last night.
calimary (1000+ posts) Wed Apr-21-04 03:56 PM
last night. He was trying to get some ideas on how to sue CNN.
Response to Original message
34. Sigh! I know what you mean, my friend...
Edited on Wed Apr-21-04 04:01 PM by calimary
Let me just get through the routine ...
Please note, here, The World's Greatest Lists of Media Contacts – updated April 14, 2004– in the following thread:
LINK:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic...IF THEY THINK WE DON’T CARE, THEY WON’T, EITHER!
... Thank you for your patience.
I can remember a thread here awhile back, that hashed this one out. I'm sorry I don't have the link. People in general were eager to do SOMETHING, but there were some voices that sounded knowledgeable and credible in legal circles who were saying this would not work and wouldn't be a good idea or a good use of resources. I MYSELF DO NOT KNOW. And certainly no resolution to this issue was achieved in that thread!
While I do not know that end of the business, having never been sued, what I DO know is this:
I put a lot of time in on the radio and some time on tv - won't bore you with the details - and I always tried to be scrupulously aware of the filter or viewpoint or bias I might be bringing to a report, or a newscast, and to try to keep everything as uncolored as possible, unless I was called upon to give an opinion. In that case, I would clearly identify it as an opinion - MY opinion, and not sheer fact. I never specialized in legal issues, even while having covered quite a few court proceedings. I'm sure I wasn't perfect on this alert, but I tried hard to be vigilant when I thought it was important - in such situations as coverage of local elections, politics, ballot measures, spending controversies, protests and other stuff. I covered entertainment, though, so I'm not a legal specialist.
I also know that, since I retired, I've paid more attention to my opinion side, and I'm pretty much a flat-out partisan now. As such, I've become ESPECIALLY aware of the right-ward bias in news presentations.
It can be anything - like, for example, the monopolies of subject matter (wall-to-wall Limbaugh & Sons) to the guest line-up (Scarborough, last night I think it was, ran a quick preview of the next several shows. In four out of the next five shows, the lead guest was a prominent republi-CON) to the make-up of panelists (numerous times on CNN, MSNBC, certainly Pox, and the conventional networks - reaction to something involving the White House will be presented from - a republi-CON - either a party player or someone from a right-wing think tank or a right-wing op/ed person or commentator. Only. Nobody at all from the left, or from the Democratic Party, or any such thing.
Or, if there IS someone invited on, representing a liberal view, it will be on a four-person panel wherein the three other panel members are conservative. Or you have a moderate, with a conservative, with an even more staunch conservative, and also a complete reactionary. I saw one group in which the only Democrat was Donna Brasile - who seems, on camera, to be relatively mild-mannered, and plays way too graciously with hard-ball'ers like the three others with whom she shared that panel.
I'm old enough to remember Watergate. I'm old enough to remember a little bit about JFK. I'm CERTAINLY old enough to remember what was done to Clinton. This is the worst I have EVER witnessed. Here in L.A. I used to belong to a local broadcast news group which had a legal arm - comprised of lawyers who worked in the legal department of one of the networks or the pr firms who were members and associate members, or lawyers getting into the idea of public relations or hopeful of landing a job as an on-air "legal analyst." The only time I remember our group's lawyers going to bat for something was in freedom-of-information-type cases wherein cameras and mikes were banned from some courtroom. And, as I mentioned, taking legal action was argued against in another thread.
THAT SAID, I would DEARLY LOVE to see some such thing happen, ANYWAY! You make a strong and valid point about litigation, or the threat of same, being possibly the ONLY way to get a corporation's or organization's attention or effect change. A VERY worthy point. We've certainly seen it proven before. I remember hearing a lawyer in private practice, years ago, give a speech about lawsuits against the police department. He said lawyers in small-proportion civil cases aimed to make a statement with their lawsuits: if the police chief or the police commission knew this was going to cost them the financial equivalent of another police car, it'd get their attention.
I think numerous things have to be in play along with this. I always like to remind people to call somebody and complain. Or send an email or fax. Or - BEST OF ALL - write a letter, or postcard. Something in writing that can be held in the hand, waved around, passed around, and rather hard to ignore. Further, I remember reading in another thread here about 2 years or so ago that a woman got a correction in the New York Times for their erroneous low-balling of the numbers of protestors at one of the big anti-war gatherings in the run-up to the Iraqi invasion. The lady wrote a letter. She outlined her complaint as professionally and credibly as she could. She signed off - CC'ing it to the Washington Post and several other media outlets, including an organization of White House reporters. Message: A complaint of factual errors TO the New York Times ABOUT the coverage in New York Times, sent also to the attention of the New York Times' competitors. New York Times people now are no-doubt painfully aware that now the other guys all know somebody caught them with their pants down, too. And the other guys know they know, and it's further underscored that a LOT of other guys know. So, evidently, the New York Times was moved to correct the record, because it was shamed into it before all of its peers. And by a CIVILIAN, no less! The CC'ing idea was brilliant. REALLY got that puppy out there. Every new complaint deserves mileage.
