The Reagans - Not to air on CBS.

[MC208B 0]

Damn Bill, this is getting scary......I've been agreeing with a lot of your posts lately.....

[Trent 0]

Censorship! Conspiracy! Evil Reagan! Great Satan!! Rich Guys Holding Us Down!!

Come on. The movie probably sucked and walked on some pretty thin ice. Last I heard, it wasn't just conservatives who were not happy about it. But hey, at least you have something to talk about, right?

The funniest thing is... I've read a few biographies on Reagan, and 2 of them were written by someone who clearly didn't think he was the greatest guy. I found all the things the authors didn't like about Reagan to be some of the things I admired most about the man. The only thing a dodgy movie like this will do is piss off the people that disagree with it, and fire up the people that do agree with it.

Oh and it isn't censorship... you can always go to showtime and watch it. I hear they need some ratings.

Oh, hello again!

[meltdown 0]

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Absolutely. And it's good to see people admitting (finally!) that the media is controlled as much by the conservatives as by the liberals. Like you said, they make up half the country; they have half the influence.
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Well, this I can't quite agree with. Let's see - conservatives have talk radio, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and the Washington Times. The liberals have ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, PBS (taxpayer help on those last two!), my local paper, and on and on. Also, most of the conservative stuff you see is presented as conservative opinion/commentary. A conservative's opinion on a major network is nearly always presented with the person being labeled "conservative" as a disclaimer (so the listener/viewer knows he shouldn't take it seriously). On the flip side, how often do you hear Bill Moyers called a liberal? The liberal spin, usually, is cleverly disguised as objective reporting. Practically all news people/reporters are liberal. That's a fact.

[DJL 235]

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My guess is it went down something more along the lines of the RNC muscling CBS with a threat of not giving them as many ads in the next year. It's an election year and that's a big money maker for the networks. The RNC could -easliy- do this by passing up network ads in favor of local ads. No real hit to the RNC, but a huge hit to CBS. Money talks.

Did you make this up or are you hiding your sources for security reasons?

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[lummy 4]

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Last I heard, it wasn't just conservatives who were not happy about it. But hey, at least you have something to talk about, right?

Just a point of reference, when I heard it on TV this morning, they specifically reported that is was over objections by Republicans and Conservatives. The program was "Mornings on 2" which is a local Fox affiliate.
I wasn't trying to point fingers or even say that it was true, I was just reciting what I had heard and asked for more info.

I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. eat sushi, get smoochieTTK#1

[kiltboy 0]

Meh?? I never mentioned the movie (I'm so confused right now).

I am proud to say that when Ronald Reagan was president I was of an age where I really didn't give a shit. Oh and I was in the UK.
What I do remember are the gaffs mainly due to an addiction to "Spitting Image" with the series "The President's brain is missing" and the whole sordid affair between Ronnie and Maggie as portrayed by the latex puppets.
There was one gaff when Nancy had to prompt him with an answer for a journalist but other than that I'm in no position to comment on the man which is why I never commented on the movie.

David

[billvon 3,107]

> The liberals have ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, New York Times, Washington
> Post, NPR, PBS (taxpayer help on those last two!), my local paper,
> and on and on.

CBS, who just abided by conservative's wishes and took a program that conservatives objected to off the air? That's an example of what a liberal station does?

Believe it or not, big news stations are not owned by environmental radicals or middle class pro-abortion lobbyists. They are owned by massive corporations, like Westinghouse, GE and Disney. They are funded by advertisers - again, mostly massive corporations like Ford, Anheuser-Bush, and Philip-Morris. A naive observer might claim that there's no connection between who pays the bills and what the people who get paid do, but only if they're out of touch with how the rest of the world works.

Think Philip-Morris doesn't affect the content of the news? In 1995 they sued ABC for doing a story on nicotine content in their cigarettes. ABC apologized and fired the journalists who wrote the story. Quite a left-wing reaction, there.

There are right wing news outlets like FOX, the Washington Times and the WSJ. There are centrist news outlets like Reuters, AP and CBS. There are left-leaning news outlets like the NYT and the Post. There are the absurd extremes like the Rush Limbaugh show and Salon. Take your pick.

>On the flip side, how often do you hear Bill Moyers called a liberal?

"When it comes to whining, the liberal elites in America have never been minor league. . . . When vitriolic half-truths and lies show up on a Bill Moyers PBS commentary, I get angry."
-Bush Country website

"Moyers is capable of turning almost any subject into liberal squish."
-MSN Slate

"Ann Coulter, author of Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, was on hand to announce Bill Moyers’s first win of the night — the I Hate You Conservatives Award — for his commentary on the Bush administration."
-Columbia Journalism Review

"Moyers' manipulations underscore what is at the root of liberal "campaign reform." "
-CNS News

> The liberal spin, usually, is cleverly disguised as objective reporting.
> Practically all news people/reporters are liberal. That's a fact.

