Posted on 10/22/2004 6:09:40 AM PDT by OESY
...Sinclair bent under enormous political pressure, but notably a kind we haven't seen wielded before to silence the media. We aren't referring to the raft of Democratic complaints filed with official agencies....
A double team by trial lawyers and government officials threatening shareholder suits.... William Lerach, a Democratic funder ... announced plans this week to sue Sinclair because by running the documentary it was creating controversy that cost it advertising revenue....
Media Matters, a liberal media agit-prop outfit, announced it was underwriting another shareholder suit and demanded that Sinclair provide equal time to those with opposing views. (It apparently escaped their attention that the Kerry campaign had declined Sinclair's invitation to respond on air and that the federal "equal time" requirement vanished along with the Fairness Doctrine in the 1980s.)
But the real kicker came when New York State's Democratic Comptroller, Alan Hevesi, also decided to assail Sinclair. Mr. Hevesi wrote a letter "Some critics suggest that Sinclair management is more interested in advancing its partisan political views than in protecting shareholder value," he writes. "They say Sinclair's partisan agenda also risks alienating viewers, advertisers and regulators."....
What's astonishing here is that this legal-political double team has gone on with barely a whimper of protest from the rest of the media. In fact, it is being celebrated as a defeat for all of those right-wing scoundrels who support President Bush. We understand that most of the press corps is liberal and desperately wants Mr. Kerry to win. Editors and producers may let that distort their coverage, but they usually aren't so blinded by partisanship that they can't see their own self-interest.
Now that this trial lawyer-government precedent has been set, who's to stop it if it next turns, as eventually it will, on the New York Times, or CBS?....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
And I'm wondering if anyone's been messing with Sinclair's stock.
Where are all the lawyers complaining about MTV?
Actually it's not if the paper's referring to the Old Media. Just another reason why Old Media is circling the bowl.
Oh yeah, there was a article this week about that very thing, it's evident some did....but that gave us a chance to buy it at a low price and now the stock is going up again
Soros could manage to do that!
"And I'm wondering if anyone's been messing with Sinclair's stock."
Yes the stock tanked but went back up when Sinclair agreed not to air the shows in their entirety, as I understand it.
I bought at $6.50, what is it now?
I plan to sell at $11
It closed at $7.13 yesterday, I'm anxious to see what it is today.
That was about the time many of us decided to buy, I think it's going up has more to do with us buying than with the program changes
Hey, I bought some of their stock. I think we should support honest companies.
I'm just wondering if it tanked due to nervous investors, or due to some cold-blooded investors looking to exert some pressure. I wonder if there's a way to find out, if any big blocks were moving, who owned the blocks?
Their model of a free press is Cuba.
This is exactly what should, by all rights, have been done to CBS years ago! The Republic does not need broadcast journalism, and broadcasting (which is the censorship of the many to allow the government-selected few to be heard over a wide area) is inconsistent with the First Amendment.Why Broadcast Journalism isThe conceit of "journalistic objectivity" is a con; journalism is politics, just as much now as when Hamilton and Jefferson waged their political battles by sponsoring newspapers to propagandize for their positions.
Unnecessary and Illegitimate
The good news is that they are, though :) Look at their circulation figs and ratings. Their monopoly on the news is gone.
How deep and long lasting the decline is depends on the legitimacy or frivolousness of the lawsuit.
Now that this trial lawyer-government precedent has been set, who's to stop it if it next turns, as eventually it will, on the New York Times, or CBS?....
One purpose of the media is to stand guard the line between government and the people. Not divide the people politically.
Divide the master/person from the servant/government.
The media has continually divided the master/people while allowing the servant/politicians and bureaucrats to run amok.
By creating a false divide the media has corralled people into voting for the lesser of evils.
For example, John Kerry would never have made it to the plate much less on the Senate team in the first place. Yet he has been on the team for over twenty years and now he stands at the plate in the World Series -- that could only happen with a politically divided people.
The primary purpose of government is to protect the rights of individual, his property and free-association contracts.
Going beyond closed boundary politics renders the mainstream media irrelevant.
View from the perspective of your inalienable rights. The same rights that every person needs to be tolerant of others.
Just because you may disapprove of how a person conducts their life that in no way grants you permission to initiate force against them and certainly not enlist government agents to initiate force or coercion against the person on your behalf.
"The oppressor no longer acts directly and with his own powers upon his victim. No, our conscience has become too sensitive for that. The tyrant and his victim are still present, but there is an intermediate person between them, which is the Government - that is, the Law itself. What can be better calculated to silence our scruples, and, which is perhaps better appreciated, to overcome all resistance? We all therefore, put in our claim, under some pretext or other, and apply to Government. We say to it, " I am dissatisfied at the proportion between my labor and my enjoyments. I should like, for the sake of restoring the desired equilibrium, to take a part of the possessions of others. But this would be dangerous. Could not you facilitate the thing for me? Could you not find me a good place? or check the industry of my competitors? or, perhaps, lend me gratuitously some capital which, you may take from its possessor? Could you not bring up my children at the public expense? or grant me some prizes? or secure me a competence when I have attained my fiftieth year? By this mean I shall gain my end with an easy conscience, for the law will have acted for me, and I shall have all the advantages of plunder, without its risk or its disgrace!" - Frederic Bastiat
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