YouTube Removal Highlights Media Self-Censorship 488
jamie writes "On 'Larry King Live' Wednesday night, Bill Maher said many of 'the people who really run the underpinnings of the Republican Party are gay... Ken Mehlman, OK, there's one I think people have talked about. I don't think he's denied it.' When CNN re-aired the interview, the mention of Mehlman was edited out with no indication anything was missing. When a minute-long video of the original vs. censored clips was posted on YouTube, a DMCA takedown removed it (the original poster plans to resubmit a shorter clip he hopes will qualify as fair use — good luck, since the DMCA doesn't recognize fair use). Relatedly, the Washington Post today was caught silently editing its published stories to make them less informative. Unnamed GOP officials are also saying that Mehlman will step down from his post when his term ends in January."
WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:WTF (Score:4, Informative)
Re:WTF (Score:4, Informative)
Some of us still remember that Rudy was a complete douchebag who was going out in a wave of scandal before a couple of airplanes distracted the media. Elephant dung, anyone? Mistress in the mansion?
Giuliani handled 9/11 well, but he's still an ass.
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In the wake of a highly unethical and unpopular war, war profiteering, deaths of hundreds to thousands of people in New Orleans and a laundry list of scandals from (mostly) republicans all over the place in washington ranging from pedophelia to corruption to traiterous acts such as leaking the identity of field operatives in the CIA, are you seriously telling me you have the audacity to sit there and post this drivel of "scandals" about infedelity and elephant crap?
I was ac
You're making assumptions (Score:4, Insightful)
David
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Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the party he belongs to has a strong anti-gay agenda and a strong anti-gay electorate. Politicians may not mind being blatantly hypocritical but once their election chances are jeopardized then they will scramble to avoid that.
Read This for Facts -(btw is parent post a troll?) (Score:2)
Looking at the the history [wikipedia.org] of RNC chairmen, the RNC gets a new chairman every one or two election cycles.
Ken Mehlman says he was stepping down at the end of the election cycle, regardless of the outcome.
If you want to speculate, the "thumpin" the Republicans took increased the likelihood the RNC would switch leadership.
Not that it is particularly important, Ken Mehlman has denied being gay. Just because Bill Maher says something, doesn't make it is t
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought his resignation had more to do with the Republicans getting their collective asses handed to them in the recent midterm elections.
I don't know/care whether he's gay, and would certainly not count Bill Maher as a credible source. But, if he were in fact gay, he would almost surely be pushed out of that position very quickly. The Republicans have done their best to whip up anti-gay sentiment, to "energize their base". Although flaming hypocrisy does seem to be the norm in D.C., a bogey man is more effective when you don't also provide a counter example to discredit your own claims. So they would have to push him out of the public eye.
Not necessarily ... Dick Cheney (Score:3, Insightful)
FOX News link -- too lazy to do better [foxnews.com]. IMHO the hypocracy of the Republicans is one problem, but the farce of "family values" when your dad is actively legislating against your life is even more astonishing.
Of course, they definitely kept Mary Cheney out of the public eye. In fact, the Cheneys overall seem to be kept in a locked box somewhere and only unleashed when it's time to sling some serious shi
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Spend the money you do get from me wisely and for the good of all citizens, then stay the F**K out of my life, my bedroom, my phone, my neighbor's bedroom, my religion etc.
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or a Brokeback Mountain West Democrat.
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If Bill Gates wanted to ruin your life- there is not a damn thing you could do to stop him in a libertarian society.
An underlying presumption of libertarian philosophy is that by some magical means very powerful people will not abuse their power.
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Corporations are EVEN stronger than people like Gates, plus they are basically immortal and can assign blame to a few human "cells" and shed them to avoid legal consequences.
It's rapidly corrupting a republican democracy- I don't think liberatarian philosophy ala Ayn Rand would stand a chance against lawyers and corporations.
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Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
A libertarian society has the minimum government influence, in order to maximize personal freedom; taken to the extreme, the government has no role beyond enforcing contracts and preventing outright violence. The problem with this is that nothing stops Bill Gates from paying the local water and power companies to not do business with you. Under current government such attempts would almost certainly be illegal (harassment).