Check out the thread currently going on on this very forum that disputes that. Conservatives are loath to give that up, because by claiming the media is a bunch of "bleeding heart liberals" it makes it easier to manage news they don't like - if most of the media are lying liberals, any bad news can be discounted. However, you can find both left wing and right wing news within seconds on any TV - you can even find both types of slant on the same network. The far right wing may need to find another reason to explain away bad news in the future.

[DJL 235]

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A naive observer might claim that there's no connection between who pays the bills and what the people who get paid do, but only if they're out of touch with how the rest of the world works.

I have a good spin here. So, basically the people from Coca-Cola, Doritos, and Verizon didn't want to be associated with this? Doesn't sound like a very good reception to me, but time will tell if the controversy was valid. I'm interested in watching this and lukily I'll have input from someone who was in the middle of it.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[billvon 3,107]

>So, basically the people from Coca-Cola, Doritos, and Verizon didn't
>want to be associated with this?

I have no idea how much direct input they had into the decision. But the people who pay billions to a network do have some say on what is shown. Like the old saying goes, follow the money and you'll find the where the real control is.

[meltdown 0]

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CBS, who just abided by conservative's wishes and took a program that conservatives objected to off the air? That's an example of what a liberal station does?
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That's a business reacting to paying customers. I'm talking about newsrooms. And on the Moyers bit, I think you probably know I'm talking about major media outlets, not quotes you dig up on the internet. And if you deny that those other outlets don't lean way left, you must live in la la land.
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Conservatives are loath to give that up, because by claiming the media is a bunch of "bleeding heart liberals" it makes it easier to manage news they don't like - if most of the media are lying liberals, any bad news can be discounted.
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I didn't believe it either, back when I was a liberal. And it's not about "managing" news we don't like. I get news from plenty of sources, and I have no problem "managing" any of it. It's about noticing the things that are reported, and the way that they are reported, and the things that are conspicuously missing. It's not that difficult.

[kallend 2,146]

US TV stations (except PBS) are run for the purpose of making a profit. They broadcast adverts with the occasional program thrown in so the viewers keep watching. Nothing wrong with that, it's the capitalist way.

The decision of what programs to intersperse between the ads is a marketing decision, and it's not for anyone else to criticize. If they make a bad choice they'll be the losers.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Gawain 0]

1) Not one member of the Reagan family, or administration was ever contacted as a part of regular diligence to learn about elements that would lend credibility to the story.

2) "They lived in sin, they'll die in sin" -- Reagan never said this.

3) Barbara Streisand's husband is involved.

That hardly makes for a story worth telling.

The "rumor" was that the movie gave Reagan a "pass" on Iran/Contra. Even though a Congressional investigation found no evidence that Reagan had an active role, so that's hardly a gift. The movie was tough on him over AIDS, I can accept that...but don't slander the man!

No, this is simply another notch on CBS' lousy record of poor thinking (that's what it is, POOR): From the Smothers Brothers to the movie about Hitler to now, Reagan. They're a bunch of bone-heads!

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[Gravitymaster 0]

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>It's funny that when liberals get criticized, they scream censorship.
> However, when they decide to slander someone with alzheimers, it's
> free speech.

It's not an issue of censorship - CBS is a free entity and can put whatever they want on their channel. It's just an example of a TV network caving into pressure from conservatives. That's not censorship, just pressure from a group that doesn't want a hero of theirs shown with the wrong spin.

How can you be so sure the reason CBS pulled the movie was due to pressure from Conservatives? Just because thats the reason they gave? Don't be so naive. Here is a network that knew what they were getting into when making a movie bashing a very popular President.
I'm sure CBS would have shown the movie if their advertisers had supported it.
Perhaps the advertisers were concerned with their own financial stake.
Perhaps they heard a very loud noise coming from consumers who might not purchase their products.
It's just as likely this is the reason and blaming Conservatives was their way of taking a parting shot and trying to get out gracefully.

[quade 4]

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How can you be so sure the reason CBS pulled the movie was due to pressure from Conservatives?

Because last week it appeared as if they were going to run it unaltered and over the course of the last few weeks web sites such as http://boycottcbs.com/ popped up heavily promoted by O'Reilly and other ultra-conservatives.

Hell, even FoxNews says as much in their article here.

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The TV network insisted it was not bowing to political pressure over the script, details of which were revealed in The New York Times last month, but said the decision was made after viewing the finished film.

But critics scoffed at that explanation, saying CBS had obviously been swayed by politically-driven protests, and worried about the implications of such a move for future works and freedom of expression.

"CBS, in pulling this film, did incredible harm, much more harm than they could ever have done in making the film," said Fox News Watch panelist Neal Gabler, author of "Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality." "What they've told us now is that a very small group of people have censorship power over the broadcast networks."

Emphasis mine.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver