The last time I checked, we live in a country that provides us all free speech. In the United States you are free to express yourself however you like, even if you are full of shit or completely lying. Remembering this, I am really having a hard time seeing why the Democrats and their almighty and unquestioned god Slick Willy Clinton are getting bent out of shape about this 9/11 miniseries starting tomorrow night. Even if this miniseries is completely false and full of lies, if ABC wants to run it, they can do that as a broadcaster. If Michael Moore can do "Fahrenheit 911" and a guy in England can do a movie about assasinating George W. Bush, someone has the right to run a miniseries with a slightly critical opinion of Slick Willy. Actually, I think it is funny that Bill Clinton is upset about someone not being truthful..."I did not have sexual relations with that woman".
Cheryl and I were watching the 11:00 news last night and even the guy running for Senate in Florida (Ron Klein..who is a democrat) sees no problem with it. I guess Ron is one of the few democrats that thinks free expression is still OK.
3 comments:
Putting aside the issue of deliberately makign up a critical scene in the movie, here's the big difference in thie case: ABC television has been granted a license to use public airwaves worth billions of dollars, for free. Those airwaves don't belong to Democrats or Republicans, or anyone in between. They are everyone's airwaves. ABC's license requires it to serve the public interest. It doesn't ask them to - it requires them to. In this case, the interest they seem to be serving is decidedly (and even admittedly) partisan.
Now the owner of ABC, Disney, has upteen production companies also in its stable, including Miramax (the distributor for Farenheit 9/11, incidentally). If Disney wants to release this to theatres, more power to them. Then its their money they're spending, not the taxpayer-supported public airwaves.
All that said, even though we don't always agree, I do enjoy reading your blog, Todd.
Cheers,
MT.Net
I would agree with Pimpbling on this one. True, ABC is granted a license by the government to do business. But ABC is in no way "looking out for the public interest"..they are a business and their job is to make money and generate ratings. While your view is a "nice try" MT, it is still way off base.
Does AT&T, who is licensed by the government to do business, obligated to look out for the "best interests" of the public? Is your local utility (I assume Progress Energy in your case) obligated to look out for the public's best interest? Actually, now that I am on a roll....I am sure than many companies that distribute porn are licensed either by the state or by the government to distribute their material across the internet. Is this in the public's best interest?
Y'all don't understand how broadcasting works. Every station broadcasting on TV or radio requires a commercial license. Commercial licenses for TV and radio are a grant by the government for you to lease space on the dial. A station never owns the channel on which it broadcasts: it is public property.
FM radio stations eat up 200 KHz of radio spectrum. TV channels use a whopping 6 MHz of spectrum (enough for 30 FM channels). Those are HUGE chunks of airwaves. In exchange for the privilege of using these public airwaves, a licensee is obligated to serve the public interest.
Now, how they meet that standard is up for debate. Usually, most stations run their public-interest-serving programming on Sunday mornings. That's when you see all the talking head shows, the gospel singer shows, and whatever else stations might dream up. It's no coincidence they run these on Sunday morning: it's not a very valuable timeslot.
I hope that explains what I mean by licensing. It's not your typical business license here. Broadcasting on public airwaves is a privilege, and to make use of that privilege stations need to occasionally put profits aside.
Now cable is a wholly different animal. Satellite and cable TV channels are unregulated and not subject to public interest rules. That's why HBO and others can get away with showing nekkid chicks while CBS gets fined up the wazoo for Janet Jackson's titty. The FCC thinks that if you've gone to the trouble to hook up cable or put up a dish, you are tacitly accepting what you see. For the time being that rule is holding up, though some FCC commisisoners are bucking to change it (frickin' busybodies...).
Thus, Disney can show whatever they want on their cable channels. They could legally put a show on ESPN showing Monica going down on Slick Willy if they wanted. But they're leery of crossing any lines with their broadcast stations.
Hope this has been helpful. Sometimes being a ham radio geek comes in handy.
73!
MT.Net
N4JMT
P.S. Just for the record, the one thing I hate to do is defend Bill Clinton. I hate it. He's a lying snake if there ever was one and I knew that long before Monica showed up. It's just too bad that George W. Bush makes him look like a goddamn boy scout. We've gone from bad to worse.
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