Freedom of TV

[Gob]

The US Republican Party has voted to boycott debates on two US broadcasters if they air planned shows about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Mrs Clinton, a Democrat, would be a favourite in the 2016 presidential race should she decide to run.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said party candidates would not debate on CNN and NBC.

He said the "biased" networks' shows, still in early stages of development, showed their "favouritism".

"I am proud we stood united today to pass a resolution not to partner with these biased networks that plan to spend millions spotlighting Hillary Clinton," he said.

Mrs Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton, has been closely watched as a possible contender for the Democratic Party's 2016 nomination since leaving her position as secretary of state under President Barack Obama in January.

Capitalising on her popularity, CNN has announced plans for a feature-length film about her with Academy Award-wining director Charles Ferguson. It is scheduled to air in 2014.

Also, broadcaster NBC is in the early stages of producing a miniseries about Mrs Clinton starring actress Diane Lane.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) on Friday passed a unanimous resolution preventing it from holding debates among its candidates in the 2016 presidential election on the two networks if they refuse to cancel the Clinton productions.

In the resolution, the committee said the productions amounted "to little more than extended commercials promoting former Secretary Clinton" and "political ads masked as unbiased entertainment".

Republicans also noted in the resolution that Robert Greenblatt, the chairman of NBC Entertainment, has a history of contributing to Democratic candidates.

In 2008 he donated to Mrs Clinton's presidential campaign, and in 2012 he gave to Mr Obama's.
Spanish-language broadcasters included

"If CNN and NBC continue to move forward with this and other such programming," the committee's resolution reads, "the Republican National Committee will neither partner with these networks in the 2016 presidential primary debates nor sanction any primary debates they sponsor."

In a statement, CNN said it had encouraged "all interested parties to wait until the program premieres before judgments are made about it.

"Unfortunately, the RNC was not willing to do that."

Democratic National Committee spokesman Michael Czin dismissed the vote: "The only thing the [Republican Party] can unite behind is a plan to continue to limit the audiences - and voters - to whom they will communicate."

The Republican boycott would also apply to Spanish-language broadcasters CNN en Espanol and Telemundo, which is owned by NBC's parent company, at a time when Hispanic voters are a growing and increasingly key part of the electorate.

[Grim Reaper]

They really do like shooting at their own feet all the time.

[rubato]

They have an entire network devoted to spewing R-W idiocy and denying science already. Fox isn't enough for them?


yrs,
rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

Not when most of the other networks slant the other way. I thought news was supposed to unbiased, but lately (well not so lately) there is blatent partisanship in all news shows.

[Big RR]

Doesn't CNN air Nancy Grace? Hardly a bastion of liberal thought, or thought at all, there. Shows may be slanted, but the networks, news or otherwise, cater to what sells.

[Sue U]

I thought news was supposed to unbiased, but lately (well not so lately) there is blatent partisanship in all news shows.

I don't buy that for a second. If anything, when confronted with a political story, the mainstream media bend over backwards to provide "even-handed" treatment by airing "both sides" -- even when one side is idiotic. The major failing of the American news business has been its cowering reluctance to challenge bullshit and call a spade a spade.

[rubato]

"Opinions differ on shape of earth" reporting dominates the airwaves.

Giving the 'flat-earther' Republicans an unbeatable advantage.

In other words, yes, Sue U is exactly right.

yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

The major failing of the American news business has been its cowering reluctance to challenge bullshit and call a spade a spade.

...and that goes in er.... spades for South Africa. Watching SABC and e-TV news is somewhat like reviewing the runoff from the ANC outhouses. Only Loyiso Gola provides anything like real information and that's a satire comedy show

Meade

[Scooter]

Not when most of the other networks slant the other way.

It makes a nice soundbite to say that the mainstream media slants to the left, but does it even pass the logic test? These media outlets are owned by huge multinational conglomorates that, because like other large corporations they would prefer lower taxes and less government regulation of their business and a strong military (because no one has more to lose than they do if U.S. forces cannot protect their assets both at home and abroad) and any number of other things that, one would think, would give them a natural affinity for conservative politics. And even if we believe that none of that matters, they would have to have known that appealing solely to one end of the political spectrum would alienate a majority of their potential audience, and what effect that would have on advertising revenues.

So we're supposed to believe that the executives of these companies, that were and are fierce competitors that rarely agree about what day it is, decided that they would get together in the spirit of brotherly love and cooperate in a plan to shift the country's entire media landscape sharply to the left, even though it would be disastrous for all of them? That not one of those guys was smart enough to have left that meeting thinking that there was a lot of money to be made by any company that broke ranks and chose to fill that huge market gap all on its own?

Some conservatives have chosen to make it an article of faith to believe the media is biased against them, probably not realizing that by implication they are saying that tens of millions of Americans who don't see such bias are too stupid to recognize it, and that the tens of millions of Americans who do believe it are too lazy to do anything about it.

[Andrew D]

The we're-going-to-punish-you-for-airing-programming-about-Clinton thing is just silly. (Among other things, it's absurd to criticize as an "extended commercial" a film whose script has not even been written yet. And Ferguson's history as a documentarian is not one of producing fawning paeans.)

But more broadly, I see nothing wrong with the RNC's insisting that the primary debates be moderated by right-wingers. After all, the issue is "which of the right-wing contenders will the right-wing base of the right-wing party choose as its nominee?" It's an intra-party issue.

Showcasing how far out of touch the right wing is with the bulk of the country comes later.