The fatal flaw of libertarian philosophy is that coercion is defined as using force against someone. It is flawed because it ignores another coercive strategy: resource deprivation. If I control the only source of water in a desert, I hold power of life and death over all other residents, and can kill them without ever once using force against them (except when they try to take water by force, at which point libertarianism allows me to use it in defense).
People in the current technical society aren't self-sufficient, they depend on support infrastructure to stay alive. People with lots of money can buy that infrastructure and then coerce others by threatening to cut them out of it, at which point those other people either obey or starve to death.
In short, government stepping down and relinquishing power over some aspect of society will simply result in the next most powerful individual or organization taking over. Power doesn't disappear simply because someone gives it up; in a libertarian society, since the government refuses to wield power, someone else will. And since that someone else doesn't have any responsibility to citizens, he can rule as a ruthless tyrant.
Just look at any nation where the government collapses: if a new one doesn't rise quickly, local warlords take power over their area and then begin to fight amongst each other. Somalia is a good example of this.
Libertarianism is a very simple philosophy, simpler than even Marx's theories; like them, it assumes that as soon as $EVIL has been removed and everyone been converted to the correct worldview, everything will be wonderful. No such ideal has ever delivered what it promised, so why should libertarianism ?
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Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is why Bill Clinton signed the Defense Of Marriage Act?
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Re:WTF (Score:5, Funny)
Well, at least they'll enjoy the next few years!
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If this were really true, then the Libertarian party would garner more than 1% of the vote. Every Republican I know is also a social conservative.
Fiscal conservativism doesn't have a party. (Score:5, Insightful)
In large sections of the country, although Republicans may be more socially conservative than Democrats, they're certainly not anywhere near the level of the rabid, religiously-motivated, hateful far-right (really authoritarian) bloc that seems to be most Democrats' stereotype of conservatives.
Given the bipolar political system, if you want a political party that supports lower taxation and doesn't believe in providing "bad luck insurance" by punishing people who plan ahead (say, by saving up money or property to give to their children rather than spending it) to pay for others' mistakes, you don't have a lot of choices.
The Republican party over the past few years has been almost completely hijacked by religious-right, and by ultra-hawks who have run up the deficit in order to fund the war. However, this doesn't mean that the Democrats are any more attractive than they have always been; basically offering only marginally more fiscal control, in order to fund welfare and other social programs. It's only because of the depths to which the Republican party has fallen, and sold out its core values, that the Democrats look fiscally responsible.
I would say that many Republicans that I have met in New England (and if you look at 'Yankee Republicans' in general) are not really that socially conservative on an absolute scale, and are torn between disliking the quasi-socialist fiscal policies of the Democrats (particularly New England Democrats), and the authoritarian social policies of Midwest and Southern Republicans. I suspect if you looked at stances on the issues, many Northeast Republicans (say, Olympia Snowe) would actually be very fiscally conservative Democrats, if they were in another part of the country, and vice versa.
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Authoritarian?? Social conservatives are the opposite of authoritarian, as their highest goal is to return the control of social issues back to the peoples' representatives (where the Constitution put it in the first place), instead of the Supreme Court.
Which is why they tried to use the Constitution to define marriage. It all makes perfect sense.
Re:Fiscal conservativism doesn't have a party. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm from a very rural area. Most of my old hometown friends are farmers. The inheritance tax isn't an issue for any of them. None of them knows anyone who has lost a farm because of it. If you know of a documented case, please post it. Otherwise, it's nonsense.
Only 2% of estates pay any estate tax at all. Most of those just pay a relatively small amount. The inheritance tax only has a real effect on a very small fraction of the top 1% of estates. A quarter of the total estate tax is paid by only about 500 estates each year. Half of the estate taxes each year come from only about 3,000 estates in the entire country. Current estate tax exempts the first million of an estate, and for the owners of businesses (including farms) it's even higher.
Republicans have been challenged over and over to provide one example of someone losing their farm because of the estate tax... they haven't. It just doesn't happen.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet for the last 30 years or so, the Republicans have been the undisputed champion of big wasteful government. The Democrats have consistently been better "Republicans" than the Republicans.
