Day: 11/5/2006

And The Winner Is…The Media

Posted by on November 5, 2006 at 12:19 pm. NO Comments :
So long as we have corporate media monopolies married to political powerbrokers in government and on K Street, we will never have truly free elections.

As the American electorate’s chest heaves with exhaustion, gasping for that second wind to propel it across the finish line of this year’s electoral marathon, the handicappers are already setting up shop to declare victories or to justify whatever it is they decide to call non-victories. There will be celebrations and wakes and scores of prognosticators heralding their prescience no matter how far from reality their predictions actually fall.

But there is one contestant in this game that can pump its mighty fist in the air regardless of polling outcomes.

When all is said and done, The Media will have banked over $2 Billion. Of course, the final numbers are not in and this estimate doesn’t even include spot cable buys, not to mention last minute surges that are expected on all sides.

If a campaign can be analogized to a war, then the media are the war profiteers. Fox is the Halliburton of the press corps – GE (owner of NBC/Universal) is the…well, the GE. They benefit no matter who wins or loses. In fact, it is in their interest to incite division and to escalate the conflict.

They have been doing this in some obvious ways. The hype surrounding the Mark Foley and John Kerry events was purposefully orchestrated to fuel controversy and to roil the electoral landscape. Partisans on both sides help to propel these tangents, but despite their varying levels of significance, none of these issues have parity with Iraq, the economy, health care, global warming, etc. Yet they are given prominence due to their tabloid appeal.

As the prospects for each candidate and party fluctuate, the players need to react, and this is generally done by purchasing more ad time. The media doesn’t particularly like a blowout because it results in the failing candidate either abandoning the air war or the candidate’s supporters abandoning the candidate, leaving no budget for the battle. So the press chips in keep the race close.

Meanwhile the public suffers the fate of all civilians in wartime. They are beaten and battered and left in a heap along with the other victims of collateral damage. It is never the people’s interest that is served in war, but the interests of the war mongers and their powerful benefactors. The people suffer through these air wars and become disgusted and demoralized. That is actually part of the media’s wartime stategery. A little known fact about negative ads is that they are not intended to tarnish an opponent (that’s just gravy). Their purpose is to suppress turnout so that campaign strategerists are left with a smaller, more manageable, voter population to influence and get to the polls.

So long as we have corporate media monopolies married to political powerbrokers in government and on K Street, we will never have truly free elections. They just feed off of each other and enrich each other at the expense of democracy. The media needs to be corralled into a role wherein it educates and informs citizens. And public financing of campaigns is imperative if we want to remove the influence of corporations from politics.

This is the paramount battle of our generation and we are presently losing. The media will grow stronger as a result of the massive infusion of campaign spending it is enjoying this year. But it isn’t invincible and the fight is worth fighting. I do not consider it hyperbole to say that the future of our country rests on the outcome and if that isn’t motivation, then I guess I’ll just have to buy some more airtime to convince you.

NBC CEO Challenges FCC

Posted by on November 5, 2006 at 2:53 am. NO Comments :

For all the faults, misdeeds, propaganda and monopolistic abuse of Big Media, either hell has frozen over or Bob Wright, chairman and CEO of NBC Universal, made a strong case against censorship in a Wall Street Journal editorial.

A couple of years ago, Janet Jackson’s breast proved to be more powerful than any other media organism. It sucked up all the airtime from cable news, talk radio, and other outlets. Its impact extended to Washington, invading the White House, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission. The result was a new set of indecency regulations that increased penalties for naughty behavior and put broadcasters on notice that such shenanigans would no longer be tolerated.

Mr. Wright, in his editorial, pointed out that these new rules were likely to create a “climate of self-censorship,” and that’s exactly what happened. Networks recently have declined to air programs like “Saving Private Ryan,” and 9/11 documentaries because they contained language that real people use in real life. He further noted that the evolution of the media marketplace has produced a vastly different landscape than that under which the indecency rules were originally established and he offered up this formula to illustrate the FCC’s anachronistic stance:

“Do the math: 85% of households have cable and satellite, leaving 15% receiving broadcast TV only. Two-thirds of those households do not have kids under 18. Thus, the FCC appears to be basing its actions on a policy that is relevant to 5% of households.”

This effectively spotlights the inane response on the part of the FCC and political puritans to the presence of adult themes on television. Their efforts to sanitize broadcasting so that it never contains content that might be objectionable to anyone over six years of age stifles creativity and speech. It’s a kind of censorship that discriminates against mature ideas and places limits on discussions that affect all Americans, even the young ones. The self-censorship, that stems from broadcasters fearful of stiff fines, affects everything from movies to sitcoms to news magazines. And it holds all viewers hostage to the sensitivities of children and their disingenuous, moralistic protectors.

I should note that Mr. Wright’s position fits nicely with his industry’s philosophy of eliminating all regulations imposed on it. Perhaps he is just lobbying to keep the government at bay as he does with other regulatory issues like ownership and consolidation. But the bottom line is that, in this case, he’s right, and the over-reaching moralizing of federal agencies must not be permitted to impair the free expression of diverse entertainment and educational programming.