Those who urge letters to the editor - let me second that, myself! Conservatives and neocons have dominated the landscape because THAT'S ALL PEOPLE EVER HEAR. The other side, the "Silenced Majority," doesn't speak up with enough of a roar. For example, how active, noisy, obvious have any of us been about Air America? Promoting it? Calling the local stations that carry it and saying thank you - or that you're a happy new listener as a result? Calling a talk station (or more) in your area and asking if they're planning to offer Air America because you, as a listener, would like to listen to it and you do not listen to the conservative-only stuff available now.
There has to be a more aggressive effort by those of us who can - to do even just a little bit more, to add heft and momentum to any legal stink or other higher-octane campaign. Maybe a call or series of calls - more than one day a week? Or if you haven't yet done so at all, perhaps designating five minutes, on ONE morning a week, to call on something. Maybe emails to two or three newspapers or news writers - if you were going to write one at all. If you'd planned to call your congressperson, consider making TWO calls - to your rep, AND SOMEBODY ELSE'S. Or do the "Daily Three" - both your senators and your congressperson. Or make a random call to some senator or representative you've never called before. Democrat OR republi-CON. All of 'em need to hear FROM US, ABOUT OUR SIDE.
This kind of individual activism can add up. Like one brick after another into the wall. But it needs to come steadily from numbers of us "Good Guys," not just one here and there. True, every single communication - a phone call, a letter, an email, is just a single communication. But it adds up! And each single communication is conventionally regarded as being representative of many more - from those who share the opinion but are either unable or unmotivated to communicate, themselves. So THAT COMPONENT, TOO, ADDS UP. And at THAT volume, it starts to make a difference.
It MUST BE FURTHER UNDERSCORED, WHILE MAKING THE COMMUNICATION, that THEY work for YOU - as in your elected representatives on Capitol Hill (and locally, and technically, the pResident and his regime also), and the editors, news directors, writers, producers, reporters, anchors, and pundits, all draw their paychecks because people like YOU buy their sponsors' products and tune in to watch their programs, thereby contributing to their ratings and revenue. They should be reminded that they serve at your pleasure as a taxpayer/voter, and a viewer/listener/reader/subscriber/consumer, and that you are EXTREMELY aware of this fact at all times. They get pressure from the board room all the time. They need pressure from OTHER sources, besides! Because, too often, I think these people forget that they serve more than one constituency. Frankly, their board members need to be reminded of that, also.
Not to divert from your original objective - of some sort of legal action. Discussing it here is a first step. There will be other legal experts here, or just a degree or two removed, who can weigh in with specifics. Or alternatives. I'm just nagging, hard, for a strong and powerful undercurrent - a backdrop - to support and enhance the punch potential of the larger action. And we need some noisy high-profile person, like maybe an Al Sharpton, to stand up and start making more waves for us. He gets attention, and coverage, and reaction. He forces people to react to him. THAT is what we need.
The opponent is a many-headed beast. It is really a multi-pronged attack. The more people aiming in the same direction from disparate points of origin, the more likely we'll be to score some bull's eyes. Besides, more voices and more pushing and more aggitating and lobbying and nagging more than proves that the bigger endeavors aren't just isolated malcontents, crying in the wilderness. We cannot be dismissed if we're big and loud enough. We need a few of those on OUR side. They come at us from every angle. That's how we need to come at them. But that means that we all have to do something, even if it's one small thing, and not just assume that "somebody else is gonna get involved so I don't have to," or that "it's not going to make a difference anyway, so what's the use?"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1449856----------------------
The FCC is the Govt. Agency. Colin Powell's Son heads it. There are
Edited on Thu Apr-22-04 12:33 AM by KoKo01
only 2 Democrats on the 5 member Commission. We had a big DU and Move On.org. effort to stop "Media Deregulation." Forced Powell to have district meetings to get local opinion, and phoned and faxed Congress.
We won! Then the Repugs in Congress watered the bill down, and we don't know where it stands today.
Going after the FCC would take bigger guns that any of us have and more money than we have unfortunately.
I still say a phone bank activist effort might be worth it because of the Janet Jackson incident when people all over the country called in during the Super Bowl. Poor Janet was big news for a week and now they are going after censuring Stern and toning down some of the TV shows because of it.
Calimary has some good thoughts in her post. And Paul Begala did say in an article up on Buzzflash last year that Phoning works the best. The right wing has their e-mail banks and phone calls (tune into C-Span's Washington Journal some morning an listen to the phone calls of the idiots who call there. Don't tell me they aren't paid and given their "talking points." The grammar is terrible and they don't know what they are talking about, but they are part of the RW troops who are told to call shows and make a stink.
Keep at it. You may be successful! Don't want to shoot down your hope. Just cautioning like Calimary that there are other ways to do it if you can get a large enough group. DU is probably too disorganized right now, and many folks are tired from the efforts last year to Stop FCC De-reg. and Fight against Iraq Invasion, then the Campaigns took the rest of our energy. It might do some of us good to have a new cause to work for and bring DU'ers together like we were in the old days to try a Phone Campaign, but on the other hand it might "crash and burn."
Good Luck. Something has to be done.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1449856&mesg_id=1453561
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