I don't know what you plan to do with your tax rebate, but I'd like to put mine to a good cause: buying the FCC a spine.
Tonight's Democratic presidential debate is sponsored by ABC, and as the New York Times pointed out, the network is treating it like some run-of-the-mill TV show. Or, to my way of thinking, like a special episode of Desperate Housewives.
Not only is ABC broadcasting the debate on time-delay to us here on the West Coast -- making the debate far less important, evidently, than the Oscars, which get broadcast in real time everywhere in the world.
But ABC is banning any other broadcast news or Web outlets from using more than a single 30-second clip from this presidential debate until the morning after it's over: "We have an obligation to our West Coast affiliates," a spokesman said, "to not make chunks of the debate available until their viewers have had a chance to see them."
Their viewers? Their viewers are American citizens, entitled to take free and unfettered part in the electoral process which -- at last reading -- is not a moneymaking opportunity, but a civic duty.
Rather than rolling over to the privatizing of public discourse, the FCC should muster some guts and insist that networks, broadcast and cable, take turns broadcasting presidential debates in real time, commercial-free, to the entire nation, in what is beyond question the public interest.
Silly me. I forgot that this is the FCC, the agency that defined Howard Stern's show as "a bona fide news program" just so Stern could throw lewd lines at then-gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger, without having to devote any air time to any of the other candidates in an election that, to Californians, wasn't a joke but a vital exercise of political responsibility.
Oh wait, my bad -- the Stern show did want to interview one other gubernatorial candidate. The porn star.
All contributions for an FCC spine implant will be much appreciated.
Follow Patt Morrison on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Op-ed columnist
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"[R]eal time" is all well and good, but how about real DEBATES? I would amend, or modify, the conditions to mandate that the debates be structured like old-fashioned boring debates, and be produced by anyone BUT the networks.
The bizarre reality-teevee dog and pony shows, or beauty contests, that we're stuck with now are not mature, rational "debates" at all. They are celebrity showcases, "moderated" by celebrity infotainwhores who are all about posturing and irrelevancy. Even the PBS moderators like Jim Lehrer, or bloviator Charlie Rose are unfit to moderate a real DEBATE.
I rant thus because it really wouldn't advance the status quo to simply demand that the networks put out their typical self-promoting dreck without commercials and in real time. If you're going to demand that, you may as well go the whole nine yards and demand that the networks withdraw completely from staging the debates. Obviously, network executives have no experience in creating television programs for grownups.
The public airwaves have been bought and paid for by corporate America--rather like the rest of the government.
The debate questions were stale rehashing of what we have little interest in and we do not relate too. We are interested in the future of our country and ABC was not interested enough to give the nation anything but gossip and trivia. Both candidates deserved better, PA voters deserved to be better served and the American people deserved to have a debate that was good for the country.
Such a display of unprofessionalism should cause the sponsors of the debate to wonder if they got what they paid for. Surely, ABC will never get another political debate. Let's stick to NBC, CBS and the cable guys for real news.
The MSM is really the "great whore" pandering to lies, innuendo, and sensationalistic news reporting. Anyone that tries to hold themselves to a standard above their gutter tactics by telling the truth is attacked for it.
It was a horrible debate, maybe 30 minutes of what approached real questions.
And they were going for alot of "gotcha" garbage.
Seemed slanted in Clintons favor, but I think that is just because Obama tries to "explain" things and Clinton sticks to talking points, so they directed more of the "gotcha" questions at him.
She sounded good on a few of her answers, the ones she did not try to undercut him.
I'll bet Senator Clinton switches sides on at least 3 issues between the Eastern and PST broadcasts.
Yikes.
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