ABC/Disney Shuts Down Blog Exercising Fair Use 525
An anonymous reader writes "A blogger named Spocko had his blog shut down by ABC/Disney lawyers because he had posted clips from an ABC Radio-affiliated program and commented on their content, as well as informed show advertisers of what exactly they were paying for. Spocko merely pointed out the content that station KSFO was broadcasting, and as a result Visa pulled their advertising from the station. More companies were reportedly considering pulling their ads. A YouTube video summary is available. From the Daily Kos article: 'How'd he do it? He did it the way it's always done - by working within the law, identifying points of weakness, exploiting them and being absolutely tenacious ... It appears to me as if Disney is attempting to bully a little guy in an unethical manner. Any media lawyer worth the air she breathes knows that Spocko's use was well protected.'"
Problem with things like torture (Score:5, Insightful)
It is sad that there are media outlets out there that not only supporot but also advocate these things.
I mean, racism, advocating torture, describing how they want to get rid of folks they do not like etc. Coudln't all that be construed as inciting hatred and violence?
Disgusting would be another way to put it, especially when you are totally ignorant of the other side and blindly seek to murder, mutilate, insult and say nasty things.
Don't these people have a conscience? And doesn't Christianity say something about loving one another? I wonder where all that was lost.
Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:4, Insightful)
Religion is a barrier to progress and an excuse for evil.
Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are right-wing Christian, doesn't that involve _following_ your religion? The one that supposedly had a man called Jesus who talked about doing good, being good to everyone etc?
That is the part that I do not understand.
Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:5, Funny)
Some Christians are a bit more Old Testament in their faith than others.
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Good update. Wasn't Mark Twain's line something like "God got religion in the New Testament"?
And the people who would like nothing better than a good stoning on a Saturday night are still here.
Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:5, Insightful)
Allah as the Muslims call God and God (Yahweh) as the Christians and Jews see their deity are one and the same, it's according to all three scriptures the God of Abraham.
And that's what makes the disagreements between these three 'religions' so sad...
the "God" of Hebrews and Arabs (Score:5, Informative)
They're completely different deities because they teach completely different things. They're polar opposites. You may as well claim that China and Norway have the same leader.
Maybe you need to go back to school. The Hebrew and the Arab "God" is the same one. Hebrews are decendents of Abraham's son Ishmael and Arabs the decendents of his son Isaic. The split between the two came when Sarah, Ismael's mother forced Abraham to send Isaic and his mother Hagar into the desert. They all worshipped the same diety. And as Abraham was a decendent of Noah's son Shem [wikipedia.org], from where Semites [wikipedia.org] come from, both Ishmael and Isaic are Semites as well therefore both Arabs and Hebrews are Semites.
FalconNow for another bad analogy... (Score:4, Funny)
Main languages in Constantinople: Latin and Greek
That's a big difference there. They must be different cities.
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Of course, I personally don't give a damn. One imaginary invisible guy in the sky looks just like the other one.
Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:4, Insightful)
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[1]Except possibly some advanced flavours of Buddhism; all the varieties I've come across tie up some interesting ideas with a bundle of irrelevant cultural baggage I find irritate me too much to allow me to learn enough to make a better-based decision. Dumb? *shrug* could be... but it's pretty unl
Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:5, Insightful)
You're seriously trying to argue that a basically pacifist* philosophy developed over 2000+ years is much more inherently harmful than a belief in solid evidence + whatever shit you make up to suit yourself, fill in the holes, and glue it all together?
At the very least, religion gives you the benefit of having other people around you with similar basic beliefs to occasionally tell you "no, you're wrong"...
(*Yeah, yeah, bring up the history of the the Crusades, Charlemagne, the various Inquisitions, and your peculiarly American fundie doctor-killers and radio nutjobs. I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about the Christian philosophy - y'know, "do unto others
About the only thing I can say is bad about religion is that focussed belief seems to inherently cause more and greater hurt in the world than unfocussed belief. Think about that for a while, and ponder who the bad guy there really is - organised region, or human nature?**)
(**No, not the band - though sometimes I wonder about that too...)
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What parent says is simply not true. According to him, some random Indian
Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:5, Interesting)
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have a good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."
- Steven Weinberg, Physicist and Nobel Laureate.
Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Enough people believe that it's true (or you can manage to get people believe it).