Maybe you should stop and look around a little bit instead of repeating ancient sayings that lost their truth decades ago.
The Republicans have proven that not only do they want to fuck up the country, but given the slightest opportunity they will run full speed ahead toward that goal regardless of how illegal or unconstitutional they have to go to do that.
Only somebody with a delusional religious belief in a freaking political party of all things, and a complete ignorance of the last 30 years could possibly attempt to defend the Republicans by claiming the Democrats want to fuck up the country.
Take the worst ideas the Democrats ever had taken to the extreme, throw in radical religious lunacy, and you have todays Republican party.
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Inciting to murder you political opponents, even in jest, reveals a lot about you and the fascist mentality you express. You're no better than Pol Pot on the left or McVeigh and the whackos on the right with that sort of a saying.
Guys like you make it damn hard for me to argue against Republican caricatures of the left - your delusions and ignorance, mixed with the amazing ability to ignore facts that show you to be wrong (30 years of f**king up the
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
This is patently untrue. Did you see the exit polls for this election? It was all about two things: 1) The war in Iraq/Terrorism (which are, thanks to the Republicans, the same thing now and much worse than either were before), and 2) Corruption.
Did you see the exit polls from the last election? The number one issue back then was "moral values."
The Republicans have a history of fiscal irresponsibilities. The two presidents who hold the record for running our deficit up are, you guessed it, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. They also have a history of passing legislation that is great for corporations and rich folks, but bad for the average schmoes and poor people. You know that booming economy we keep hearing about? Guess who's getting all of that money. Yup, corporations and the generally rich folks who own them.
The majority of Republicans aren't rich, they're middle-class folks who like to think, and who the Republicans have told, that they'll be rich someday, or at the very least, they'll be pretty much where they are now. They're betting their current economic situation on a brighter future, and for most of them, that doesn't come true. (These are the same folks who go out and charge up their personal debt to their eyeballs because today doesn't matter and the future is just a vague notion.)
So why would they take a gamble like that? Because the Republicans are packaging a nice and tidy message that these folks want to hear with their "family values" and morality speeches. They're telling these middle-class folks not to worry about economics, because what really matters is not allowing gays to get married, "pre-born" babies to be killed, and so on. The sad truth is that most Americans aren't content to just live and let live, but want their morality and beliefs imposed on others, and their message sells really well.
Meanwhile, the rest of us have to suffer having other people's morality and beliefs imposed on us while we get downsized and outsourced and take jobs with pay cuts, while we lose our health insurance and retirement benefits, while we get raises that don't keep up with the cost of living, and while our country's financial foray into the red numbers just keeps getting deeper, and deeper, and deeper.
I'm sorry, but anyone who is a Republican for economic reasons is either 1) very well off or 2) pretty damn stupid.
Did you read the partent post? (Score:3, Informative)
He went on to say that IF a republican voted for money reasons they were either rich (because this group of Republicans has mostly helped the rich) OR they were stupid.
This was not
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Where exactly are the liberals forcing Republican women to have abortions, or forcing heterosexual Republicans to marry gays? Sorry, they aren't forcing their beliefs on you. If the Republicans don't want to have abortions, don't have them. Don't want to be in a gay marriage, don't marry one. No forcing going on. Re
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps it will allow the Republican Party to purge these idiotic socially ultra-conservative nuts and return to being economically conservative instead (which is the *real* base of the Republican Party).
Sorry, I'm an old-timer fiscal conservative. Which means I've hated the Republican party since Reagan came into office. Before 1980 the Republicans were for smaller government and less spending. But for the past quarter century, they have been spend crazy. They have created a far far bigger bloated government than any Democrats ever did. For the past 26 years, the Democrats have acted much more fiscally conservative than Republicans. If you are a fiscal conservative and still a Republican these days, you are as ignorant of the world around you as people who claimed 'the world changed on 9/11'. Wake up.
