....LMB: "Boycott the Media Memorial"....

September 06, 2002

Y'all wanna join me in a media boycott for 9/11?

We all know what's going to happen. Every media outlet everywhere is going to swamp us with retrospectives. Beautifully tragic video montages of smoky skyscrapers and dashing firemen, with softly triumphant music wafting in the background. Images of a defiant president Bush, grim photos of Osama bin Laden and anonymous cheering Arabs. Slow motion shots of grieving women turning to cry on a loved one's shoulder. Incongrous shots of a man in an expensive suit all covered in ash, maybe helping out a more blue-collar-looking person near Ground Zero. Lofty talk about Freedom and Liberty, with no mention of how it's being taken from us. Eulogies and wan rhetoric about how the whole world changed, about healing, and American determination and the American spirit.

Join me on September 11 in leaving the goddam television off. And maybe write your local TV stations and tell them you're not going to watch their sentimental tripe, just to let them know that they're losing audience.

And while we're at it, would all of my fellow writers and bloggers and pundits do me a favor and quit talking about Ann Coulter? She's a ravenous opportunist who feeds on attention, any attention. Every time you point out her newest fanatical hyperbolic quote, it's like giving her a foot massage while dumping money into her pockets. Cut it out.

Posted by Jake at 09:32 AM
Comments

You are not alone. My wife and I are on 9/11 media black out for, like, all of Sept. this week's Time and Newsweek went right into the recycling unread. On 9/11 we're going to the movie. maybe multiple movies.

Posted by: Randy Reiss at September 6, 2002 01:32 PM

I have been on a media blackout since about 2 weeks after 9/11. I will continue it through this 9/11 also. :)

Posted by: Les Dabney at September 7, 2002 08:50 AM

Absolutely!! I'm down. You and I are the only bloggers calling for a mass media boycott on 9/11/02. Follow this link for my declaration.

http://padspad.blogspot.com/2002_09_01_padspad_archive.html#81242117

Posted by: Pad at September 9, 2002 04:18 PM
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Lying Media Bastards is both a radio show and website. The show airs Mondays 2-4pm PST on KillRadio.org, and couples excellent music with angry news commentary. And the website, well, you're looking at it.

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Media News

November 16, 2004

Tales of Media Woe

Senate May Ram Copyright Bill- one of the most depressing stories of the day that didn't involve death or bombs. It's the music and movie industries' wet dream. It criminalizes peer-to-peer software makers, allows the government to file civil lawsuits on behalf of these media industries, and eliminates fair use. Fair use is the idea that I can use a snippet of a copyrighted work for educational, political, or satirical purposes, without getting permission from the copyright-holder first.

And most tellingly, the bill legalizes technology that would automatically skip over "obejctionable content" (i.e. sex and violence) in a DVD, but bans devices that would automatically skip over commericals. This is a blatant, blatant, blatant gift to the movie industry. Fuck the movie industry, fuck the music industry, fuck the Senate.

Music industry aims to send in radio cops- the recording industry says that you're not allowed to record songs off the radio, be it real radio or internet radio. And now they're working on preventing you from recording songs off internet radio through a mixture of law and technological repression (although I imagine their techno-fixes will get hacked pretty quickly).

The shocking truth about the FCC: Censorship by the tyranny of the few- blogger Jeff Jarvis discovers that the recent $1.2 million FCC fine against a sex scene in Fox's "Married By America" TV show was not levied because hundreds of people wrote the FCC and complained. It was not because 159 people wrote in and complained (which is the FCC's current rationale). No, thanks to Jarvis' FOIA request, we find that only 23 people (of the show's several million viewers) wrote in and complained. On top of that, he finds that 21 of those letters were just copy-and-paste email jobs that some people attached their names to. Jarvis then spins this a bit by saying that "only 3" people actually wrote letters to the FCC, which is misleading but technically true. So somewhere between 3 and 23 angry people can determine what you can't see on television. Good to know.

Reuters Union Considers Striking Over Layoffs- will a strike by such a major newswire service impact the rest of the world's media?

Pentagon Starts Work On War Internet- the US military is talking about the creation of a global, wireless, satellite-aided computer network for use in battle. I think I saw a movie about this once...

Conservative host returns to the air after week suspension for using racial slur- Houston radio talk show host (and somtime Rush Limbaugh substitute) Mark Belling referred to Mexican-Americans as "wetbacks" on his show. He was suspended for a couple of weeks, and then submitted a written apology for the racial slur to a local newspaper. But he seems to be using the slur and its surrounding controversy to boost his conservative cred with his listeners.

Stay Tuned for Nudes- Cleveland TV news anchor Sharon Reed aired a story about artist Spencer Tunick, who uses large numbers of naked volunteers in his installations and photographs. The news report will be unique in that it will not blur or black-out the usual naughty bits. The story will air late at night, when it's allegedly okay with the FCC if you broadcast "indecent" material. The author of this article doesn't seem to notice that Reed first claims that this report is a publicity stunt, but then claims it's a protest against FCC repression. I'd like to think it's the latter, but I'm not that much of a sucker.

Posted by Jake at 04:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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