2. Most of those people don't really understand it.
3. It can be mutilated to "say" what you want it to say.
4. The mutilated version divides the people in "good" and "bad" ones, where the "good" have the duty to eliminate the "bad".
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If you are right-wing Christian, doesn't that involve _following_ your religion? The one that supposedly had a man called Jesus who talked about doing good, being good to everyone etc?
That is the part that I do not understand.
In the church, we call those types of people who are confusing you "hypocrites".
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nic
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A minor correction in date (Score:2, Informative)
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My "Magic and Witchcraft in Ancient Greece and Rome" class (yeah, I was one of _those_ majors) claimed non-collusium ritual human sacrifice was quite common into the Roman Empire along the frontiers. Christianity substituted the symbolic ritual of consuming the single, essential all-powerful and life-everlasting human sacrifice.
Heh, I guess that class didn't extend as far as how to spell "colosseum". Anyway, many of the practices and tenets of Pauline Christianity are based more on pre-Christian Dionysiac cults than on human sacrifice per se: the ideas of the sacrifice, tearing-apart, and eating of the god at a feast, of the god having an intensely personal relationship with the individual practitioner, the god dying in order to give eternal life to the practitioner, miracles etc at the birth of the god, and others, are basicall
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Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:5, Insightful)
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A few hyperlinks on a notoriously amateur website trump the world's most respected academic press (and n.b., most of academia is not devout Christian)?
And since when is "accurance" a word?
Appeal to authority fallacy. No specific criticism of the material presented. Ad hominem (spelling). Thanks for playing.
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You're right. No anti-religious government has ever become an evil empire that hampers progress and rules by fear and terror... I mean, except for the Soviet Union. And the American Eugenics program.
(Oh, and the Christian Church, which you seem to be slurring, didn't have the power to so much as pull people into pews until the reign of Constantine the Great's Edict of Milan in 313. And few significant branches of Christianity never had even that mu
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Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it does. You now have good reason to believe these people aren't actual Christians.
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And doesn't Christianity say something about loving one another? I wonder where all that was lost.
Yes, it does. You now have good reason to believe these people aren't actual Christians.
Not according to the Old Testament, in fact if there were electric chairs around those days I'm sure they would have been used for executions as well. So you're a christian and disregard the Old Testament? Fine, perfectly well in the new testament Jesus calls for all those who will not fall to him to be killed. Yes, it's all in there. A real christian believes these things.
If you go by "the book" these people are being good christians.
The koran just takes a much more succinct approach to all the same ideas
Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, a perfect example of warping a religious ideal into a tool for your own purpose. Thank you. There a great deal of difference between exercising your personal feeling of justice (Judging) and verbally holding your fellow man accountable (you claim to be Christian, yet are clearly acting otherwise). Judge not lest ye be judged, is not a call to apathy but to mercy.
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Who hates the west? Criticising Xtianity =! embracing Islam. Where do I even mention Islam or 'the west?'
Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:4, Insightful)
Islam, and a thousand other religions may have a billion sins behind them, but they aren't us. We are us, and we ought to be the first and largest concern in our own minds regarding morality and ethics.
Guess what? We're the west. Thus, ought to criticize ourselves before we do so to others, thus you hear a lot more griping about the things we're doing. That's the way it should be. A world where people criticize themselves first is a just world.
Re:Problem with things like torture (Score:4, Interesting)
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And doesn't Christianity say something about loving one another?
I dont know you assume torture and murder cant exist within Christianity, be advocated by the church and scriptures, and cant be done by Christians. Its historically false to even assume such a thing. Christianity is no pacifist religion . I really wish people would just accept the scripture and history of their own religions instead of makin
Liberals are the only ones left listening... (Score:2, Insightful)
I seem to recall (Score:4, Insightful)
"Wouldn't America be a better place if Disney were running it."
I contend that the correct response to this statement would have been involuntary entry to an organ donation programme.
Re:I seem to recall (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that the kind of talk that Spoko was complaining about?
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Are 'ignorant' and 'stupid' considered protected classes of individuals?
I know that Muslims and democrats are.
(As are most religious & political groups)
Disgusting radio commentary... (Score:5, Interesting)
Talking about chopping off fingers and genitals, talking about what it would sound like to have someone electrocuted. It's things like this that cause me to feel shame for being an American. We should be above this type of thought, and *certainly* above this type of action.
