CBS blocks MoveOn.org's kick.

So, let's see:

1. CBS has "contributed" a large amount of money to the political process, particularly Republicans.

2. There is a deal that will GREATLY increase the bottom line of both Fox (any surprise there?) and CBS sitting on the president's desk. CBS lobbied hard for this bill.

3. CBS has decided not to air any ads during the Super Bowl that criticize the Bush Administration, and has consistently shown a slight bias in its favor during "news" reports.


Please explain to me why a "campaign contribution" isn't considered a bribe?


**** CBS, and **** the Bush Administration.

 

i got that email too, a lot of those commercials were just hilarious but also thought provoking. Its sad, a lot of people were looking forward to those commercials, i guess with the money though, they can try to put it on several other stations.

 

Aw c'mon guys isn't the media supposed to be completely "liberal".

Just because a few news anchors admit to being personally liberal doesn't make the powers that be at NBC (General Electric) Fox (ol Rupert Murdoch) or ABC (Disney) that liberal.

 

Ithink moveon is confusing CBS with PBS. CBS is not a public broadcasting system. They can put whatever they want on the air, but more applicable to this case, can hold whatever they want off the air. FOX News has already shown the ad (at least in part) and given the meesage that the ad was carrying (our children will be paying for the budget defecit). No big deal if you ask me. Superbowl ads are supposed to be about beer, snackfood, and consumer electronics anyway.

 

Nope, they are not confused at all. CBS is a private broadcasting corp. with obligations to the public, both legal and ethical. The airwaves are a public resource, legally and factually, so broadcast networks like CBS certainly cannot just put on whatever they want whenever they want. Their content is regulated by the FCC and congress, for such matters as obscenity, the political "equal time" rule, educational television..etc etc etc.

 

Yeah, God forbid anyone upset the status quo and pay the big money to tell people something important during the Superbowl.

 

The American people own the airwaves. Media corporations do not own them. They are ours. We license companies to use them, but we own the airwaves they broadcast on. It's a shame that most Americans don't know this, and that media corporations have conveniently forgotten.

Sadly, we allow giant media corporations to tell us what they will or will not show on *our* airwaves. We're allowing them to abuse our property. And we're letting them do it, without so much as a peep.

If an American citizen pays the money to buy advertising space, media corporations should air the ad. But they don't, because we don't expect them to.

We expect them to show commercials for beer we don't need, cars we can't afford and fast food that's killing us. We expect this, because we've allowed media corporations to set the agendas, to grow fat on profit and greed, and to make the rules that are supposed to govern them.

If CBS takes ads that criticize mar1juana, why wouldn't they take ads that critize the government? Answer that question, and you see why we've been conditioned to expect only certain things in commercials.

 

I think the best thing for all you Bush haters out there is to NOT show the commercial. Showing it would only serve to piss off all those beer drinking football fans who want to see entertaining commercials during the Super Bowl, not some political lecture by the lunatic left wing fringe of America. It would certainly not cause mass defections to your cause.

 

LOL, if moveon.org is the lunatic left wing fringe, how did it get so popular so quick and raise so much money? Face it, conservatives are scared that younger voters are finally organizing at the grass roots level to exert influence rather than voting for nader or acting otherwise disaffected.

That's why Moveon has been attacked so much by the RNC and their hit squad...any organization that promotes voter registration usually is hit by the republicans and hit hard, got to protect those interests.

 

By spewing Bush hating demagoguery to impressionable young people. Howard Dean used the same spiel through his "grass roots revolution". Look where he is now, LOL...

 

Yeah, he went from an unknown VT governor to a dude who raised 40m in less than a year...that's what scares Republicans and people who do stuff like this, anyway, let's see what conservative journalist/pundit Andrew sullivan has to say about what you just proclaimed was "bush hating demagoguery"

Conversely, I believe the Republican reaction, does qualify as hate demagoguery, or just plain racist hate speech :

ouch.

 

It is instructive how a person like stupid moniker is so willing to allow a couple of corporations that dominate the media to decide what political ideas it is appropriate that he and others should be exposed to.

I suspect he is probably just trying to be a good Republican and support President Bush.

However, how opposed to the American idea of freedom of expression and free speech.

It makes you understand how a previously free society can loose its freedom.

 

Perhaps everyone upset with CBS about this should express their outrage by refusing to watch the Super Bowl.

 

Carolina v. NE?

OK.

 

SamFisher posts this quote: "But the Drudge Report's Matt Drudge further stoked right-wing rage by publishing a partial transcript of the awards ceremony MoveOn held in Manhattan Monday, which was full of denunciations of the president. One of the ceremony's performers, Margaret Cho, was soon after bombarded with messages like this one, from someone named Chris Smith: "F$@# you you oriental c$%& . you are not even an american. You are soooo stupid. Go f$@# yourself and go back to Asia you slanted eye w****." . . . ."

SamFisher comments: "Ouch!"

The problem, SamFisher, is that that kind of remark about Cho is so extreme as to be either laughable or disgusting. I know you want to make it seem mainstream right-wing but it just ain't so. That kind of comment about Cho is disgusting and horrifying. Sorry to disappoint your preconception.

 

That's bullcrap. I said that CBS can choose what not to air on CBS. No one is stopping moveon from buying advertising time on other outlets. CBS is a private company. If they don't want to show liberal advocacy ads during the superbowl, well that is their choice for building a huge media corporation. moveon.org has an outlet for their ads, they can show them on the internet. I think they can find some website that will be willing to show 'em. No network can control what political ideas people are exposed to, only what political ideas THEY expose people too, just as I can control what political ideas I expose others to.

 

That's bullcrap. I said that CBS can choose what not to air on CBS. No one is stopping moveon from buying advertising time on other outlets. CBS is a private company.

BTW only one channel covers the Superbowl and it is conceivably watched by say 50% of the population. It is ok to not allow it because the other 50% might be watching something else?

Don't you see that you just largely resaid what you just denied saying previously.

According to you big media should be able to choose to deny poltical advertising whose viewpoints they disagree with. What if Fox i.e. Rupert Murdoch would decline to run ads for the Democratic candidate for president in the upcoming election because they are a "private company"? Wouldn't that bother you at all?

What if CBS, FOX, NBC and ABC all did it? Still not bothered? There is a principle here that goes beyond a "private company" doing what it wants. Can't you see how there are important issues for our democracy?


.

 

QUESTION: If they paying the appropriate amount . . .why are they being denied?

Should not the free market economy allow for them to be on if they pay what is asked . . .if they pay what others are paying?

If it because of content . . then that is political bias

Rocket River

 

Yeah, instead everyone who tunes into the Super Bowl should be subjected to the lies of Bush supporters as they revise history to their benefit. Pathetic.