As I noted above in post #63, and as Little Nemo pointed out before me, the “chilling precedent” already occurred back in 2003, when pressure from conservative politicians persuaded (or “intimidated”, as you put it) the network CBS not to show a TV movie about the Reagans which the conservatives accused of liberal bias.
If you were willing to put up with that, it seems to me you’ve got to put up with this. No, I don’t particularly like such behavior in either case, but as I said, there’s no denying that politicians have the legal right to exert pressure in this way.
I understand that is false and I apologize. In our discussions about the legality of any FCC censorship actions, I assumed you were speaking in favor of such actions in this case.
However, as it stands the FCC does not have the authority to censor news based on misinformation. You can claim it does based on a 1934 law, but unless that law specifically says this or the FCC has regulations that say this, then the FCC can’t do so. Since you think the FCC has this authority, I would like to see the regulations that spell out how far this authority goes and in what circumstances they can use it.
Renob, sorry, I was a little brisque in that respones. My answer is yes, that’s an accurate summation of my views. While I would oppose an attempt to cancel the broadcast in this case, I can’t say it would be illegal. I was annoyed by all the sanctions for the Janet Jackson nipplegate incident too, but the FCC had the right to do it. If anything, I think the FCC has too much power and not enough accountability but they have it legally.
As I understand it, that was not the result of government pressure. That was the result of pressure by the viewing public. Basically people were saying that if CBS showed it then they would boycott advertisers. That is a lot different than intimidation by the government.
Yes, there is a debate over whether public officials have the legal authority to demand that networks censor shows or face legal or regulatory action. Threatening those things is completely improper for elected officials and is censorship.
I, too, am annoyed at the Janet Jackson incident and other incidents of indecency fines. However, indecency is a different matter than innacurrate newscasts. The FCC has been given specific authority to police indencency. I don’t think it has been given specific authority to police inaccuracy.
As far as any sort of brisqueness, no big deal. Things get a little heated here.
Eisner gave a nice chunk to the National Republican Congressional Committee, as did CEO Bob Iger and incoming exec John Popper. Not to mention Republicans Ted Stevens, Buck McKeon, Mike DeWine… and then there’s Joe Barton’s Texas Freedom Fund.
Disney/ABC Group Pres Anne Sweeney gave only to Republican Ted Stevens.
Not that there’s anything sinister about it – the Dems are getting their fair share too.
I’d say a good portion of people not of a liberal bent. Seriously. That’s what it seems like to me. That’s not to say that there aren’t legitimate points being made. For instance, I find it odd that they would attempt to make it into an educational tool. They’re trying to have it both ways: “Oh, it’s just a movie.” and “This is what factually happened.” I don’t think they can do that. My point is that the respsonse was dumb, they should’ve sought to simply dismissit as partisan fiction rather than get into a debate as to what two or three of the facts aren’t exactly right.
Dick Morris, who was involved in the discussions has been blasting Clinton for this for years. I doubt the accusation is pure fiction.
The only aspect of this that seems inappropriate is the marketing it as an educational tool.
Renob, I don’t think we’re actually talking about censorship in the sense of preventing material going on the air but whether the FCC could theoretically fine somebody or revoke their broadcast license for lying about the news and I think they could under the argument that the network has abused its public trust.
There’s no issue of prior restraint here (or actually even a threat of sanctions after the fact. Just a request. Such a request has precedent. The Reagan movie was moved to cable on much weaker grounds.
There is based on and based on. A movie about the JFK assassination “based on” the Warren Commission Report hat combined characters would be fine. One that said LBJ was behind the assassination would not be - especially if presented as accurate. The latter is what this movie claims to be doing.
As far as Eisner’s contributions, I looked further on him and did indeed find he’s quite the prolific giver: Dianne Feinstein, Tom Daschle, Howard Berman, Jean Carnahan, Bill Nelson, Pat Leahy, Fritz Hollings, Max Baucus, Chris Dod, Rahm Emanuel, Ed Markey, and Barbara Boxer for the Democrats. On the other hand, he gave to Republicans Scott McInnis, the NRCC, Arlen Specter, and Bill Thomas.
I’d say Eisner’s contributions lean left.
Of the $97,400 given by Iger, I could only see $8,500 given to the GOP.
Moore claimed to be accurate, but never claimed to be objective. He specifically said that one goal of the movie was to hurt Bush’s chances of re-election. If ABC was honest, they’d admit that the purpose of this movie was to keep a Republican Congress.