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Yes, because the words of a few asshats represent all Americans, and therefore represent you.
I understand, though. It's fashionable these days to say you're ashamed to be an American.
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SLAPP Reborn (Score:5, Informative)
One of the tactics that large companies have used in the past, when dealing with critics - particularly grass-roots activists - was the SLAPP : Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. Someone against your project, or annoying you? File a lawsuit against them. Since you have the money to push it, and they generally don't (if you pick your target well), the only way out of it for them was to shut up. This had the "benefit" of shutting up your other critics, too.
It appears that Disney has dusted off the tactic here. Yeah, Spocko did nothing illegal. All he did was advocate a position, comment legally on what he saw wrong, and point it out to those who finance it. Rather than actually change anything, Disney decided the best move was to shut the critic up. This seems be backfiring though - and it'll be interesting to watch how Disney will twist and turn to try to spin this in a better light.
Re:SLAPP Reborn (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, it hasn't been dusty since about 1967. After Walt Disney's death, the corporation decided that a vast litigation department would help keep the billions flowing in.
In the 1970's they went around the country shutting down child care centers that had Disney characters on their walls.
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This blog is completely different case, please learn to identify the differences.
Re:SLAPP Reborn (Score:5, Insightful)
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The target of a SLAPP suit can file a motion that basically freezes the entire case until the plaintiff proves they aren't engaging in SLAPP. If the company loses, they end up having to pay the defendant's attorneys fees, and, IIRC, damages as well.
Anti-SLAPP Special Motion to Strike (Score:3, Interesting)
When a large entity like Disney files a lawsuit against a small blogger like this, the blogger's defense is an Anti-SLAPP motion to strike. Instead of answering Disney's complaint (if there is one), the blogger files an anti-SLAPP motion. The judge will then make some preliminary determinations and, if the blogger is successful, will throw out Disney's suit.
The beauty of it is that if the blogger wins, he gets his attor
Again... blaming the lawyers (Score:4, Insightful)
Sigh... Why do slashdotters hate lawyers so much? It's always "the lawyers" and never the management of ABC or the gutless wonders at Spocko's ISP.
It is a disgusting tactic they are using, but it is par for the course. Anyone can threaten a baseless lawsuit. The way to handle it is to call their bluff. I do not believe for one minute that ABC would follow through with their ridiculous (alleged) threat.
By the way... has anyone actually seen this letter we're talking about?
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"Disney" had their lawyers shut him down, Disney is dead, therefore Disney, the inanimate corporation doesn't take actions by itself, Disney's Management took the decision, the lawyers did the deed.
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Because there's ALWAYS some slimy, shitbag lawyer that would do whatever you'd like, just so long as you had the money. If I read more about lawyers refusing to accept cases like this, then maybe I'd have more respect for them. They're kind of like whores... they'll do whatever you want, just so long as you have the money to pay for it.
Re:Again... blaming the lawyers (Score:4, Insightful)
First, Disney didn't have to hold out a bag of money on a street corner looking for a "slimy lawyer". They have a legal department, which they keep staffed. They are employees of Disney, and at the same time, Disney is their client.
Secondly, lawyers are like whores because that is the ethical responsibility of every lawyer. When you represent someone, you stand in their shoes, whether it is a corporation, a little old lady, or somebody charged with a capital offense.
Re:Again... blaming the lawyers (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Again... blaming the lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
No. This is not only completely wrong, it's a very common misconception among those who defend lawyers.
Note, IAAL.
The ABA model rules of professional conduct, which most states' ethical rules are based on, have more than the requirement that you "zealously represent your client" (which is the rule everyone seems to remember).
They also require, more importantly, they you do not press claims you know to be frivilous or a non-good faith extension, modification, or reversal of an existing law. See rule 3.1
Tons of lawyers who should be sanctioned for this, aren't. However, if you ever accidentally mix client funds, you will be disbarred.
The rules also require that you keep in contact with your client, and be responsive in keeping them up to date. See rule 1.4.
When have you met a lawyer who actually responds to phone calls?
Stupidity in high places (Score:2)
do not believe for one minute that ABC would follow through with their ridiculous (alleged) threat.
I think you're right, they're just trying to stop the bleeding.
