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CBS didn't air Rep. James Talarico interview out of fear of FCC

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Re: CBS didn't air Rep. James Talarico interview out of fear of FCC

#191
post #118

"Didn't air" doesn't mean what you think it means. It means the interview didn't go over the airwaves via broadcast towers. The full interview is online, which thanks to the Streisand effect already has millions of views and therfore helped CBS in terms of funding. This can be seen as a 4D chess move by CBS. They'll certainly do this again if they're hitting millions of views. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_…

The youtube video currently has ~1.4 million views. Colbert averages 2 to 3 million television viewers per night, plus some number of youtube views that I haven't looked up the stats for. That is, this interview has been seen by fewer people than it would have, had it been on television.

Right now it has 2.2 million.

It will surpass Colbert's normal viewership before the sun goes down.

Re: CBS didn't air Rep. James Talarico interview out of fear of FCC

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obvious question: How is she going to get anything past the gridlocked Congress and hostile Supreme Court? Obama often couldn't after the midterms, and it's much worse this time.

We're seeing with Mamdani, who was elected with a massive mandate, that he can get things done despite a hostile state government that clearly didn't want him to get elected. Obama had a mandate, yet he didn't use it. Looking back, we should have seen this coming when he was mentored by people like Joe Liberman, and we immediately saw the results when he was tested in one of his first goals (healthcare). He dropped t…

FDR was hugely successful, but part of the reason we still don't have universal healthcare is conservative southern democrats decided it was a threat to segregation. FDR tried to take them out, but couldn't.

In contrast the right does whatever Trump says, no matter how many kids he rapes. They have an idea where the country should be in 50 years, whatever the cost. I haven't seen that level of discipline from the left. I hope it's there now post-Trump, but it certainly wasn't there during the Obama midterms.

Re: CBS didn't air Rep. James Talarico interview out of fear of FCC

#194
post #95

It's a terrible look for CBS. At the same time, I find it unbelievable that they don't fire Colbert. This is obvious gross insubordination, and he is an employee. His final show is coming in May, and I'm sure that they can expect Colbert to continue to embarrass them (as the spineless sycophants they are) every week until then. It's a tremendous self own.

Colbert is not a CBS employee. He runs Spartina Productions which, along with Busboy Productions, produces The Late Show for CBS. It's a coordinated project of the three companies, he's not their employee and likely can't just cancel the show except for very specific circumstances.

> likely can't just cancel the show

Because they already have?

Re: CBS didn't air Rep. James Talarico interview out of fear of FCC

#196
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "the administration", it's worth noting you're describing actions by two different administrations. Both political parties have tried to silence dissenting views through soft censorship.

Censoring an interview with a political opponent is a far cry from spreading disinformation that is counter to broadly accepted medical advice during a pandemic with the intent of harming the general population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...

Sure, but that's the straw-man version of the argument. During COVID, there was aggressive censorship of _everything_ related to the virus that didn't exactly toe the party line. Satire, comedy, and truly live questions (like the weak version of the lab leak hypothesis, that SARS-CoV-2 accidentally escaped from a lab into human population) were censored alongside the obviously false, harmful, and misleading takes about drinking bleach and Ivermectin.

Both science and democracy require active conversation that permits dissenting viewpoints and challenges to the accepted wisdom. Once we have an organization deciding what "the truth" is, we're doomed to stagnation and extremely vulnerable to organizational capture by self-motivated people.

In other words, once you build the political, legal, and technical machinery of censorship, you're half way to having it co-opted by people with anti-social intents.

Re: CBS didn't air Rep. James Talarico interview out of fear of FCC

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comedians have a knack for succinctly expressing the truth: > "Let's just call this what it is: Donald Trump's administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV because all Trump does is watch TV," Colbert joked.

Technically doesn't Trump also spend a lot of time golfing, and attending events where people praise Trump - admittedly for broadcast on TV but not necessarily while watching TV? I see that it's become harder to track because the White House doesn't disclose what he's doing as much, but yeah, lots of golf still.

HN's penchant for pedantic literalism will never cease to amaze (and dismay) me.

Re: CBS didn't air Rep. James Talarico interview out of fear of FCC

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the FCC is just enforcing the rule that you have to give equal time to all candidates. The late night talk shows used to get around this policy by using the exception given to news agencies. The FCC is just saying that the late night talk shows aren't really "news" shows. Probably should have been doing this the whole time. They also noted that it would not be a problem on cable or internet broadcasts. Not sa…

Except that they haven't said that. They said they were "thinking"about it. They evidently also don't apply this rule to talk radio, which is overwhelmingly conservative. Talk about putting your thumb on the scale.

Agreed. Although I could see making a case that a radio talk radio show might better satisfy a news format than an entertainment show.

Re: CBS didn't air Rep. James Talarico interview out of fear of FCC

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chilling effect is the entire point. An FCC source literally told CNN, "the threat is the point." CBS isn't being randomly skittish. Paramount needs regulatory approval for its WBD acquisition, paid $16 million to settle a Trump lawsuit right before needing FCC approval for the Skydance merger, and canceled Colbert days after he criticized that deal. ABC suspended Kimmel after FCC threats. The FCC opened an inves…

> "obeying in advance" isn't cowardice you can blame on the network, it's the intended mechanism of state pressure. No, there is no reason to absolve the agency of anybody with power (eg money and platform). The ownership class is kowtowing to Trump because they think regardless of whatever happens, they personally will be relatively fine as long as they go along. And they are probably right, even as Trump leads our…

That's not what I said. I said it isn't cowardice you can blame on the network instead of the FCC, which is what the parent comment did by saying the fault lies "more with CBS." CBS deserves blame. The administration wielding the threat deserves more.

Resistance requires an active, costly choice. The entire structure of public companies, fiduciary duty, short-term shareholder pressure, regulatory dependency, incentivizes compliance. That's not an excuse, it's the point. The system is designed so that capitulation is the path of least resistance, which is exactly why the blame has to center on whoever is exploiting that structure rather than on each individual institution for failing to be heroic. The firms and universities that did fight back (Perkins Coie, Harvard, Jenner & Block) won in court every time, while the ones that cut deals (Columbia, Paul Weiss, Brown) gave up money and autonomy for nothing the fighters didn't get for free. But fighting required leaders willing to accept real personal and institutional risk. Expecting that as the default rather than addressing the coercion creating the dilemma is how you end up with a system where everyone folds and nobody's responsible except the victims.

Of course, increasing the cost of capitulation is one place where consumers actually have power. Disney suffered 1.7 million streaming cancellations after suspending Kimmel, and Kimmel was back on the air within five days. That works. But notice what it required: massive organized public pressure aimed at the company and political pressure aimed at the FCC. Not just finger-wagging for being cowards.

Re: CBS didn't air Rep. James Talarico interview out of fear of FCC

#200
post #3

That's insane. We're talking about the government threatening a station if they air an interview with a political rival.

My understanding (please correct me if it's incorrect) is that the "worst-case" scenario for a broadcaster is that they may have to upload a record of political air time to a public file. If an opposing candidate sees this, they can then request equal air time from that broadcaster. The rule is in place so that one party or viewpoint can't dominate broadcast media. That's a good thing right? The rule change here is t…

The worst case scenario for a broadcaster is that the FCC commissioner will fabricate an excuse to illegally yank their license, which both he and his boss have explicitly threatened to do to any broadcaster which won't agree to stop criticizing Donald Trump. I agree that one could imagine a reasonable system of broadcast regulation where opinionated talk shows don't host political candidates, but that's not what's going on here.
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