C*ns*rsh*p S*cks: Why American Media is Afraid of Advertisments

Political advertisement has always been a down-and-dirty type of game. One needs not look any further than the 1964 “Daisy” ad of President Lyndon Johnson.

The last year has seen a number of battles waged over a slew of political advertisements. No, I’m not just talking about all that Swift Boat nonsense, or even about the reams of false information about VP Cheney and Halliburton. I’m talking about a systemic effort by certain media companies to promote or prevent certain views from getting out.

It all began at this year’s Super Bowl. Some of you might remember that MoveOn.org attempted to buy airtime during CBS’ broadcast of the Super Bowl for an ad critical of President’s Bush’s economic policies, only to be denied because CBS felt it was “issue-advocacy advertising.” That didn’t stop them from airing an ad from anti-smoking zealots TheTruth.com [to view the ad, click here and then choose your playback medium]. Earlier this year we documented our feelings about this issue. Now, it seems that the high-ups at CBS might have changed their minds a bit. First, there was “RatherGate,” and then the CEO of Viacom, which owns CBS, and the co-president, both gave the maximum to Kerry-Edwards. That doesn’t change the fact that CBS thought that the Super Bowl was a forum for farting horses, not legitimate political discourse.

Viacom isn’t exactly done, either. In a story that has so far flown under the major-media radar, Viacom is refusing to air a series of ads produced by website CompareDecideVote.com. The ads were meant to run during such Viacom programs as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Chappelle’s Show, and Total Request Live, shows mainly watched by Virgin Voters. Why? Maybe because the ads are critical of President Bush, who just happens to support deregulation of media conglomeration. Viacom, and it’s CEO, Sumner Redstone, are looking to garner even more market share, so it might not be a surprise that he’s voting for Bush. Oh, except he did give money to Kerry (see above). Now that’s what I call a flip-flop. For more commentary on the issue, check the admittedly biased Blog SWARM.

But the big story this week has to be about Sinclair and their plans to force their 62 stations to preempt programming to air an anti-Kerry documentary. Thanks to pressure from DailyKos and Talking Points Memo, Congressional Dems have stepped up and criticized the decision. We don’t plan to detail the entire struggle, as the links above have it well-covered.

If we may engage in a bit of unsolicited commentary, we’re frankly sick of hearing about garbage like this. The public airwaves are public property, licensed to the networks to protect and promote the public trust, not further some political agenda. Should networks refuse to air political attack ads? Yes, if they are without merit, or unnecessarily cruel. But who is Sumner Redstone, or the higher-ups at Sinclair, to decide who we should vote for?

CBS got a $550,000 fine for showing Janet Jackson’s breast. If Sinclair and Viacom want to abuse the public’s trust, to limit their access to legitimate areas of discussion, they deserve more than just a slap on the wallet. As for what to do, left-leaners might want to check here. Right-leaners, you might want to get a nice big bowl of popcorn and settle in for a night of fun.