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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

#91

Post by patmorgan23 »

claytongulick wrote: post #84
anderber wrote: 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…

Up until this month, talk show interviews were exempt from the equal time rule.

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

#92

Post by bfbcu763 »

The prob has always been the FCC didnt recognize the internet as a Broadcast Medium. Which it is. Anyone can get their message out to a billion people if the algos deem its going to make the platform money. This means the platform support 1 to All messaging ie Broadcast. Thanks to Claude Shannon we know if everyone is given free broadcast capability like giving everyone a mic connected to the same sound system, without a coordination mechanism we get massive noise. How do ppl react to not being heard? They shout louder and louder or keep repeating their message. Amplifying the noise even more. Thats exactly whats happening on the internet today. We had the same issue with radio back in the day when anyone could stick tower on their roof and start broadcasting. This is why Spectrum gets licensed to solve the interference and noise problem. Americans are fed from birth that Free Speech is a right. But no one tells people before the internet Broadcast was not free. You either owned a newspaper, radio station, TV/sat spectrum to broadcast. There is a serious category error happening because the FCC didnt recognize the platforms are really broadcast mediums.

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

#93

Post by mindslight »

hackyhacky wrote: post #75
1970-01-01 wrote: post #65

"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_…

> This can be seen as a 4D chess move by CBS. It isn't. CBS is owned by the Ellisons, who are big Trump supporters. They are absolutely complicit in attempts to quash dissenting voices. You're right that the Streisand effect is in play here, but it's not 4D chess. It's garden-variety incompetence, because the policy makers in the government are too old to see anything other than broadcast TV as the most valuable medi…

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.

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

#94

Post by mandevil »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #26
pdpi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FCC opened a probe on The View[0] for hosting Talarico. They haven't made a rule change, but they're definitely acting as if the rules already say what they want it to say. [0]: https://www.fox7austin.com/news/fcc-opening-probe-the-view-a...

Already in 2026, Colbert has hosted Senator Jon Ossoff and Governor Josh Shapiro who are both up for re-election this year. Why no probe in those cases?

This whole fight is about something called the "bona fides news exception." Basically, in 2006 the FCC ruled that late night interviews were always bona fides news interviews (and therefore not subject to equal time), on January 21st FCC Chairman Brendan Carr wrote a letter suggesting (but not declaring) that the 2006 ruling was incorrect and might be revoked.

Separately, currently elected politicians are pretty much always considered to be bona fides interview subjects, even if they happen to be running for reelection, because e.g. the Governor of Pennsylvania expressing opinions is news.

If CBS lawyers wanted to fight and bring Talarico on, they would probably win- the letter is not actually changing the rule, and the FCC would have to defend the rule change in court and would probably lose. But the point is that CBS has determined to be working towards the Fuehrer, and wants to do so, and so they are doing what they are doing.

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

#95

Post by JackFr »

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.

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

#96

Post by jahsome »

bfbcu763 wrote: post #92

The prob has always been the FCC didnt recognize the internet as a Broadcast Medium. Which it is. Anyone can get their message out to a billion people if the algos deem its going to make the platform money. This means the platform support 1 to All messaging ie Broadcast. Thanks to Claude Shannon we know if everyone is given free broadcast capability like giving everyone a mic connected to the same sound system, witho…

The difference is the airwaves are a limited transmission method. A broadcast medium is not regulated because it's dangerous, it's regulated because it's scarce.

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

#97

Post by thatnerdyguy »

hackyhacky wrote: post #69
croes wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Victim blaming? Greedy for trying to stay in business. If you didn’t fight hard enough it’s your fault? You let the government of the hook to easily. By your logic you‘re a perpetrator too because he don’t blame the real bad guy

> Greedy for trying to stay in business. If CBS were headed by someone with gumption and less willingness to kowtow to the government, they could resist this pressure and still be fine. Worst case scenario, a merger would get rejected and they would be targeted by some spurious lawsuits. Going out of business is not a realistic risk. What is a risk, however, is non-optimal shareholder value . We live in a world where…

> they could resist this pressure and still be fine

Precisely. See also: TACO

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

#99

Post by georgemcbay »

steve1977 wrote: post #74
anderber wrote: post #3

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

Normal authoritarian state behavior, no?

> Normal authoritarian state behavior, no?

Yes.

And the most surprising thing about this particular story to me is that a lot of people (here in the comments) seem surprised about it.

I don't mean to normalize this, because it isn't normal, but anyone surprised by this hasn't been paying attention over the past year+, this didn't arrive out of the blue.

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

#100

Post by gz5 »

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #51
Avshalom wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will not be interesting because she has never been an advocate of free speech.

Either the OP was being sarcastic or they’re unaware of the difference between free speech and Free Speech™

what i meant is this may be a good real world litmus test. i dont claim to know if there are differences or not between her word and actions - i have not followed her closely. but i always like 'tests' like this for heads of media orgs as free speech (Free Speech) imo needs to be the backbone of those orgs
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