Read it and weep. NBC is refusing to run a commercial about the Dixie Chicks upcoming movie “Shut up and Sing” because… wait for it…
“it’s disparaging to President Bush.”
Since when does a TV Network get to censor content that’s critical of the President? The whole thing is even more ironic based on the subject of the movie itself: how American media companies conspired to blacklist the Dixie Chicks for their criticism of the administration and it’s policies.
…try to remember we’re living in the “land of the free.”
I live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI with my wife Jen, our daughter Emerson, and son Carter.
Is this even legal? If it’s against corporate policy to air commercials “disparaging” to the president, then where will election ads go? And not just candidate elections, but ballot issues, like stem cell research. Would they hold the same standard to Michael J Fox calling Bush an asshat because he vetoed stem cell research?
If this is where it begins, where does it end?
Good question, although I have to assume it is ‘legal’ and there have been similar episodes in the past few years fom NBC and other networks.
Back in 2004 CBS and NBC both refused to broadcast an ad from the United Church of Christ which touted its acceptance of all people, including gays and lesbians, into its congregations, because well.. the ads promoted ‘acceptance’. Then there was the super bowl ad from moveon.org that CBS didn’t want to air, because it also was ‘disparaging’ to Bush.
You could argue that networks are in the public trust and that this kind of thing shouldn’t be allowed of course, and many people have brought that up.
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