The lawyers are just doing what they're paid for doing, it's ABC/Disney management that fumbled the response. This is not how you respond to this type of criticism if you're guilty...and they're guilty. This is knee jerk. All it's done is to hang a lantern on the protest so it might be seen by a wider audience. They made him a hero. Hopef
Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Free Speech doesn't include the right to have sponsors.
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From what I heard... (Score:2)
Full circle (Score:2, Insightful)
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Their logic had nothing to do with free speech and censorship. They reasoned that certain publicity could be bad for their profits, and they had the power to silence that publicity (or so they falsely believed in this case), so they tried to exercise that power.
It fortunately backfired on them.
Nonetheless, the DMCA as a method of trial-free law-backed coercion still exists in full force, and is being successfully abused in many other situations. As long as one perso
What about FCC? (Score:4, Interesting)
To paraphrase (Score:3, Interesting)
KSFO is in big trouble here. (Score:5, Interesting)
First, already this is the top story on MediaPost [mediapost.com], a web site for ad buyers. This is very bad for a radio station.
Then their big mistake: On Nov. 14th Melanie Morgan said this about Nancy Pelosi: "We've got a bulls-eye painted on her big laughing eyes." (from the Daily Kos) [dailykos.com]
That might be a felony. 18 USC Sec. 871 [cornell.edu]
They said that after the November election, when Ms. Pelosi was Speaker-elect of the House. (The Speaker of the House is second in line for the Presidency, after the Vice President.) Somebody is probably going to be asking some hard questions of the people at that radio station.
There's a legitimate First Amendment issue here, but it's in that grey area between political speech and death threats. Morgan, KSFO and Disney may have some unpleasant months ahead. This could create liabilities that would interfere with the planned sale of the station to Citadel Broadcasting. That sale was supposed to happen during 2006, but on November 22, the deal was postponed and repriced [marketwatch.com], and not to Disney's advantage. ("the potential amount of cash retained by Disney has been reduced by $300 million in the aggregate, $100 million of which is an outright reduction in the cash...")
In terms of financial losses by a media company, this could be bigger than the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction."
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*Personally I'm a
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Read the whole thing:
"Limits of free speech" (Score:3, Informative)
Winter? Or Ice Age? (Score:2)
Hopefully the new Congress (pushed by enough pissed-off individuals and lobby groups) might bring back the sweet chirping of birds and fresh green buds on the trees of creativity.
Or is this the start of another Ice Age [wikipedia.org]?
5-minute audio clips are not "fair use" (Score:3, Interesting)
how did you come across that info? (Score:3, Interesting)
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DailyKos is a deeply partisan site (Score:3, Insightful)
DailyKos and their allies want the radio station shut down because it's a conservative talk radio station. This is just an excuse. There is a complete lack of context to their comments. They mention that the radio talk show hosts suggest that a black man from Nebraska should be tortured to death. My guess is that a particular criminal performed a horrible act and they want him to pay for the act more severely than the law provides (an emotional response). I don't know because it's not mentioned in the article. Just the race baiting key points of "black man" and "torture/execution".
I'm not saying that the radio station shouldn't be shut down. However, I suggest we should base our discussions on more reasonable sources such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and various British papers (not the Guardian). If Rush Limbaugh said that Nancy Pelosi should be removed from office because she was disloyal to the United States, would you take him at his word?
That said, I believe that websites should be allowed to post copyrighted material when it's in the public interest. If they feel that the copyrighted material is violating the law and constitutes a threat, they should be able to bring their case to the public.
Re:DailyKos is a deeply partisan site (Score:5, Informative)
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counter-notification (Score:4, Informative)
I'm surprised that the blogger has given in so easily. I understand that he can't afford a lot of legal expenses, but my understanding is that at this point all he needs to do is file a counter-notification with his ISP certifying that to the best of his knowledge his use of copyrighted material falls under Fair Use, which it almost certainly does. Here's a how-to [cmu.edu]. This puts the ball back in ABC/Disney's court and doesn't require a lawyer at all.
Re:counter-notification (Score:4, Informative)
Does anyone know... (Score:3, Insightful)
Currently in court for a similar issue (Score:5, Insightful)
The first court rejected the suit and sent to a lower court, the second court denied an injunction, which is currently in a federal appeal by the Plaintiff. The opposing attorney has been completely unreasonable in his efforts to "punish me" - purely out of revenge (on his client's behalf).
I have received no support from communities like Slashdot, or the EFF because of my typical conservative political affiliation. The legal battle has pretty much cost me my local reputation, ruined my local business, and has caused me a lot of duress/stress over the last year. Since I don't have the money for a lawyer, I have represented myself Pro Se.
I can sympathize with this blogger, and I hope that once my case is resolved that it will help stand as a precedent (which it almost certainly will) as the decision from the lower court contains a formula for determining which bloggers qualify as journalism and which don't. This blogger will benefit greatly from such a decision.
The best analysis of my case can be seen here:
http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2006/11/blog
Not protected by Fair Use Law (Score:3, Interesting)
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No, because before the digital age where everything is reproducable, the reproduction of something could hurt your ability to sell it. For example, if you wrote a book called "The Four Things That Could Save Your Marriage," and someone printed those four things in a review, you could claim that they are acting as a market substitute for your good. Or if someone offers a download of the hit song off of an album, but not the whole album, and claims it's fair use. That supercedes the need for your album. It sp
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That's hilarious and I hope you win some kind of award for your creativity. I don't think I've seen it argued before, that the character of the criticism (i.e. positive vs negative) is relevant to whether or not the quotation counts as Fair Use. Absolutely brilliant!
(I say "brilliant" because if I called it "stupid" then I wouldn't be able to quote the sentence that I was reply
Re:No doubt the comments (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not at all surprised by the idiocy that goes on in the realm of talk radio, but all this guy did was put up clips to show ADVERTISERS that were paying for ads on this show what was going on.
If the quotes were defensible, ABC should have defended them. They didn't. And as people have pointed out, commenting on segments of shows like this with portions of the original broadcast is COMPLETELY legal under the Fair Use laws.
same topic, from Salon.com (Score:2)
Below is the text of the article:
Electrocute Bill Keller! No, hang him!
The moronic hosts of GOP-connected radio station KSFO get big yuks calling for "traitors" in the press to be killed -- all brought to you by Disney.
By Joe Conason
Jul. 14, 2006 | While Melanie Morgan debates with Ann Coulter about whether the executive editor of the New York Times should be killed by gas chamber or firing squad, the institutional forces behind the San Francisco radio host deserve to share in the national spotlight now focused on her. Morgan's brand of authoritarian extremism is brought to her radio listeners every day courtesy of the Disney Corp., which owns KSFO-AM -- a station that functions as a mouthpiece and fundraising mechanism for the Republican Party.
Through KSFO and Move America Forward, a right-wing nonprofit (and "nonpartisan") organization that she co-chairs, Morgan enjoys an extensive network of connections in the Californian Republican Party. The founder and "chief strategist" of Move America Forward is noted Republican consultant Sal Russo, whose firm has represented a broad spectrum of GOP candidates around the country over the past three decades.
Started as a vehicle for the recall of California Gov. Gray Davis, the group has pursued such disparate causes as discouraging theaters from screening Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," promoting the confirmation of United Nations Ambassador John Bolton, promoting happy news from Baghdad -- and, last December, launching an ad campaign to persuade Americans that Saddam Hussein really did possess a hidden arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
For a commercial radio station, KSFO maintains an unusually close relationship with the local Republican Party. The station's Web site links to Political Vanguard, which is operated by Contra Costa County GOP chairman Thomas Del Beccaro. Both his site and KSFO feature a series of party fundraising events, notably a gala hosted by Morgan herself and an upcoming speech by Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund. (Perhaps Morgan will take the opportunity to harangue Fund about his traitorous Journal colleagues, who also published the story about the financial tracking of terrorists by the SWIFT bank consortium.)
Anyone wishing to purchase tickets to these KSFO-sponsored events is advised to make out a check to "Contra Costa Republican Party" and mail it to the party headquarters in Walnut Creek, Calif.
Morgan and her co-hosts at KSFO (formerly the home of hatemonger Michael Savage) are predictably thrilled by the attention she has received ever since she called for Times executive editor Bill Keller to be sent to the gas chamber (after a "trial," of course). To listen to them is to wonder whether they may have gotten a little overexcited about their newfound notoriety -- Morgan's daily program specializes in primitive politics, with aging frat-boy high jinks provided by male sidekick Lee Rodgers and another character known as "Officer Vic."
