Progressives defending Clear Channel, I never thought I'd see the day!

[trumad]

Ohhh but Howard let the word Nigger on his show... Please!!!!!!!!!
Big Picture Folks...Big Picture!

Here's a nice little piece about this media conglomerate:

<snip>
Far from fostering a diversity of voices, Clear Channel's monopolistic practices are accelerating the homogenization of our airwaves. The company syndicates both Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura to hundreds of stations nationwide, shuts out independent artists who can't afford to go through high-priced middlemen, and is responsible for taking the practice of voice tracking to new heights (or depths, depending on your perspective).

Voice tracking is the practice of creating brief, computer-assisted voice segments that attempt to fool the listener into thinking that a program is locally produced, when in fact the same content is being broadcast to upwards of 75 stations nationwide from a central site. So you have one overworked 'radio personality' recording the phrases, "Hello Topeka!" "Hi Springfield!" "How you feeling Oakland?" all day long.

This consolidation is clearly counter to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) mandate to encourage media diversity. Now, however, the long-standing concerns of media activists are being echoed by the mainstream press, the courts regulatory agencies, and even by members of Congress.

Mega-Monopoly...read more

http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PRT.jsp?articleid=4808

[SaddenedDem]

1. Only because John Kerry said so

Of course, I'll probably get another mod warning for pointing this out, but when they allow Kerry supporters to call DUers INSANE and NOT call that inflammatory, what can I say?

It's just a taste of thing to come at DU.

[dusty64]

2. Me neither.

cc is in my top five most loathed corporations. What could possibly be Kerry's motive here?

[SaddenedDem]

3. Motive?

I think that's clear - John Kerry is owned by corporate America. As are the other DLC cheerleaders running for office.

[trumad]

5. Obviously from my pic I'm supporting the Kerry ticket...

But I disagree sharply with him on this one... Like I said...some ignore the big picture for the sake of supporting their canidates opinion on this...

[Pobeka]

23. Could be it's damn hard to win an election without the media on your side?

Kerry's chances of winning are substantially reduced if he stands against Clear Channel. This is an ugly place we are in as a society, media is already so consolidated that they can pretty much decide who will be the winner of an election.

Kerry can't win if he pisses off Clear Channel.

I'd rather have President Kerry who gives a little support to Clear Channel vs. Resident Bush who gives a lot of support to Clear Channel.

[wndycty]

4. I loathe CC and I actually like Stern but get a grip on reality!

Clear Channel is an evil corporation with a horrible and hypocrital political agenda. Its very existence is the best argument to do away with media consolidation. HOWEVER it acted it within the law and its rights by getting rid of Stern. No one can force Clear Channel to keep Stern (unless there was some breach of contract. . .BUT none of us know the terms of that contract) and I at this appoint I would be more offended if they were forced to keep him. Those who have a problem with a us "progressives defending Clear Channel" really do not understand much about the law and the 1st Amendment and their lack of understanding about our position says more about their ignorance of the law and simple logic than it does about us.

[trumad]

10. Acted within the Laws indeed

But lets say they keep gobbling up radio stations er...legally.... with the blessing of Mike Powell and the Repukes, and then let's say they start whacking folks who oppose the Right Wing agenda... That's legal correct? WOW! But I'm guessing since it's er legal then we should just sit back and allow it to happen.... BTW: Who's writing all those laws?

[wndycty]

17. If I owned a station that carried Rush, I'd want to be able to dump him

. . .in this case its one of those don't hate the playa hate the game. The problem is not Clear Channel dumping him, the problem is Clear Channel owning so many stations that our choices are limited. I think that in this situation Clear Channel is hypocrital with a political agenda, but nonetheless they are acting within the law. The law that should be changed should not be whether or not Clear Channel has a right to dump Stern, the law that needs to be changed is that one that allowed them to own so many stations.

[LeahMira]

29. Illustrates why we need public radio and TV

Corporate media are interested in only one thing... making money.

If Howard Stern loses listeners, the advertisers pull their $upport to go where they will have a larger audience.

We have the right to free speech in this country, but in corporate America we don't have a right to an audience. That's why there's a need for public radio and TV... not that Howard Stern is necessarily the best spokesperson for those who share his views, but because those views need to reach an audience.

Disclaimer: I have no clue what Howard Stern's views are. I heard him a few times, got bored, and switched the channel... an opportunity that everyone else also enjoys, BTW.

[sendero]

6. Why the surprise?

Plenty of folks here hate Stern because they DON'T GET IT.

Sure, all the "take off your top" stuff is juvenile and frankly boring. But there is a lot of his show that is not.

