Letters to the Editor
-
Definetly not the "free market."
Domini writes: "Sharpton's threats did NOT get Imus fired. Many millions of people who are ALSO a market called and wrote the advertisers, saying that they would not buy the advertisers' products if they did not drop the show. THAT did Imus in. . . . This was about market. Imus's market was small, the people who disliked him represented a larger market, and the corporations were not willing to lose sales to the much larger market of those who disliked Imus's comments."
A financial decision is not necessarily a market decision. Example:
You rent some retail space and open an atheist/freethinker bookstore. The local large fundamentalist Christian community dislikes your business. They threaten to boycott your landlord's other businesses if he continues to rent to you. As a result, the landlord refuses to rent to you any longer, and you go out of business. Your customers would like to buy from you, but they can't because you no longer have a store.
You would call that a free market result? Ridiculous. A situation such as that would have nothing to do with the free market. I suppose you could call that an example of "free speech," but only in the sense that the free speech of a large group was used as a tool of intimidation to shut down free speech of a small group.
All I'm saying is that we should be very clear about what is happening here. Let's not paint intimidation with the happy face of "free market" and "free speech." You may not like Imus. But it's Imus today, and tomorrow someone whom you do like.
-
Dems sealed their fate by not going after righwing talk juggernaut
Why on earth has the Dem Congress not held hearings into the right wing talk radio disinformation juggernaut, which dwarfs Fox and all other elements and exceeds anything Goebbels ever dreamed of.
The prestigious Annenberg School at Penn (funded by the conservo TV GUide fortune) has studied talk radio for a dozen years and finds massive "false certainty" on every issue affecting 50 million listeners who have swung the past 5 out of 6 elections. Kathleen Hall Jameson of Annenberg would be an excellent key witness in high-profile hearings designed to educate the public as to how their politics became so false and nasty, and to pressure ownership to being bringing some balance back to the AM radio dial.
Lacking this, the media corporations intend to keep AM radio entirely slanted to the right, as the recent rollout of Dennis Miller's new show on 100 stations proves - Rosanne debuted at the same time with exactly one station, tiny KCAA in Riverside, California (she had a live interview with Madonna which was as powerful as it was unheard).
You simply cannot win against these guys lacking a perfect storm of scandal and failed war. They hold the balance of power in this country with unchallenged ability to endlessly lie and distort 24/7 on most big AM stations in every market large and small. Yet their utter falsity is itself a scandal that would stun the majority who don't participate and aren't duped, yet experience the media food chain that promotes fantastical lies into conventional wisdom.
Meanwhile, tiny Air America as a failing business was beating many of the right's titans in assorted markets around the country, and is credited by Howard Dean in helping to swing a dozen 06 races. Even this was too much of a threat since Clear Channel began shutting down AAR affiliates (all 3 in key Ohio) right after the election on false premises. College Republicans openly targeted AAR at their convention for a dirty tricks brigade of bloggers and saboteurs. The right will fight to the death to protect the machine they used to take over and wreck the government. Only Congress can save us.
-
The irreducible 33%..
Rush is safe. Hannity is safe. Savage is safe. Even the creepy-crawlies that inhabit the "felon talk radio network" often called Faux Noise Radio (surely I play with you) are safe.
As long as Mr. Bush doesn't drop below 33% (it is no coincidence that the $ sign and the % sign are side by side) it proves that there are enough ditto-heads omnipresent to keep Rush's listenership at sponsorable levels.
I'm being serious. There will be about a third that think Bush is being slandered daily (about 25 millon M54+ with hollowed out skulls) from which Rush draws his core following as does all of radical right talk radio. They are one in the same.
-
Mishima:
I think I'm confused about what you're claiming the free market is.
As I understand it, the "free market" just implies that there is no government intervention to set the value of a product.
It doesn't mean that the supplier is beholden to give the consumer exactly what s/he wants.
A market decision is always a financial decision, and a financial decision is always a market decision.
The market would probably like free Ferraris, but it isn't in the interest of the supplier to provide them.
I DO like Bill Maher, but I don't believe that the "cowards" incident would have provoked ABC to cancel his show had the ratings been better and the show been cheaper to produce.
If a corporation decides that it "simply isn't worth the trouble" to produce a product, then they stop doing it. That IS the free martket at work.
Imus is an entertainer, and his speech is his product.
He peddled it to the highest bidder with great success for a long time, and it was abruptly devalued.
If that happens to Maher I'll be bummed, but I certainly won't argue that his freedom of speech has been curtailed. That wasn't what happened "last time" either - he landed comfortably at HBO where we can enjoy his speech every Friday night.
I accept Imus' firing as an example of capitalism doing its job because I've never lost sight of entertainment as a product.
As I've said before, it worries me greatly to think that when an entertainer gets a megaphone, we suddenly believe s/he has a "right" to keep it.
If America suddenly stopped caring about Paris Hilton, would we be denying her her rights?
If Fox cancels "Drive" has it unfairly "silenced" the producers, cast & crew?
Hell no.
We're seduced by advertising into thinking that we have the right to "on-demand" access to the entertainment we hand-select, but that isn't guaranteed by the Constitution.
Neither is Don Imus' job.