GE, we bring good wars to life.
Follow the money.
And that Sinclair "victory?" What did it mean in the long run? Why, nothing. That right wing set of affiliates is still pumping out the same old shit, and laughing all the way to the bank. And the guy who really did the heavy lifting, and had a crisis of conscience? Why, he got fired. His name, ironically, was LIEBERMAN.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/6959139/beyond_fair_and_balanced/ On Sunday, October 17th, Sinclair called a mandatory meeting for the entire News Central staff. According to several who attended, Leiberman stood up and voiced his opposition to Stolen Honor. "Each and every one of us is going to lose our credibility if we lend our voices and our writing and our faces to this product that clearly isn't news," he said. "It's propaganda. It's meant to sway the election -- we've been told that by people inside the company."
Sinclair's vice president of news, Joseph DeFeo, looked at Leiberman. "You may face consequences for not choosing to participate in this," Leiberman recalls him saying. Then DeFeo looked around the room. "Anyone else want to join him?" he asked. No one spoke up. But many Sinclair employees say privately that they agreed with Leiberman. "I was glad that someone finally had the guts to say something," says one. "Everyone who works there feels the same way and says it in private, but it doesn't leave the building."
"Jon did a great thing," another veteran says. "He stood up to the Hymanator." The next day, after Leiberman made his concerns public, Sinclair fired him. (Sinclair refuses to comment on the incident.)
Employees report a pervasive climate of fear at Sinclair. Staffers worry that management is listening to their telephone calls, and a recent notice sent to all employees warns that the company is monitoring their e-mail and Internet use. "We know if you use e-mail to send jokes to your friends and co-workers," the memo states. "We know if you view porn.... We know if you order parts for the car you are trying to restore.... We know how many people searched for Janet Jackson after the Super Bowl (97 searches)." Employees laugh when told that Smith insists he runs Sinclair like a family. "They are blinded," a former producer says. "They think their employees are loyal, but really they're not in touch with what's happening in their own newsroom."..."They're so used to being able to buy their way through Washington that Smith actually believes he can get away with it," says Silver of Free Press. "That's what's really scary."
But up on the fifth floor at Sinclair, Smith remains unconcerned about the backlash. Indeed, with the company deep in debt and struggling to boost revenues and ratings, all the scandal may be good for business. "Fox proved one thing: People like controversy," Smith says. "I'd do one of those Stolen Honor specials every month if we could. The lesson was very straightforward: That we can do this kind of content, pre-empt the networks and make more money."....Sinclair's television group includes 19 FOX, 17 MyTV, 10 ABC, 9 CW, 2 CBS and 1 NBC affiliates and reaches approximately 22% of all U.S. television households. http://www.sbgi.net/business/television.shtmlAnd most of their large corporate advertisers have big Pentagon contracts, too.
They just don't CARE what we think. This bastard took Bill Maher off every ABC affiliate he owned, including the DC one, because he didn't like what the guy said. He does what he wants.
Why do you think we don't get any real news, on any of the stations? It's because they don't want us seeing the carnage in Iraq, the complete lack of substantive progress in Afghanistan, the difficulty in Darfur--they'd much prefer we focus on Anna Nicole, crazed college shooters, and things of that nature. Nothing that's gonna interfere with the military-corporate complex, or their bottom line.
Here, have some fun--look up those advertisers, see how many of them you can find here (and if you think these are big numbers, there's even much more in the last four years):
http://www.public-i.org/pns/report.aspx?aid=385For example, Proctor and Gamble's "Take" through 03--it's been much greater since then:
What the Pentagon bought
Product/Service Category Total
Food and Beverages $1,320,305,672
Water Purification and Sewage Treatment Equipment $4,233,501
Equipment Maintenance, Repair & Rebuilding $982,740
Medical, Dental and Veterinary Equipment & Supplies $197,333
Miscellaneous Products $43,740 And how they won their contracts?
99.90 percent of them were NOT full and open.The Pentagon defines several different "solicitation procedures" that roughly indicate the level of competition in awarding contracts. Full and open competition generally indicates that the contracts went out to competitive bid. Not full and open generally don't go out to bid – the pie chart below shows the reasons why. Set-aside contracts are competitive, but only certified small businesses can bid on them. Most of the contracts with no information were awarded on the "federal schedule." Contractors pre-qualify to supply specific goods and services, and federal employees can order them without going through the bidding process.http://www.public-i.org/pns/db.aspx?act=cinfo&coid=001316827I am not a "naysayer" nor am I a "capitalist." And I never "beat a poor person to hell for shopping at WalMart." So don't lay that crap on me. It's just not 'on' to do that kind of thing.
What I am is someone who sees quite clearly what we are up against, and it's not something a little boycotting will fix, or a few phone calls or emails will sway. Sinclair, as their bastard owner predicted, is STRONGER than ever. They're controlling over a fifth of the television stations in the country. Unless we can convince everyone with a Nielsen box to boycott those bastards, they're going to continue to control an enormous percentage of the market share. And they're not stupid--they've got a load of those Fox networks, with all of the clever shows the young like. And they've got ABC affiliates too, cleaning up with "Dancing with the Stars" and other programming.
Same with GE, aka NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC--they've got the business market with CNBC, the "lefty" cable news watchers with Alison Stewart's MOST show and Olbermann, and even Tweety, and the lazy will stay and watch Fucker and Scarborough.
You're not going to convince a corporation that makes billions of dollars from the war to push for programming that impacts their bottom line. I mean, really. Why do you think they took DONOHUE off, when his ratings were HIGHER than HARDBALL?
Follow the real money--not the chump change from the "activist" consumer. The real dough--from the taxpayer's coffers.
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