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Thank god for that. Do we really need THREE parties absolutely divorced from the real world? The democrats really don't understand the social situation in the world (and want to inflict their's on it). The republicans don't understand the real ideological situations in the world (and want to inflict it on others). The libertarians don't understand the economic situations in the world (and want to inflict it on others). The greens,
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>...any Republican who's not a male college-educated Caucasian...
Hey! I'm a male college-educated Caucasian! You think the Republican party supports my interests? Pfft. White men are no more all bigoted Republicans than black men are all thuggish gangsters.
Get the State out of marrige. (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, I would like to see them just eliminate all the "pro-family" marriage subsidies as a result of this. Let the homophobes keep marriage, just make it a totally religious, nonsecular distinction. Get rid of it from tax law, probate and inheritance law, and other aspects where it usually comes across. If people want those things, they can lobby their congresspeople for tax breaks for everyone, not just married people; write a will and medical-power-of-attorney to sort out the inheritance and medical decision-making issues, and have the "benefits" of marriage with whomever they want.
It's ridiculous that we still have the State sanctioning marriage and childbearing, as if we really need to be encouraging people to pump out more babies. If we need more workers, we can just import them from Mexico or India. Given the state of our educational system, they'll probably be more qualified anyway.
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While the inability to empathise is not itself bad, I suspect you'll find that all bad acts in our world have that inability as their common prerequisite.
Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
Two male CEO's "marry" and one leaves their company to their "spouse" avoiding billions of dollars of tax consequences.
There are a lot of implicit rules that were imbedded in the "Male is the breadwinner and has money and Woman takes care of the home and has children" meme that was associated with marriage until a very short time ago.
Part of the reason for encouraging marriage was so there would be plenty of soldiers and plenty of young people to support the older people.
The rules are changing and marriage isn't keeping up.
What is the difference between a 40's non-fertile female marrying a 40's male vs another 40's female to society?
What's the difference between a 40's non-fertile female marrying her 20's son? or Daughter?
If producing babies are not involved, then the law needs to be pretty crystal clear. Whenever love or large amounts of money are involved, people are going to push it to the breaking point.
I really can't see a difference personally.
And my first comment increasingly applies to men and women (and always has among the rich who married rich to preserve the family fortune). The owners of two privately held companies could marry to avoid huge tax consequences provided they are male and female.
What ever the case- civil unions are *NOT* as simple as they seem at first glance. Today we want everything to be spelled out- when marriages were invented nothing was spelled out.
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Marriages were about *PROPERTY* not about "true love".
Agree on the other points too- you raise children, then maybe the state gives you a break since we currently view it as good for society (I don't but I think we are overpopulating ourselves to death).
Otherwise, why should a childless couple of any gender mix be able to form a legal contract governing inheritance, power of attorney, distr
Re:WTF - YFI (Score:4, Interesting)
They are only a hypocrit if they
However, hypocrisy just doesn't have the sting it did 20 years ago. People have no shame any more.
Except maybe republicans *once* they are caught.
Speech issues aside... (Score:4, Insightful)
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And is exposing blatant hipocrisy really a witch hunt?
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I think you just found the flaw in the argument.
Actually... (Score:5, Informative)
This all seemed unlikely to me, and reading the original letter:
1) The only mention of the DMCA is in the return address. They're not claiming any DMCA violation
2) DMCA or not, there's no fair-use right to be able to put content on YouTube. The guy isn't being sued.
Re:Actually... (Score:5, Interesting)
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In general, however, I gather that brevity is insufficient. To be fair use it has to be incorporated into a larger work, with significant value added. If he'd used the clip as part of a documentary he'd be on more solid ground.
Re:Actually... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, it mentions 17 USC 512, which is part of the copyright law, which was amended in part from the DMCA. So, yes, this does involve the DMCA.
2) DMCA or not, there's no fair-use right to be able to put content on YouTube. The guy isn't being sued.
You are missing the point. He is being asked to take it down by CNN (through YouTube). They are claiming copyright violation. He is claiming his clip falls under fair use, a concept only really defined in courts, not in the law, and not very well at that. He might not have a right to post it to YouTube, but if he doesn't have a place to host from himself and his post doesn't violate Copyright Law, then he can argue Fair Use. Fair use is at the heart of the matter here since the request for removal came from the copyright holder.
Re:Actually...This is more than a takedown issue (Score:2, Informative)
DMCA confusion (Score:5, Informative)
You're confusing two very different parts of the DMCA.
One part deals with circumvention of copy protection devices. That part does not recognize a fair use exemption. It doesn't apply here since the content was not copy-protected.
The other part deals with take-down notices. The way it works is:
Entity A posts some content to service C.
Entity B alleges that he is the copyright owner, that the content A posts infringes his copyright and that he wants C to remove it.
C removes it. C renders no opinion on this; he simply removes it as required by the DMCA.
A files a counter-notice with C that he believes the content does not infringe the copyright because of fair use or any other reason. The reason doesn't matter: having received the counter-notice, C is required to restore the content.
C then restores the content and provides B with the name and address of A (required in the counter-notice).
B then sues A under the old pre-DMCA copyright infringement laws.
A and B go to court.
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2) ???
3) Lawyers L profit!
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Entity A posts some content to service C.
Entity B alleges that he is the copyright owner, that the content A posts infringes his copyright and that he wants C to remove it.
C removes it. C renders no opinion on this; he simply removes it as required by the DMCA.
The End.
How come I hear all these stories about "oh, they DMCA'd me and now my content is gone and there is nothing I can do!" stories, when it s
Re:DMCA confusion (Score:5, Informative)
Question: What are the counter-notice and put-back procedures?
Answer: In order to ensure that copyright owners do not wrongly insist on the removal of materials that actually do not infringe their copyrights, the safe harbor provisions require service providers to notify the subscribers if their materials have been removed and to provide them with an opportunity to send a written notice to the service provider stating that the material has been wrongly removed. [512(g)] If a subscriber provides a proper "counter-notice" claiming that the material does not infringe copyrights, the service provider must then promptly notify the claiming party of the individual's objection. [512(g)(2)] If the copyright owner does not bring a lawsuit in district court within 14 days, the service provider is then required to restore the material to its location on its network. [512(g)(2)(C)]
A proper counter-notice must contain the following information:
* The subscriber's name, address, phone number and physical or electronic signature [512(g)(3)(A)]
* Identification of the material and its location before removal [512(g)(3)(B)]
* A statement under penalty of perjury that the material was removed by mistake or misidentification [512(g)(3)(C)]
* Subscriber consent to local federal court jurisdiction, or if overseas, to an appropriate judicial body. [512(g)(3)(D)]
If it is determined that the copyright holder misrepresented its claim regarding the infringing material, the copyright holder then becomes liable to the OSP for any damages that resulted from the improper removal of the material.[512(f)]
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Wow, that doesn't work when it's not spoken.
I'm confused (again). (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I'm confused (again). (Score:4, Informative)
YouTube isn't being spineless. They're doing exactly what the law requires. No more, no less. Takedowns are legally defined in the "safe harbor" portion of DMCA and they work like this:
The safe harbor law defines a way for service providers to escape liability from either the copyright owner or the poster of the material. If the takedown notice is invalid (the person/company giving notice is not the copyright holder, the work is obviously licensed, etc.), then the content poster has the right to sue under DMCA.
To summarize, if the person who had the content on YouTube thinks it's fair use, he can easily compel YouTube to restore it. He'd probably be sued by Time Warner shortly after, however.
IANAL.
Im shocked! (Score:2)
And somewhat related: Who cares what someones sexual preference is? If you need to know, perhaps you need to get a life. Judge a person on his job performance, not what he/she does on their own time, which is really none of your business anyway.
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As for his job performance, you may have noticed that Republicans just lost pretty badly in the midterm elections. As chair of the RNC, it was his job to prevent that from happening. He's one of the many people who are taking a fall as a result of this.
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That's a very nice sentiment and would be fine if the person in question did almost anything except politics. In the case of politics, specifically republican politics, there is a platform of most things gay being "wrong, bad, perverted, or evil, etc." If a top me
Re:Im shocked! (Score:5, Informative)
The republicans do. They want to limit what rights you have if you are gay. These rights include serving in the military, teaching, joining civic organizations and marriage amongst others.
