republican fear mongers to forestall the electoral beating they anticipate in November. The refrain is all too familiar now. If it isn’t terrorists on our doorstep, it’s perverts in our kids’ bedrooms. And their response always seems to be more chipping away at freedom.