..that CHILL you feel is GE-nbc
news execs slapping their own anchor
silly for telling the truth....
Dear Bart:
By now, we all know that the
ONLY way that Republicans win elections
(getting millions of Americans to vote against
their own best interest) is
through (a. the incompetence and servility of
democrats, and, b. -) the
mastery of Marketing and PR.
Since the days of Reagan, repub.
operatives have known that you could
SLASH housing for disabled seniors, if you get
prime news-time showing you
cutting the ribbon to the opening of one of the
remaining such facilities.
[from a Bill Moyers media-in-politiccs video
series from the '80s, featuring
an interview with Leslie Stahl in this example.]
To counter the PR/media mastery,
the dems MUST fight back using same
techniques - KISS, and REPETITION!
(That is, Keep It Simple! and understandable)
Specifically, I would suggest
that ANYTIME a dem. candidate (or liberal
website) talks about NBC news, it FIRST say "GE-nbc
news."
IF you get a hardball question from tim russert, you FIRST must say,
"Mr. Russert, you do realize
that you get your paycheck from corporate
conglomerate General Electric, and that to them,
NBC news is just one
subsidiary that must post a profit?" then
go on to answer his question. !!
I personally (had to) watch
russert assassinate the Florida gubernatorial
candidacy of democrat Bill McBride, because
russert hurled dozens of HARD
questions to McBride, and gave nothing but SOFT
pitches to the GOP incumbent
(jeb bush). How russert could "moderate"
a debate between McBride and bush,
without pounding away at (much less not mentioning!)
Florida's current budget
deficits, social cutbacks, and tax cuts for wealthy,
is of course beyond
understanding.. until you acknowledge that russert
is a hired assassin for
his corporate masters.
If dems continue to offer themselves
up as lambs to the wolves or
russert, mathews, stephanopolous, etc, then they
really aren't leaders.
Lib. web-sites can show the way! by always prefacing "NBC" with GE-nbc" or "Westinghouse-cbs" etc.!
Thanks, Bart, I hope you take this idea and run with
it!
NBC's Banfield Chided Over Criticisms
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - NBC News president Neal Shapiro has
taken Ashleigh Banfield
to the woodshed for a speech in which she criticized the networks for
portraying the Iraqi war as "glorious and wonderful."
Banfield delivered her remarks Thursday at Kansas State University.
"She and we both agreed that she didn't intend to demean the work of
her colleagues, and she will choose her
words more carefully in the future," an NBC spokeswoman said Monday.
Other sources inside NBC said Banfield promised, in effect, not to do
it again and to check her facts before
making public statements in the future. Banfield had criticized NBC
in the speech for closing its bureau in Kabul,
Afghanistan, a statement that the network said was untrue. Sources
said Shapiro "bawled her out" for what were
perceived as criticisms over the war coverage of all of the networks,
including NBC and MSNBC.
In her speech, Banfield said the networks had portrayed the Iraqi war
as "glorious and wonderful"
because they had failed to show the bloody horrors of the battles.
There was no indication whether Shapiro was upset over the entire speech
-- Banfield also lambasted
Fox News Channel and MSNBC talk show host Michael Savage -- or just
the elements that were
critical of the networks' war coverage.
NBC insiders said few people took Banfield's comments seriously because
of her lack of experience
-- she is largely working for MSNBC these days, and her primetime show
on the network failed last
summer. "I don't think people look to Ashleigh Banfield to set the
standards of journalism," one person
said about the reaction inside the department. "People were sort of
rolling their eyes."
Reporters who have returned from Iraq have defended the networks' lack
of blood-and-guts video,
saying it was impossible to film much of it because of logistical
reasons. They also noted that embedded
reporters did not see action much of the time in Iraq.
"In my situation, I didn't have the occasion to videotape many bodies
or anything," said Don Dahler,
an ABC News correspondent embedded in Iraq who was interviewed April
16 after returning to the
United States. "I don't think I would have shied away from shooting
dead bodies or injured Americans."
Banfield noted in her speech that Americans never got to see the results of mortar fire, just the smoke.
But correspondents have said it was impossible to film the damage because
tanks and artillery were
firing at targets miles away from them. Banfield, who was stationed
Stateside during the war, is the first
network journalist to publicly criticize television's coverage of the
war.
Correspondents who have returned from the front have all raved about
the embedding system that placed
them with troops as well as the overall network coverage of the war.
"On a more macular level, there's some sort of demystification here
-- not only for the media but for the
military and what the other institution is about," CBS News correspondent
Mark Strassman said after
returning from the war. "This vague process is a new step that will
always continue to evolve. And all that's
for the better. They have a story worth telling, and we have a story
that we want to tell, and all that is for the good."
Lost in much of the controversy is that Banfield actually had praise
for NBC News in her KSU speech,
saying the network had never censored her when she covered the Arab
point of view. A major theme
of her speech was that both Americans and Arabs need to be educated
about each other's culture and
points of view in order to begin a dialogue that would lead to peace.
She said that can't be done if television
networks abandon overseas coverage.
But much of Banfield's criticism was aimed at television audiences who
would prefer to watch stories about
murder victims and missing girls than international relations -- unless
there is a major crisis.
"It's crucial to our security that you are interested in this," she
said. "Because when you are interested,
I can respond. If I put this on right now, you'll turn it off."