Monday, November 29, 2004

FCC Fudging

Frank Rich--the only liberal Times columnist worth reading--points us toward this Jeff Jarvis post about the FCC's complaint against the show Married by America.

A quick summary: The FCC sued the network which broadcast Married by America for $1.2 million. They cited 159 complaints. Jarvis filed a Freedom of Information Act request and found that there were only 90 complaints, not 159. These 90 complaints were filed, collectively, by just 23 individual people.

And of these 23 individuals, 21 of them sent in a nearly identical form letter. So the FCC was cooking the books.

This is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect in George W. Bush's America: Censorship! And don't let John Ashcroft's "resignation" fool you--he's behind this, too.

This is the perfect liberal morality tale, except for one teensy-weensy problem. The network that aired Married by America is . . . Fox!

So in order for one liberal shibboleth to live, another must die. Oh well. But the next time someone lectures you about how Rupert Murdoch is in the pocket of the Bush administration (or vice versa), point them thisaway.

1 comment:

Dean Barnett said...

Frank Rich is worth reading? There, my friend, is an assertion begging for amplification.

Do you enjoy him on a kitschy level? Do you have an insatiable appetite for comparing the Bush administration to a movie? Do you relish the sober and judicious manner with which Rich frequently relates Republicans to Nazis? Perhaps Mel Gibson ran over your dog. Or is that Rich is so bad he's funny in a sort of "Springtime for Hitler" way?

Your audience needs (nay, demands!) an explanation.