Acidus wrote:
] ] (CNN) -- Sinclair Broadcast Group has ordered its seven
] ] ABC stations not to broadcast Friday's "Nightline" that
] ] will air the names and photographs of the more than 500
] ] U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war.
] ]
] ] In a statement online, the Sinclair group said the
] ] "Nightline" program "appears to be motivated by a
] ] political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the
] ] United States in Iraq."
]
] And of course the order to pull the program isn't political
] either.
]
] We have talk about this on Memestreams alot, and this is yet
] another example: Who do you trust for news, when the news is
] filtered by large companies. This is complete and utter
] bullshit

[ It sure is. How about this... even (especially!?) if the show is motivated by a political agenda, it should be shown, because that's how people become involved in the political process. For fucks sake, the State of the Union is seldom more than a couple hours of presidential auto-eroticism and we don't censor that... fuck man, this year the president's dick sucking wasn't even that good, talking about steroids and mars and god only knows what the fuck was going thru his brain.

I'd argue, of course, that this program isn't a political stunt at all, but an ideological one... too many people have unbelievable trouble separating those two things. Yes, my ideals and moral beliefs inform my political choices, but that doesn't mean they're inextricable or even 1-to-1 (see, for example, John Kerry, who I support politically, but am not ideologically matched with). Obviously ABC likes the idea, at least in part, because it'll be so controversial, and in that sense, I'm somewhat put off by profiting from dead soldiers. However, I think the positive implications outweigh that. Regardless, it's not the company's job to censor political speech, ever. If they had tried to hide behind a "this isn't news, so we're not showing it as news" that'd be bullshit, but somewhat more defensible... I'm not sure if I'm happier that they're outright telling people that they're censoring speech that they believe is political in nature. I guess the MS community is probably mostly on the same page, but this should flatly outrage people of every political leaning, because this sort of censorship is the ideological enemy of free society.

Some particularly relevant bits from the article :

* "We find it to be contrary to public interest," [Sinclair general counsel Barry Faber] said.

ABC said that on the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks it aired the names and pictures of all those who died on that day.

"ABC News will continue to report on all facets of the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism in a manner consistent with the standards which ABC News has set for decades," it said.

* Sinclair's sta... [ Read More (0.4k in body) ]

] Someone needs to tell Sinclair's general counsel that the
] phrase "in the public interest" doesn't refer to what public
] likes, but events affect that public, and that their company
] has a journalistic responsibility, if not a moral one, to
] provide the latter, even if focusing exclusively on the former
] is more profitable.

Testify Brother!

Acidus wrote:
] ] (CNN) -- Sinclair Broadcast Group has ordered its seven
] ] ABC stations not to broadcast Friday's "Nightline" that
] ] will air the names and photographs of the more than 500
] ] U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war.
] ]
] ] In a statement online, the Sinclair group said the
] ] "Nightline" program "appears to be motivated by a
] ] political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the
] ] United States in Iraq."
]
] And of course the order to pull the program isn't political
] either.
]
] We have talk about this on Memestreams alot, and this is yet
] another example: Who do you trust for news, when the news is
] filtered by large companies. This is complete and utter
] bullshit

[ It sure is. How about this... even (especially!?) if the show is motivated by a political agenda, it should be shown, because that's how people become involved in the political process. For fucks sake, the State of the Union is seldom more than a couple hours of presidential auto-eroticism and we don't censor that... fuck man, this year the president's dick sucking wasn't even that good, talking about steroids and mars and god only knows what the fuck was going thru his brain.

I'd argue, of course, that this program isn't a political stunt at all, but an ideological one... too many people have unbelievable trouble separating those two things. Yes, my ideals and moral beliefs inform my political choices, but that doesn't mean they're inextricable or even 1-to-1 (see, for example, John Kerry, who I support politically, but am not ideologically matched with). Obviously ABC likes the idea, at least in part, because it'll be so controversial, and in that sense, I'm somewhat put off by profiting from dead soldiers. However, I think the positive implications outweigh that. Regardless, it's not the company's job to censor political speech, ever. If they had tried to hide behind a "this isn't news, so we're not showing it as news" that'd be bullshit, but somewhat more defensible... I'm not sure if I'm happier that they're outright telling people that they're censoring speech that they believe is political in nature. I guess the MS community is probably mostly on the same page, but this should flatly outrage people of every political leaning, because this sort of censorship is the ideological enemy of free society.

Some particularly relevant bits from the article :

* "We find it to be contrary to public interest," [Sinclair general counsel Barry Faber] said.

ABC said that on the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks it aired the names and pictures of all those who died on that day.

"ABC News will continue to report on all facets of the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism in a manner consistent with the standards which ABC News has set for decades," it said.

* Sinclair's sta... [ Read More (0.4k in body) ]