Letting racists spew their nonsense on his show does not make him a racist. It makes for a powerful commentary on how screwed in the head racists are. Stern just gives them some rope and off they go.

People who think they can "suppress the message" on any subject are basically hypocritical. Freepers get mad when Dems/Progressives are allowed to be heard because they know their arguments are lame and won't stand up to a counter. I know racists' arguments are lame and won't stand up to a counter, and I'm not going to act like a dumb freeper and tell them to "shut up, shut up, cut his mic!".

This is not a free commerce issue. When media outlets start blatantly censoring (subtle censoring is already widespread) political speech, and get away with it, soon you will not hear ANY dissenting opinion on the airwaves. Is that what you want?

[iverglas]

8. Oh look, it's a whole new thread

So different folks just get to say the same old thing all over again.

Well, Woodstock and I, for two, have already responded directly to what you've said in this post, in the other thread.

I'm always damned if I can think of a good reason to keep answering the same thing with the same thing whenever it gets stuck back on the board as if nobody'd ever answered it.

But yeah. I'm just a dullwitted moron who DOESN'T GET IT.

Actually, I'm rather proud of the fact that my ego doesn't rise or fall on whether or not I get Howard Stern.

I get it -- but his flattery of me, recognizing me as one of the smarties who grasp complexity, subtlety, and all manner of high-IQ type stuff, undoubtedly including irony, just isn't enough to make me like him. I don't care whether he thinks I'm smart enough to get it or not, you see.

He's content to let the other massive % of his audience not get it, to think he's playing it straight (if he isn't, and OBVIOUSLY a large proportion of his audience really does think he is). HE is responsible for what the stupid people "hear" him saying, not just for what the people with the secret decoders in their brains hear, because it really isn't like they're eavesdropping on that complex, subtle discourse that he and thee and me are engaged in -- he's talking to them because he knows they're listening.

And me, I just don't want to live in a world populated by people who think that it's okay to be what Howard Stern presents himself as to them.

And if anybody drags the unanalogous Archie Bunker into it one more time (it was tried re: Conan O'Brien and the Montréalais victims of the rubber dog already anyhow), Woodstock and I will probably have to smack him/her.

.

[sendero]

11. I've listened...

.... carefully to Stern for a long time. I don't think he is a racist. When he lets Daniel Carver go on and on, I don't think it is because he agrees with him. Maybe a segment of his audience does, but he routinely disses racists and homophobes in clear unambiguous language.

How do you suppose those legions of people to whom he is "playing it straight" reconcile that?

And it must be nice to have the luxury of defending free speech only when it is someone you like to hear speaking. That's real progressive of you.

[iverglas]

15. hey, how do I know?

How do you suppose those legions of people to whom he is "playing it straight" reconcile that?

They manage to believe any number of ridiculous things before breakfast every day, as far as I can tell. This one doesn't likely tax their skills any more than the others.

I'm sure they're all suffering from being Unskilled and Unaware of It, but that certainly doesn't make them not unpleasant or not dangerous.

I notice we're all focusing on the racism and homophobia still, just casually (or in some cases very convolutedly) dismissing the misogyny. Quelle surprise.

And it must be nice to have the luxury of defending free speech only when it is someone you like to hear speaking. That's real progressive of you.

Well, if I'd ever done any such thing, you might have a point somewhere other than on the flaming arrow you've aimed at me. Oops, missed. Misrepresentations generally do.

.

[iverglas]

7. gee --- where did you see that, exactly?

SURELY you did not misunderstand anything that anyone said, by way of NOT DEFENDING Howard Stern, as DEFENDING Clear Channel.

SURELY you are not trying to misrepresent anything that anyone said, by way of NOT DEFENDING Howard Stern, as DEFENDING Clear Channel.

I haven't read all the posts in that other thread (and dawg knows why we needed a whole new one), so maybe I missed what you're hollering about here.

Did you want to actually QUOTE whatever it is that you found problematic?

"Progressives defending Clear Channel" is an allegation.

Please substantiate it.

.

[trumad]

9. Wow...two posts in a row...

Yes it is an allegation... This thread and a couple of others that I plan on starting simply point out that when you defend Clear Channels right to do so then you are defending a monopoly who wants to take over the airwaves and control it's content.

Defend all you want.... I say there's much more to it than Howard Stern!

[iverglas]

12. and I ask again

when you defend Clear Channels right to do so then you are defending a monopoly who wants to take over the airwaves and control it's content.

WHO THE FUCK DEFENDED CLEAR CHANNEL?

That was the allegation you made in the header to this thread -- NOT that anyone defended "Clear Channel's right" to do anything.

SURELY you remember how that one goes (Voltaire being generally so much more worth quoting than, oh, Howard Stern) -- the one about not agreeing with what you say, but defending to the death your right to say it?

I'll bet there are lots of people who don't agree what Clear Channel did, but would defend (well, maybe not to the death) its RIGHT to do it.

'Cause to suggest that -- what? -- Clear Channel should have been STOPPED from dropping Howard Stern?? would ... hang on to your hat ... have been a VIOLATION OF THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH.

Nobody gets to tell Clear Channel what to say any more than anybody gets to tell it what not to say.

Except by way of the licensing requirements it must meet in order to use the public airwaves for profit.

I'd be putting a little more energy into the matter of those requirements than into defending Howard Stern. 'Though I'm not saying you're doing that, of course.

If you object to a monopoly taking over those airwaves, do something about it.

Or just post a few more threads containing hollow accusations that you then seem to want to back away from. Whatever.

.

[sendero]

14. Maybe if you had heard...

... the anti-Bush* rant that got dropped you'd have a bit more of a clue. This is a suppression of political speech. They can hide it behind hearings, hide it behind Janet's boob, but few are fooled.

[iverglas]

18. maybe if you understood

what "suppression of speech" means, you'd have a bit more of a point to light on fire.

Heaven forbid that I should suggest that there are no issues worth discussing in respect of this incident; in fact, I never did.

I just can't really take anybody seriously who so seriously either completely fails to grasp, or completely refuses to acknowledge, what the issues are and what they aren't.

I'd entertain the notion that granting elephantine licences to something like Clear Channel, and not requiring balanced reporting by licence-holders (as I gather is not required in the US at present), is tantamount to suppression of speech.

But I just ain't gonna jump on the "free speech!" bandwagon when it comes to cancellation of the airtime of somebody I never thought deserved airtime in the first place.

Some decry the fact that it was obviously Stern's critique of Bush that got him canned from Clear Channel. I'd be decrying Clear Channel's pattern of behaviour, and the pattern of governmental behaviour behind it, and finding some less ambiguous and more serious evidence of it.

.

[sendero]

21. Thanks...

... your post makes it clear, it's about who you think "deserved to have airtime".

I did not realize you were emporer in your own mind. Frankly, who you think deserves airtime is meaningless, and that is putting it as nicely as I can.

[iverglas]

24. just keep on going

your post makes it clear, it's about who you think "deserved to have airtime".

My post indeed makes it clear that I DON'T GIVE A SHIT about Howard Stern being cancelled, for that reason.

Since there has been NO VIOLATION OF ANY RIGHT of free speech, what I do or do not give a shit about is as irrelevant as my favourite breakfast food.

I have NOT suggested that my shit-giving-lessness does OR SHOULD have any bearing on who gets to talk on the airwaves.

I have NOT suggested that it has any bearing on whether what Clear Channel did was good or bad or indifferent, or (in some bizarre parallel universe) a violation of some right.

I don't give a shit what you eat for breakfast, either.

But hey -- I'd defend to the death your RIGHT NOT TO BE COMPELLED TO EAT PIZZA FOR BREAKFAST.

Just as I would defend to the death:

- Howard Stern and his right not to be deprived of life, liberty or security because of something he said

(barring some extraordinary circumstances - is he wont to shout "fire" in crowded theatres? to perjure himself in court? to sell official secrets to enemy agents? to make threats of bodily harm?)

and

- Clear Channel and their right not to be compelled to let someone use their airwaves under their licence

... except that I wouldn't actually defend that second one to the death in principle, because I believe that licence restrictions on users of the public airwaves for profit are essential and should be quite stringent in many ways ... it just happens that they aren't at the moment, in the US, so Clear Channel gets to do what it bloody well wants.

I'm not het up about Clear Channel's right to do what it wants, or Howard Stern's right to say what he wants. Nobody's stopping either one of them from doing it, from what I can figure out, so what does either of them need me to defend his/its rights for? Answer: nothing. He may and can go ahead and say just about anything he likes without me trying to stop him, and Clear Channel can do pretty much what it wants without me trying to stop it (except by trying the change the rules of its game, of course).

As long as everybody plays nice inside the rules, they can flay each other to death with wet press releases, for all I care. People who deserve each other ought not to be looking to me for sympathy.

So no, my post didn't make clear what you allege it did. But you just keep saying it did. It's of about as much concern to me as what happens to Howard Stern.

I can't really be any *more* discouraged about the level of discourse abroad in the world, and in certain parts of it.

.