Just remember everyone (Score:3, Insightful)
Outing anyone else though is a hate crime and the democrates will see to it that you will go to jail if you do so.
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Slow News Day??? (Score:2)
Rewrite fullwise (Score:2, Insightful)
>
>On 'Larry King Live' Wednesday night, Bill Maher said many of 'the people who really run the underpinnings of the Republican Party are gay... Ken Mehlman, OK, there's one I think people have talked about. I don't think he's denied it.' When CNN re-aired the interview, the mention of Mehlman was edited out with no indication anything was missing. When a minute-long video of the original vs. censored clips was posted on YouTube, a DMCA takedown removed it (the original poster plans t
It's not about being gay (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's the clip [crooksandliars.com]. Note in the comment section of that post, they mention a few other hypocrites.
Here's the image [1fp.us] that CNN showed on their censored rebroadcast of their 9/11 footage. I guess they didn't want people to wonder why their were reports of bombs in the building, and start doing research [google.com].
Fact is censorship is everywhere. We only get half the story, if that.
Good Journalism NOTEQUAL to Censorship (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not like CNN is run by some right wing conspiracy. I think you have to be pretty far out on the
CNN is simply being responsible (Score:5, Interesting)
David
Re:CNN is simply being responsible (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, can they still call themselves Live?
Re:CNN is simply being responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
David
Re:CNN is simply being responsible (Score:4, Informative)
Bill Maher is a political satirist. Assuming that anything he says is factually precise is going to get you into a world of trouble.
Besides, for public political figures, the standards for proving libel/slander are very high. They would have to prove that CNN knew that the statement was not true and that it was published in a deliberate attempt to malign them. Short of deliberate lies by the media organization itself (not by an interviewee), there is very little harm that this material could do to CNN if re-aired.
Re:CNN is simply being responsible (Score:4, Insightful)
David
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It's not an explosive charge by any stretch. It's a guy being funny.
Also, this isn't a news show. It's an interview show. Different rules can and should apply. I mean, if you tried to censor every lie the average Republican guest on that show spouts, you'd end up reairing two of the episodes back to back in the same time slot as one. You can't fact check every random thing an interviewee says on an interview show, and if you start picking and choosing which pieces of an interview to air based on your
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Doublethink is not responsible (Score:3)
Two comments:
Plenty of print publications and some of the more responsible TV and radio news outlets (e.g. NPR) give retractions, corrections, or apologies when they say something incorrect or inappropriate. That's a good thing. I can even see editing something bef
In my day, it was Roosevelt's crutches (Score:5, Insightful)
The struggle between news writers/reporters and their management chain and the tendency of the management to cover their backsides and not publish anything unfavorable to {advertisers, the legal department, the higher-ups} has been ongoing ever since the invention of the newspaper. Indeed, in some form, it probably dates back even farther. This is nothing new, happens every day, and should be criticized when it occurs (particularly internally within the organization), but it's not particularly newsworthy.
The best way to handle this sort of thing is to decide what is more important---the bits from the story or your job. If you decide that the higher-ups are censoring something that needs to be heard, you tell your news director "the story airs as-is or I quit" (ideally after you have been there for a while). Sadly, most journalists don't have the stomach for that these days, but when this occurs you have to stand up for yourself or the upper management will walk all over you. Of course, this also points to a weak and ineffectual news director who doesn't have the guts to protect his/her reporters from the upper management.
However, that's probably not what happened in the case of CNN. What probably happened here is that they condensed the interview for time and cut out bits that they considered less important. This, too, happens every day. Unless the reporter was pressured to remove those pieces (and there's no reason to believe that this is the case), there's really not a story here at all. It's just the normal, day-to-day operation of a TV news outfit.
The Washington Post story, however, is very disturbing. If the reports of them changing their story are true, and if, in fact, Bush said the things claimed in the original version of the story, their editorial staff should be held accountable for their actions in turning a factually accurate story into a factually inaccurate story and deliberately removing highly relevant factual content from their story.