On June 27, following a news item about President Bush's denunciation of the Times story on financial tracking of suspected terrorists via the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications ) bank consortium, Morgan sputtered, "Get 'em! Yes, hang 'em! Yeah!"
Two days later, her sidekick Rodgers became exasperated with the Associated Press for reporting that antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan and others had begun a hunger strike. "Why don't you dopes at the Associated Press do the world a favor? Commit mass suicide!"
"Oh, Lee!" tittered Morgan.
The hilarity continued on June 30 when Morgan clarified her position. For the sake of listeners who wondered why she kept calling for prosecution of the New York Times but not of the other newspapers that had published stories on the SWIFT tracking, she explained that they're all traitors in her mind.
"I'm going to say this one more time," she barked peevishly. "Yes, we're picking on the New York Times, the poor defenseless New York Times. But I don't care if it was the New York Times or the L.A. Times or the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal. All of you people are equally guilty of treasonous behavior!"
By then Rodgers had gotten plenty fed up with all the criticism of his co-host, and he issued an ominous warning. "God Almighty," he muttered. "The day will come ... The day will come when unpleasant things are going to happen to a bunch of stupid liberals. It's going to be amusing to watch, it's going to be very amusing to watch." Morgan cackled as if on cue, "Heh heh heh."
Like many right-wingers, the KSFO crew can dish it out, but they can't take it. Their feelings get hurt when anyone slaps back. On July 10, New York Times columnist Frank Rich published a Sunday column identifying Morgan as part of a "get the press lynch mob." Although Rich didn't urge any summary punishment for her, Morgan reacted the next day by calling him "one of the meanest liberals that's on staff there in the columns department" and wrongly accused him and other Times staffers of having "lied about what I've actually said." (In the same breath she made a similar bogus complaint about a column I wrote for Salon.)
Then she and her crew came up with a new position regarding what should happen to those journalists whom she deems traitors. Not what should happen, actually, but how it should happen.
"I really do believe that anybody who publishes classified information that results in a charge of treason should be fried! Fry 'em! Trial, conviction, death penalty!"
At that point one of her co-hosts cheerfully interjects, "You originally called for the gas chamber ... but we kind of like Ole Sparky," meaning the electric chair. To shrieks of laughter from Morgan, he launched into a gruesome description of execution by electrocution: "Their hair would go up and everything, smoke, electrical jets shooting out of their eyeballs ... We'd take Bill Keller, put him in the electric chair -- after a trial -- and then fire it up." He then launched into a series of oral sound effects -- buzzing, screeching, hissing and blubbering sounds meant to simulate the high-voltage end of the Times editor.
While Morgan modestly bills herself as a fount of "intellect and wit," her brand of fascist vaudeville isn't universally admired. That could be why, according to a blogger and media activist who calls himself Spocko, several KSFO sponsors have canceled their commercials. Yet Morgan and her cronies, straining to keep up with Coulter, seem confident that Disney, ABC Radio and their advertisers love broadcasting the mock electrocution of a New York Times editor. Who cares about journalism or freedom of the press, or even standards of taste? There must be a lot of money to be made in jackboot radio.
-- By Joe Conason
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Re:Slashdot readers come out in force (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just it, though. Criticizing a corporation for withdrawing its advertising from a particular program is not really the issue. If all that ABC/Disney was doing in this case was criticizing, they'd be well within their rights. Sending threatening legal notices to the person or persons responsible for persuading the corporation that it might not be in their business interest to continue to spend advertising dollars on the program is emphatically not within anyone's rights.
Put more bluntly, this is a straw man argument. The right-vs-left politics are a sideshow, and they're distracting from a more serious issue at the heart of this mess. The question shouldn't be whether or not the blogger Spocko is a liberal, or whether ABC/Disney is conservative. If Spocko violated ABC's copyright, he should be reprimanded/made to stop. If, on the other hand, ABC/Disney is merely using legal threats to silence a critic who has not violated the law, then they need to be reprimanded/made to stop. This is true, regardless of the political orientation of anyone involved. Period. Whether or not you agree with the actual substantive arguments of Spocko or of ABC's hosts is immaterial.