Air America's ABC Blacklist: The Real Story

[marmar]

Published on Friday, November 3, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
Air America’s ABC Blacklist: The Real Story
by Josh Silver and Robert W. McChesney

This week we learned that some 90 major corporations demanded that their ads be pulled from radio stations that run Air America programming, demonstrating the fundamental challenge facing everyone working to promote critical journalism and a vibrant free press.

First off, let's clarify why this is taking place: The crime isn’t that Air America is partisan. All or most of these firms advertise on politically conservative talk radio programs and/or stations. And the crime isn’t even being “liberal.” Some of these advertisers have moderate or liberal executives who donate to Democratic candidates and are far from rabid conservatives.

So what is the problem? While “liberal” Air America clearly favors big D Democrats, unlike virtually all other programming on commercial radio and television, it gives airtime to reports that are critical of corporations and the powerful politicians they keep in Washington.

This is the heart of the problem: Air America commits a crime called journalism. Almost none of the so-called conservative radio shows or networks do any semblance of actual reporting. They merely pontificate -- repeating talking points that seem to be emailed straight from Karl Rove's laptop.

Air America does its share of pontificating as well, and we leave it to others to compare its integrity to that of Limbaugh and Hannity. But we can say that Air America journalism occasionally focuses on corporate malfeasance. It examines closely the deeply corrupt relationship between corporate power and government officials.

This brand of journalism is found almost nowhere else on the commercial dial. It is brandished as “liberal” because it does not practice journalism as stenography to those in power. This is the same reason that Bill Moyers doesn’t have any of these 90 firms lining up to underwrite his PBS reporting.

So what should we learn from this episode?

1) Commercial media are highly concentrated and corporate advertisers have massive budgets, giving their programming decisions profound implications. According to its own Web site, ABC Radio has more than 4,400 affiliate radio stations reaching nearly 105 million people nationwide. Monopoly media power translates into significant political power and that is dangerous. This is a big deal. ........

The complete article is at: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1103-24.htm

[gully]

1. This IS indeed a BIG deal.

Recommended.

[ms liberty]

2. K&R n/t

[Kolesar]

3. McChesney used to do reporting on the media on NPR

Gee, I wonder why they don't use him anymore?

[nolabels]

4. Truth is deadly to lying cheating corporations..................

Bring on the truth x(

[Zodiak]

5. The corporations have infused the American populace...

with the religion that what is good for the corporation is good for America, and by extension, Americans.

It is the greatest trick performed on this country in the last half of a century, and it is pervasive and entrenched like no other dogma, save Christianity (this is not an indictment of Christianity). More people believe in the corporate lie than believe in democracy in this country nowadays.

It will take generations to pull these corporations from their mountains of power. Until then, expect them to act exactly like the big Trusts did during the robber baron times. They will make alliances and back-room deals that ensure that their positions of power is preserved. The only way they will stop this behavior is if there is significant backlash, and that will not happen as long as the sorporate religion is in place.

Even some DUers have a touch of this religion. Some, but not most.

[mom cat]

6. Continue boycotting every media outlet and their advertizers who support corporate

fascism. Hit them below the belt ... in their wallet.

[OneBlueSky]

7. the coming civil war in this country is not going to involve . . .

people on the left fighting people on the right . . . it's going to involve ALL people fighting corporations -- bringing them down to a manageable size, dis-empowering them, and re-empowering the American people . . .

when national policy is intentionally crafted to benefit large corporations (to the extreme detriment of individual citizens), the country is w-a-a-a-y out of balance and must be righted . . . and the ONLY way to do that is to make corporations servents of the people (as was originally intended) rather than their masters (which is exactly what they have become) . . .

make no mistake . . . the real power in today's world is not national governments, nor even alliances like the UN or NATO . . . the real power lies with corporations, and the small group of people who control them . . .

until that changes, nothing else will either . . .

on edit: for further info and insight, see . . .

The Corporation
http://www.thecorporation.com/

[Gabi Hayes]

9. AMEN! I called a radio show this week. the guest:

DUNCAN K. FOLEY, professor of economics at the New School for Social Research and author of the new book Adam's Fallacy: A Guide to Economic Theology.

I made the point that the world was heading toward global fascism because of the role played by corporations worldwide. THEY control governments on a worldwide basis now.

McChesney makes this point very forcefully in ''Rich Media, Poor Democracy,'' which goes beyond the media, involving concentration of power in the hands of a few, in all major industries.

the main point of his book centers on the idea that, without economic democracy, there can be no political democracy, and that media concentration makes it almost impossible for the public to have the faintest clue as to what's being done to them

[yurbud]

8. kick

[KharmaTrain]

10. ABC Has 4,400 Affiliates?

That would sure make a lot of affiliates unhappy as many have exclusives in their market. Even given is this number were true (ABC has maybe 700 affiliated stations, but that's plenty), most of these stations are affiliates of their hourly newscasts providing only 6 minutes of content an hour (2 of those being commercials). Now if this were a report about ABC Radio News skewing their newscats and reading GOOP talking points, there may be some validity here.

Again, this memo looked like "Traffic Instructions" that are sent to affiliates to avoid conflicts with other advertisers. Also, ABC serves many different formats and advertisers prefer to be on one type of format over another...or prefer not to have their commercials on some formats overall...for example, you won't hear a penis enlargement commercial on an Adult Contemporary or Christian station or Roth IRAs being advertised on an Urban station. It's a standard practice almost always directed by the advertising agencies, not the advertiser or station/network.

ABC/Disney is not without right wing bias. We see that in the 9/11 sham and allowing Mark Halperin to suck up to Drudge and right wing hate radio hosts...giving them credibility. But that's not ABC Radio, that's ABC TV. Also, as mentioned previously, ABC owns no AAR affiliates thus any "boycott" would not be by the advertisers no buying commercials, but the company's own boycott of the network and format. I'd be far more impressed if there was a letter from an ABC VP, from an Ad Agency Honcho or direct from any or all of these companies that state they don't want to advertise on AAR...or if this were a memo from Clear Channel which does operate the largest number of AAR affiliates.

Right now AAR is looking for a buyer. Reports have been flying of all sorts of "interest" and one major question any possible buyer would have is "why didn't AAR make money".