Discussion: House Dem: Plot To Oust Broadcast Board CEO 'Our Worst Nightmare'

If someone writes that they miss Dick Cheney, I’m going to puke all over the comments section.

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I will celebrate all the more the day trump is indicted.

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Yeah that’s what I read this morning. He was homeschooled. I’m sure his mother didn’t imagine the path, but I’d love to know where he learned to hate certain people. I’m betting he learned it on Sunday mornings from his preacher.

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The ‘sunny’ what of Dick who?

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[quote=“jonney_5, post:27, topic:69885”]

When the “free” press is beholden to advertising dollars, is it really free?

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That’s like asking whether or not humans really have free will.

We have to assume they are free even though they have paid advertisers. What is the alternative?

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This SHOULD be a huge story and it’s highly disappointing that, so far at least, it hasn’t gained more attention. This looks like the real thing, unlike the well-beat dead-horse “IRS Scandal”, which clearly was not. And same goes for all those other phony baloney fake scandals from the first term which are still name-dropped daily, as if they are viewed as major scandals by anyone not plugged in to fox or jones.

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Erasmus and Luther thrashed that out centuries ago.

Leslie Moonves can appreciate a Donald Trump candidacy.

Not that the CBS executive chairman and CEO might vote for the Republican presidential frontrunner, but he likes the ad money Trump and his competitors are bringing to the network.

It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” he said of the presidential race.

Moonves called the campaign for president a “circus” full of “bomb throwing,” and he hopes it continues.

“Most of the ads are not about issues. They’re sort of like the debates,” he said.

“Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? … The money’s rolling in and this is fun,” he said.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going,” said Moonves.

The alternative is to take private money out of election campaigns. The alternative is restore the Fairness Doctrine. The alternative is limiting the market share of individual corporations in a given area. The alternative is a robust, apolitical Public Broadcasting System. The alternative is not supporting “bomb-throwing” because it brings in advertising dollars.

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That hardly settled it considering Skinner, Pavlov, materialism, etc.

But ok.

I’m fine with taking money out of political campaigns. The fairness doctrine would not work in the media world we have now. It can’t be enforced at all against cable and other media broadcasting systems that do not use public airways which was the only method the government had to get around the First Amendment.

How are you or anyone else going to make sure Public Broadcasting is “apolitical”? And how are you going to define that?

I think we should re-animate the Anti-Trust Division in the DOJ myself. And I agree that we shouldn’t have privately funded campaigns. But regulating the press isn’t what we do here. The First Amendment keeps the government out of it and that’s how it should be.

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I disagree with Engel. The Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, and their progeny, were all established before television, let alone before the proliferation of the worldwide cable networks, like CNN and MSNBC. So, RFE and VOA - and even USIA - are not really needed anymore. Their existence will always be a big prize for dangerous and demogagic American presidents. In the past, this was mainly a theoretical, if not academic, threat. But no more. Trump is showing us what a would-be dictatorship is all about. And it is plenty dangerous. So, we would be best-off to dismantle these instruments of government controlled news. They are not needed and not followed around the world. We have traveled a pretty fair amount, and it is CNN that is the American news network that everyone watches— in poor, as well as rich, countries. I would make a similar argument for both PBS and NPR; they should cut their ties to the federal government and federal funding. Maybe - after doing so - they would stop coddling Trump and their Republican board members, and start broadcasting consistent with the views of their audience. If some stations went by the boards, that’s what voting with your pocketbook is all about.

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The only way to respond is to sue these fuckers at every opportunity to block illegal actions. This looks like a perfect example vis-a-vis a new “agenda” that is in violation of law…

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You do realize TPM is part of the free press, right?

As an ex journalist, I can tell you that at any publication worth your time — and there are MANY —the people who sell the ads are supposed to stay the hell away from the people who write the copy. It’s not a perfect world, but like church and state, they stay seperate or you lose the trust of your readers. Who CAN think, and want to think.
Vs FOX watchers, who want to be read an endless bedtime story for insecure, middleclass, white supremacists.

And online, its Google ads 24/7, and they don’t care what you write. All about money to them.

No one is suggesting regulating the press. If you read that into anything I wrote then you have reading comprehension problems. There should no prior restraints on what the press can and cannot publish. But with great freedom comes great responsibility. Moonves’s crowing over how great the Trump campaign was for CBS’s bottom line is not responsible. The disproportionate amount of free coverage given to Trump’s bomb-throwing is not responsible.

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Hey, I’ve been tellin’ y’all ‘don’t knock home schoolin’

My born again sister-in-law home schooled her three daughters because “They teach that man came from apes”

The three of them now grow the best herb I’ve ever smoked…and I’ve been smoking since the 60s.

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IF you insist on getting personal, I end this now.

The Fairness Doctrine you advocated bringing back is a regulation on the press. Making sure Public Broadcasting is apolitical which you also advocated would require some kind of enforcement to ensure and that also would be a prior restraint.

Already done. Sinclair Broadcasting.

So WHAT?? Since when do political ads on TV determine the coverage by the Free Press — vs FOX propaganda?? And if you think Trumps money made the networks happy, well, HRC must have made them wet their pants with joy — she spent TWICE AS MUCH

So I guess if you want to go all tin hat on the Free Press in this country, you need to freak out about about Clinton buying the talking heads on NBC, ABC, and CNN with her…oh…wait. FOX has beat you to it.

The US Free Press is fine. And, for the most part, uncensored.

What we need to nuke is Citizens United.

That’s not the point. The point was about free media coverage, not about paid advertising.

FREE MEDIA VALUE TOTAL: TRUMP = $4.96 BILLION VS. CLINTON = $3.24 BILLION
https://www.mediaquant.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/trump-clinton-bar-charts-Nov2016x650.png

The 2016 election pointed to something we already knew, but needed confirmation on a national and global scale: earned media, both social and traditional, is significantly more effective in driving market awareness then paid media (advertising). During the GOP primary, anti-Trump groups within the GOP spent nearly $30 million in advertising to unseat Donald Trump as the party’s potential nominee! But during the same period Trump drove $400 million in high-stakes news coverage – without spending a dime.
https://www.mediaquant.net/2016/11/a-media-post-mortem-on-the-2016-presidential-election/

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But not a prior restraint, and, as you pointed out, it only applies to broadcasters utilizing the public airways. The Fairness Doctrine only required that if someone felt unfairly portrayed by a broadcaster, the broadcaster had, upon application, to provide the complainant with equal time for rebuttal. That is not a prior restraint on what can be aired by a broadcaster. AM hate radio, which uses the public airways, could not exist under the Fairness Doctrine.

By “apolitical”, I mean not politically partisan. The press should comment on political issues. They should provide analysis of issues so that citizens can make informed decisions about matters in the public domain. That is the primary role of a free press in a democracy: to inform the citizens about issues that affect them so they can make informed decisions at the polls or in interactions with their elected representatives. No enforcement mechanism is required beyond a fairness doctrine, which, since Public Broadcasting uses the public airways, would apply to them. Again, this is not a prior restraint. It doesn’t say you can’t broadcast lies. It just says if you broadcast lies you have to be prepared to offer time for rebuttal.

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