New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | October 21, 2004

Jesse Walker recovers the stolen honor of the Sinclair Group.

Comments

|10.21.04 @ 3:58PM|#

Walker
You are "fair and balanced"

|10.21.04 @ 5:45PM|#

Thank the good lord (wiccan high priestess, whatever flips your skirt) that you finally covered this travesty. I felt like the kid in the back of the class jumping up and down raising his hand while no one listens.

|10.21.04 @ 5:51PM|#

How many TV stations will Sinclair have to own before we declare that maybe the media isn't so liberal after all?

BTW, I 100% support their right to air this program, just as I 100% support everybody else's right to pick up the remote and change the channel. If they get in legal trouble for airing a political message on their own station, I will regard that as being every bit as ominous as the Patriot Act, John Ashcroft, loyalty oaths at campaign events, and the detention of Jose Padilla.

|10.21.04 @ 6:43PM|#

How many TV stations will Sinclair have to own before we declare that maybe the media isn't so liberal after all?

I know this is a nitpick, but when most people speak of 'media', they don't talk about the all-encompassing system of information, including sports, entertainment, pornography, coloring books, etc., mostly- it's a discussion of primarily, the major news networks (big three), and the major newspapers- and an overarching philosophy in Hollywood. IN the case of news, we're talking 'straight news', not editorial news, such as National Review, or Mother Jones.

Beyond that, the marketplace does a decent job- and has improved over the years. As the perception of liberal bias rose, so too did alternative programming choices- causing people to leave those aforementioned sources in droves. Also, I don't know about the Sinclaire group specifically, but for instance, I may accuse say, CBS News as having a strong liberal tilt, but I don't add up all the affiliate stations, plus everything else CBS does or produces, and pad my evidence volumetrically. If the Sinclaire group owns 62 stations broadcasting the same thing- I hardly call that a barrage of conservative media.

|10.21.04 @ 9:27PM|#

thoreau: What is ominous about a campaign requiring "loyalty oaths" at campaign events? While this might hurt them politically, and it might be argued it should, what is or should be illegal about it, as, say, some aspects of the Patriot Act ought to be deemed. I disagree with your lumping those things together.

--Mona--

|10.21.04 @ 9:33PM|#

Jesse Walker's article claims: "But as crude and thuggish as the Bush campaign's behavior was, it at least reflected a certain self-awareness: When it expelled those women from the rally, it was frankly acknowledging its attitude toward civil liberties."

Um, was this in a privately rented venue FOR Bush supporters? If so, just exactly how are civil liberties at issue?

I'm astonished at having to make these points. I eject people from my home if they make homophobic comments at my parties (I actually did do that once), and expect libertarians to understand that I infringed no one's freedom of speech when I did so.

--Mona--

Jesse Walker|10.21.04 @ 10:00PM|#

Mona, as far as anyone can tell, the only reason they ejected those women was for wearing T-shirts that said "Support Our Civil Liberties." If you tossed someone out of your house for saying he supported the First Amendment, you'd be within your rights, but the implication would be that you don't care for the First Amendment.

(As for whether the Bush campaign was within its rights -- I don't know. Other incidents like this have taken place at public and quasi-public venues. This may or may not be such a case. The point's valid either way.)

|10.22.04 @ 12:58AM|#

Ok Jesse, going out on a limb here, I just don't believe it. I do not believe that anyone was ejected from a Bush rally merely for wearing a generic tee-shirt that announced support for civil liberties. Nope, I decline to accept that Bush et al. said to themselves, "Why, those folks are here supporting civil liberties, and we cannot have that!" Moreover, I doubt you really think that is all there is to it, either.

No Kerry buttons festooning said tee-shirts? Said tee-shirts were not recognized on the campaign trail as the stock-in-trade of anti-Bush partisans who hector the GOP about the Patriot Act (of which I am a partial critic, and about which I have hectored them myself)? No other explanation except a reflexive opposition to civil liberties from Bushies?

As for public events, are you claiming Bush has had people ejected from, say, public parks? Are we, or are we not, discussing private or public venues?

--Mona--

|10.22.04 @ 9:22AM|#

Mona, as far as anyone can tell, the only reason they ejected those women was for wearing T-shirts that said "Support Our Civil Liberties."

As far as anyone can tell? You mean "according to the t-shirt wearers themselves," since they are the only sources of information in the article.

On the word of three Kerry supporters who snuck into a Bush rally, we conclude that Bush doesn't like the First Ammendment. Brilliant.

Jesse Walker|10.22.04 @ 11:06AM|#

According to the T-shirt wearers, yes -- whose story has not yet been contradicted by anyone else, even after various reporters went looking for other points of view; and whose story matches the sort of behavior that's gone on at other Bush events.

Mona: for an example of the blurry line between Bush the public and Bush the private, consider the Tampa case I wrote about two years ago:

On November 1, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the City of Tampa and its chief of police. Its clients are Janis Lentz, Mauricio Rosas, and Sonja Haught, three peaceful protestors who had been forcibly removed from Legend's Field five months earlier. Their crime: holding signs with unwelcome messages (respectively: "Investigate Florida Votergate," "June Is Gay Pride Month," and "Boo!") at a rally starring President Bush.

Legend's Field is private (though tax-funded) property, and under other circumstances one might argue that its owners have a right to exclude whomever they please from the stadium. But as the St. Petersburg Times' editorialists noted in June, the "private" rally "had a distinctly public character." It was run in part by public employees and organized in part by White House staff; a White House spokesperson called it "a governmental, presidential event." Other attendees could and did hold up placards, so the mere act of displaying a sign did not violate any preset ground rules. Lentz, Rosas, and Haught were singled out because the messages on their signs did not fit the rally's script.

|10.23.04 @ 12:51AM|#

Jesse Walker,

Don't expect much from Mona. She's an unthinking Bushbot.