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| ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX will not broadcast RNC Opening night (NYT OPEd) |
| 2004-08-30 |
| OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Show Me the Convention By MICHAEL J. COPPS Washington — As a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, I may not agree with many positions taken by speakers this week at the Republican National Convention. Even so, I believe our broadcast media owe us more coverage of an event that remains an important component of the presidential campaign. Yet tonight, if people around the country tune in to the commercial broadcast TV networks, most will not see any live convention coverage. That's not right. Let's remember that American citizens own the public airwaves, not TV executives. We give broadcasters the right to use these airwaves for free in exchange for their agreement to broadcast in the public interest. They earn huge profits using this public resource. During this campaign season broadcasters will receive nearly $1.5 billion from political advertising. What do we get in return for granting TV stations free use of our airwaves? Unfortunately, when it comes to coverage of issues important to our nation, the answer is less and less. Coverage of the 2000 presidential election on the network evening news dropped by a third compared to reporting on the 1996 election. During the last election cycle we heard directly from presidential candidates for an average of 9 seconds a night on the news. Local races? Forget it. In 2002 - the most recent midterm elections - more than half of local newscasts contained no campaign coverage at all. Local coverage has diminished to the point that campaign ads outnumber campaign stories by four to one. What coverage there is focuses inordinately on polls and handicapping the horse race. |
| Posted by:CrazyFool |
| #8 Wow! Just got done listening to the speaches of McCain and Rudy Giuliani. Rudy gave one of the best speeches ever given at a convention. In the process he ate Kerry and spit him out. Ate, the terrorist and spit out Arafat. Condemed the world for giving Arafat a piece prize. Condemed Germany for letting the 72 Munich terrorist out - Starting the beginning of a trend continued when in 1985 Italy forced Reagan to spit out the terrorists who killed Americans that we forced down. Said that Kerry was wrong to want to submerge the nation's safety to the political desires of some so-called friends in Europe. Very good speech with vision depth humor and color. Watch the whole speech if you can. The sad thing is that the big media refused to carry the Republican convention and it was only on cable and public TV. They carried the Democrats. The action of them and the antiwar protesters reminds me of the Irish who rioted in New York right after the battle of Gettysburg. Lincoln had to send the troops directly from Gettysburg to New York to crush them instead of following up with the destruction of Lee. They were worse then a fifth column and added another horrible year to that war. This because they were too cowardly to go to war for their adopted country. Tonight the Republicans reminded the US that freedom has a cost and the democrats don't want to pay it. If the convention had been on regular TV I would have given the election to Bush after this round of speeches. But, FOX, CBS, NBC and ABC showed themselves to be partisan and the fight will wobble on. Their action was a censorship of the political process. It fits with Kerry trying to sue to stop the Swift Boat people from talking. Rather the speak the truth or lies its their right and freedom to talk. Only Big Brother censors and the Networks and Democrats are blatantly behaving as Big Brother. I don't agree with Bush on many many things but censorship by smug twerps sucks. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2004-08-30 11:52:47 PM |
| #7 Since John F Kerry is break tradition of laying low during the opponent's convention... Saw on (I think) Fox today that Kerry has no appearances scheduled this week, although Edwards is out and about. |
| Posted by: VAMark 2004-08-30 11:14:24 PM |
| #6 I'm OK with this, the less Rather/Brokaw/Jennings openly biased spinning the non-connected (i.e.: non news/political junkies) Americans see, the better. Cable's made inroads and AM talk radio will get the message out. Fox News doesn't suck...heh heh |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-08-30 8:38:44 PM |
| #5 I am just curious.... Since John F Kerry is break tradition of laying low during the opponent's convention (how pathetic is that?) and is actively campaining - do you think MSM give him more airtime then the convention itself? Would be interesting to see.... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-08-30 6:03:39 PM |
| #4 How ironic that I will watch tonight courtesy of PBS. |
| Posted by: Tom 2004-08-30 4:41:27 PM |
| #3 Didn't the networks air at least some of the democratic convention every freakin night????? |
| Posted by: peggy 2004-08-30 4:18:21 PM |
| #2 News junky's turned to cable news long ago. It won't be long before the networks start cutting news programs rather than face continuing after the retirment of their aging anchors. They can pipe in the CNN feed when there is an OJ Chase or some big event to cover, otherwise they make far more money with the regularly scheduled programs. News was a prestige thing so the networks allowed the news shows to lose money. Now that there are a dozen cable news shows I'm not sure the prestige is all that important anymore. |
| Posted by: RJ Schwarz 2004-08-30 4:16:27 PM |
| #1 This is damaging-let's face it folks, your average person learns about politics from TV-he/she is not going to be influenced by political articles in the newspapers. One good thing comes from this revelation-it shatters Franken's theory that the media is beholden to conservative voices, when in fact, a liberal media is censoring bread-and-butter election year political expression (kinda like Chris Matthews did to Michelle Malkin). "Can't hear it-can't imagine it-can't believe it." |
| Posted by: jules 187 2004-08-30 4:09:52 PM |