This should be exposed (Score:4, Interesting)
The point of Maher doing this is to expose the blatant hipocrisy that is going on. The current Republican leadership has been hostile towards gay and lesbian people and their rights. They pander to an audience of religious fundamentalists on a platform that alienates a minority group while being part of that group themselves. If they kept their own internal struggles and self-loathing private then I'd say they have a right to privacy. However, as it stands their public actions and policies have the potential to make life miserable for a group of people so their hipocrisy deserves to be brought under public scrutiny. Just because the minority group happens to be gays doesn't make this ok, there would be an uproar if you had a black man advocating segregation or making interracial marriages illegal, for example.
1984 (Score:3, Insightful)
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From chapter 4:
"Winston dialled 'back numbers' on the telescreen and called for the appropriate issues of The Times, which slid out of the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes' delay. The messages he had received referred to articles or news items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alte
good taste, not censorship (Score:4, Insightful)
Bush didn't lie.. (Score:2)
It's the hypocrisy, stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
The worst offense a politician can incur is to be a hypocrit. If you're going to blast others for their lifestyles and actively work to pass laws to limit their lifestyles, all the while participating in the exact same lifestyles yourself... then you are:
A. A hypocrit
B. A masochist
and... it *IS* different for Democrats, because Democrats are NOT the ones trying to demonize the gay lifestyle.
ps. Preachers like Haggard claim that homosexuality is a "choice" and not an inate character trait. Then he writes an apology letter to his congregation saying "I have been at war with these inner demons most of my adult life". Sounds like he's admitting that it WASN'T a choice... it's just who he is and he's forced to come to grips with it. And his followers offer HIM forgiveness, meanwhile their still bashing OTHERS like him.
Ken Mehlman (Score:4, Insightful)
um, what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not equal incidents. (Score:3, Insightful)
Again, the blogger insists that the blog subject is about the WP comitting censorship, not abut the President's evasiveness. IMO, the public has a right to know, but the administration has an agenda and a strategy, and we are not automatically entitled to know what that is. We, as the public, are not entitled in all cases, to pass on decisions that we have delegated to out elected representatives. The solution is to find a way to elect people who make good decisons in a trustworthy environment. Neither of those conditions exists at this time.
Call the EFF, this is an abuse. Plain and simple. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry Bill or Larry or who ever in the media companies where threatened and told to abuse this law. You just made the case.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The thing is, there could be an interesting story here about how the
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe time for Slashdot to branch out? (Score:3, Insightful)
When I first started scanning the stories at Digg, people would cram all kinds of political stories in there, and they would shoot straight to the top. People would whine about it, then be called "fuck-tards" for complaining about it, invited to leave, etc. Finally, Digg introduced more categories, which you can ignore if you wish. Maybe /. is headed there too?
At least this one has something to do with YouTube. But you could tell from the story summary that we would be talking about gay Republicans.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But this piece wasn't just political, it
Re:I declare a new tag (Score:4, Insightful)
Admittedly, I didn't read TFA, but I think the relevance to technology is pretty solid. The networks are making it so that ordinary people can call out the old-guard information monopolists. It is widely known that most broadcasting companies long ago internalized the values of the establishment, with the consequence that people are not exposed to criticism of the establishment ... in the absence of official censorship!. Cf. "The Propaganda Model"
Youtube's not going to save us all, but it can and should start a trend toward egalitarian broadcasting of serious content & criticism.
Overreact much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see how a short
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this insightful? It is a terrible analysis.
The point of the article is that the mass media/news in the United States is being censored. What might be more to the point is 'who cares who is doing the censorship?'. This is akin to lying to the public by withholding information.
Some of this might be due to the networks being afraid of lawsuits, but again, who cares what the reason is. This is just another example of the poor journalism exhibited in America. When I lived there, it was very difficu
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Issue here is privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I haven't a clue who Ken Mehlman is, but if he is a politician, or political operative, who creates or influenced policy on issues affecting homosexuals, then his orientation may indeed be salient.
I'm not trying to say Bill Maher is wrong or right (back when I was born, it used to be a free country), but a news organization altering facts and then using copyright law to cover up that modification is certainly not okay.