As for attacks on Bush - given the reactions of the right wingers who see it, if they’ve got a major scene of Bush being presented with the news that there were attack plans, and then went to cut brush, I’ll soon be reporting on monkeys flying from my butt. All ABC would have to do to circumvent the controversy would be to release that scene. We’ll see.
Now probably isn’t the place to get into why Specter is barely a Republican, but his environmental stance, his pro-gun control stance, his love of government spending, and a variety of other things makes him probably the most liberal Republican in the Senate next to Lincoln Chaffee.
On further searching, Eisner did indeed give to a large number of Democrats.
I think they’re purpose was to make money. Don’t be fooled by the philanthropic guise of “no commercial interruptions”. It looks like they wanted to drum up the drama by showing our government asleep at the switch-- and that means both Clinton and Bush. If Clinton gets more air time (and I don’t know that he does), that’s probably because he was in office longer in the pre-9/11 days. We Americans have short memories, and I doubt anyone will remember this film in November.
Enough of the key elements of the movie are made up, that gross mischaracterizations of fact will inevitably become so embedded in the minds of some viewers as to be believed to be true. And when an audience isn’t told which elements are factual and which are blatantly made up crap, they’re more likely to believe as true all the elements they want to believe are true. The evidence that gross lies as portrayed in the movie become believed and reported as fact can be found as close as the New York Times’ review of the film. . .
The truth of the matter is precisely the opposite – the 9/11 Commission concluded that the Lewinsky sex scandal did NOT distract Clinton or his administration from their attention to terrorism or terrorist threats, including capturing and/or killing bin Laden.
But people who watch this piece of trash, but haven’t read the actual 9/11 Commission report, won’t know that. Particularly because that’s one part of this propaganda piece that’s actually inserted with real-life footage!
Then you aren’t looking hard enough, or too few Republicans are being truthful about the nature of the content. Here are two examples of Republicans calling this lie a lie (bolding mine). . . [
](http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/07/miniter-911/) And while some here disagree with, or are embarassed by, the actions by the Democratic leadership, I’m thrilled that they’re finally showing a damn backbone and coming out fighting hard against the Republican smear machine. It gives me great hope that we won’t be having the kind of piss-poor campaign for President that Kerry gave us by not putting on the gloves and fighting the lies, but rather rolling over and hoping the truth would win on its own. It won’t.
Well, it’s just silly to claim that Clinton wasn’t distracted by the Lewinski scandal. Of course he was-- it took up some of his time, of which there is a finite amount. The problem is, the whole freakin’ country was distracted by that scandal, and it was the Republicans who fanned the flames. That’s what I get out of that scene.
No, that distinction doesn’t hold up. In the 2003 case CBS was pressured by a number of groups, including the Republican National Committee; and in this case ABC is being pressured by a number of groups, including five Democratic Senators. In neither case has there been any official censorship, prior restraint, or other attempt at legal action by the government actually to prevent or punish the airing of the movie.
What “debate” are you referring to? It seems to me that we’re all agreed here that (1) yes, the government does have the right in principle to regulate the use of the public airwaves; and (2) no, there is no specific law or FCC regulation currently in existence under which a particular group of legislators can censor or penalize a network for showing a docudrama that they consider misleading or unfair.
The Senators in their letter simply pointed out that the broadcaster has a responsibility as a public trustee of the airwaves not to misinform the public. What you are interpreting as “threats of legal or regulatory action” is what you’re reading into that statement. But you are assuming that there exists at present some legal mechanism for putting such “threats” into effect, and I don’t know of any.
Yes, when politicians admonish broadcasters that they are being irresponsible, it does sound potentially threatening. But that’s true whether it’s Republican or Democratic politicians doing the admonishing, and it doesn’t necessarily imply in either case a serious possibility or likelihood of actual censorship by the government.
(But it’s interesting to see how many people are suddenly assuming that five Democratic Senators somehow have the power to censor a network broadcast or to “intimidate” a network into self-censorship! I wish there had been more of this vigilant awareness of the chilling potential of political pressure back in 2003!)
I don’t recall any Republican elected officials (the RNC is not elected by anyone) using official Senate letterhead to castigate CBS and subtly threaten them by invoking the communications act. If I missed such a letter, please point that out to me. At that point, I’ll be willing to call the GOP hypocrites in this case.
Eisner gave a nice chunk to the National Republican Congressional Committee, as did CEO Bob Iger and incoming exec John Popper. Not to mention Republicans Ted Stevens, Buck McKeon, Mike DeWine… and then there’s Joe Barton’s Texas Freedom Fund.