[trumad]

20. Are there folks here that support Clear Channel on this issue?

Yes or No... I'm simply pointing out that their knee jerk reaction to defend a compnay simply because that company has the right to do as it pleases is wrong. There are much bigger issues at stake here,...

[Pobeka]

25. I support Clear Channel - a bit. But I don't support media consolidation.

That's one of the problems here. -- Howard Stern, love him or hate him, does not work in a diverse, free market. If he did, he could easily just switch stations.

The other big problem is that people are quickly forgetting that the air-waves are a PUBLIC resource, at least that's the way it was intended by the FCC when it was established at the turn of the 20th century. And with every station's license was an explicit obligation to deliver a range of viewpoints on every issue, because democracy needs a discussion from all parties. That obligation became less important, and eventually removed (I think) by the FCC during the 70's and 80's.

[OneTwentyoNine]

13. When CC pulls Savage off its stations and billboards then I'll believe..

That pulling the plug at six stations that air Stern was purely a "decency" move. The fact that they've had no problems with Sterns mouth until just last week sends off warnings to me.

Stern and his mouth were the same a year ago when Howard was licking Bushes boots to get us to invade Iraq. Where was the CC outrage then? And then the matter of Savage,hell do I need explain?? CC doesn't even have a problem with Savage and his hate filled bigoted face being slapped on CC billboards.

Hypocrisy until I see different....

David

[sendero]

16. Not only ...

..."just last week" but just in time to not play Wednesday's show, when Stern somewhat abruptly shifted from a pro-Bush* stance to a vehemently anti-Bush* stance. (truth is, he had been making some semi-positive comments about Dean and Kerry prior to that, but never any anti- Bush* comments of any substance I can remember)

Sure, this is about decency. For crying out loud.

[wndycty]

19. Political, yes. Hypocrital, yes. But within CC's rights and very legal!

Lets show a little bit of understanding here. Lets criticize their agenda and their hypocrisy but lets understand the law and their rights. They acted within the law!

[sendero]

22. I've made that point...

... before. They are clearly within their legal rights. That doesn't mean they aren't ethically wrong.

[trumad]

26. And they acted within the law when they Dixie Chicked the Dixie Chicks.

Right?

[wndycty]

27. Sure did. . .

. . .the problem is not they law they acted within, but the fact that they own so many stations. A business, in this case a radio network, should not be required to program whatever they don't want to. I think the Dixie Chick thing was stupid but it was there right. Criticize the hell out of them for it, I did, BUT THEY BROKE NO LAWS!

[iverglas]

28. duh, eh??

You know what kills me?

When one *does* criticize someone whose speech one objects to, one is the one in the wrong then too.

I'll criticize Clear Channel from here til next Tuesday (although not for canning Howard Stern).

I'll also criticize sidewalk stalkers screaming filth at women outside abortion clinics, DU members who call abortion "genocide", people here or elsewhere who say disgusting things about members of the GLBT community (and hide behind "religion") ... and you can bet the rent that at least one person will crawl out of somewhere and denounce me for trying to suppress free speech when I do.

And somehow, *I'm* the one who was accused in this thread of defending only the deserving. ;)

So many people seem to forget the "I disapprove of what you say" bit of that "... but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" business. I'll do that -- but I'll also step up to the plate and act like a person who cares, and exercise my own freedom of speech by expressing that disapproval.

.

[trumad]

31. Right.. I agree with you

but just because it's OK with the Law don't make it OK...

[rman]

30. when all regulation is removed, everything is legal

that's why corporations love deregulation.
wrt media there used to be the Fairness Doctrine and the Rule of Sevens; what was once illegal is now legal. doesn't make it right though.

[OneTwentyoNine]

32. And exactly WHERE did I state CC did anything illegal??

Maybe you should start a new post instead of implying that firing Stern was illegal on my part.

I've never said anything close to that,I'm just stating over and over that its pure hypocrisy.

David

[Zinfandel]

33. trumad, please put quotation marks on the word "progressives"

They aren't in my book!!!!

[tobius]

34. this is exactly how both the far right and the hard left

lose credibility. No matter who the person, corporation, entity, country, politician, movement, director, commentator, pundit, celebrity, banana, can of soup, etc...is, they are defended or demonized regardless of the facts. So we end up using stern's suspension on 6 stations as proof of censorship and stifling of dissent. or katie courics tone of voice when she interviews jerry falwell is proof that the network is biased against conservatives or --the list goes on and on. Why can't we discuss things with some rationality and some small measure of objectivity?

The end result is bizarre-- the left and the right both end up reflexively defending politicians with sexual harassment charges depending on who it is. ( please- this statement was not for flame bait purposes, I'm sure there are better examples out there that come to mind immediately for you )