Posted on 03/17/2005 3:28:12 PM PST by alan alda
C-SPAN often teeters on the brink of self-parody, particularly when the hosts of its morning discussion program, “Washington Journal,” stare impassively at the camera while yet another crazed caller recites chapter and verse of the latest conspiracy theories involving the Trilateral Commission or the Bush family’s Nazi/Saudi/Zionist/ KGB/CIA ties (choose one or more and don’t think twice about any seeming contradictions).
Formed in 1979 as, in the words of its mission statement, “a private, non-profit company...by the cable television industry as a public service....to provide public access to the political process,” C-SPAN is deadly serious about maintaining a reputation for non-partisanship — to the point even of allowing viewers to disseminate, unchallenged, all manner of unsubstantiated charges and outright lies.
But the ideal of non-partisanship, admirable when it comes to covering Congress and political conventions, can become something else entirely when used to provide respectability to lunatic-fringe ideologues who insist that a copiously documented, relatively recent historical event never really happened. And this is where C-SPAN has at last fallen over the brink and become a parody of it own sanctimoniousness.
C-SPAN had planned to televise a speech at Harvard by Emory University Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt, whose new book, History on Trial, recounts her legal victory over Holocaust denier David Irving, who sued her for libel in Britain over material in her 1993 book Denying the Holocaust. But then Lipstadt was informed by the sages at C-SPAN that, in the interest of “balance,” they’d also be airing an appearance by someone on the other side of the argument — who, it turned out, was none other than David Irving.
Lipstadt refused to go along with this exercise in non-judgmentalism, and, for now at least, it appears that her Harvard speech won’t be seen on C-SPAN.
In a letter to Connie Doebele, a C-SPAN executive, David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies director Rafael Medoff expressed his organization’s “opposition to your reported decision to broadcast a lecture by Holocaust-denier David Irving, to ‘balance’ your intended broadcast of a lecture by Holocaust historian Prof. Deborah Lipstadt.”
Added Dr. Medoff: “Just a few weeks ago, we concluded Black History Month. Presumably C-SPAN did not consider broadcasting a program about black history that would be ‘balanced’ by a program featuring someone denying that African-Americans were enslaved. C-SPAN should not broadcast statements that it knows to be false, nor provide a platform for falsifiers of history, whether about the Holocaust, African-American history, or any other subject.”
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen was less diplomatic than Medoff, describing as “mindless” what he termed “C-SPAN’s cockeyed version of fairness.” According to Cohen, the aforementioned — and, apparently, astonishingly vapid — Connie Doebele told him, “You know how important fairness and balance is to us at C-SPAN. We work very, very hard at this. We ask ourselves, ‘Is there an opposing view of this?’ ”
Not that any of this is new to Lipstadt, who was already running into the robotic mantra of “fairness and balance” back in the early 1990`s. As she wrote in Denying the Holocaust, describing one of several exasperating encounters with talk show bookers:
"The producer was incredulous. She found it hard to believe that I was turning down an opportunity to appear on her nationally syndicated televised show....I explained repeatedly that I would not participate in a debate with a Holocaust denier. The existence was not a matter of debate. I would analyze and illustrate who they were and what they tried to do, but I would not appear with them. (To do so....would elevate their antisemitic ideology — which is what Holocaust denial is — to the level of responsible historiography — which it is not. Unwilling to accept my no as final, she vigorously condemned Holocaust denial and all it represented. Then, in one last attempt to get me to change my mind, she asked me a question: `I certainly don’t agree with them, but don’t you think our viewers should hear the other side?` "
Jason Maoz is senior editor of The Jewish Press. He can be reached at jmaoz@jewishpress.com
I actually think that's a bad analogy, for the simple reason that pedophilia is a crime, while holocaust denial, so far as I know, is not.
A more apt analogy would be if they had on the wife of a cop killed by some idiot, and then showed a rally of garden variety leftists demonstrating on behalf of the imprisoned cop killer. CSPAN has probably done that, and that's ok with me.
I think we should leave it to grown ups to make up their own minds. This holocaust denier is a featured part of her book. What's wrong with showing him to the audience. What's wrong with We Report, You decide?
C-Span's morning call-in programs used to be a good barometer about what 'Main Street' thought about the day's events. No more. Not since they've 'balanced' the program by insisting on 1 Republican Caller, followed by 1 Democratic Caller, followed by a third Caller who hasn't got a coherent political philosophy. Unless they have a really good guest, these programs are brain-dead.
I agree. I'd rather live in a country where lunatic ideas are allowed to be expressed than one where "certain" people tell us who we can and cannot hear. Frankly I find listening to the leftist nutjobs who appear on C-Span highly entertaining. It is especially funny to have the camera pan around to the ahem assembled throngs...many times just a few of the true believers and some tourists accidentally listening in. But my main point is that screwy or not, it is better to have weird opinions being expressed than having them censored.
You are absolutely right. Lamb and his crew sit there like lumps when everyone knows the caller is lying through his/her teeth. I quit watching during Clintoons impeachment when the Dem crones called in every day though they were limited to once a month. If I could identify their voices, I figured the moderator was choosing to let them break the rules in order to voice their undying devotion to the Sinkmeister. I'll never bother watching again, and it's particularly galling to know that it's subsidized by my cable bill by government fiat.
Why shouldn't CSPAN give us the TV version of a little (s)troll over to DU or libertyforum or whatever? It has its value. Anyway, whatever. This is really so small it's totally ridiculous. I must have nothing better to do.
Not entirely sure what that is supposed to mean.
I agree. I have no problem with the guest list of Washington Journal. Hearing leftwing nutjobs on national TV spout the ridiculous daily talking points that were faxed to them, to me, is a comic tragedy.
Amen to that..
What kind of freeper names himself alan alda? Michael Moore was already taken.
I haven't trusted them since October 31, 1998, when they promised to show the FreeRepublic March for Justice live, but instead put on a re-run of something featuring Madeleine Albright. Fortunately they did switch to the FR rally a little later--maybe they received a lot of complaints.
Verginius Rufus
(lurker March 1998--Nov. 2000)
Interesting point, but I think my analogy fits just fine if you replace add "non-practicing" to "pedophiliac." Advocating pedophilia is no crime, but it does not deserve a place withing the debate either. Similarliy, Holocaust denial doesn't deserve any space in the public forum: we can't silence them, but we don't have to give them a loudspeaker either.
The essential problem here is that by allowing this guy on CSPAN you make the truth of the Holocaust the issue, which really isn't something that is up for debate. It's like following a lecturer on the history of science with a member of the flat-earth society, only a lot more offensive.
The truth should always be the issue. What's wrong with that? At what point do you want people to cede the ability to think for themselves?
Well you lasted longer than I did. After I found FR, and started to enjoy the discussion with real people, I stopped watching C-Span. Brian was so stressed to have to discuss Clinton's numerous folly's.
It's worse that debating a flat-earther (or global warmer). I have debated a holocaust-denying former colleague and found it extremely frustrating even though he was only a script-kiddie repeating stuff from the denial sites. What the deniers have essentially done is built an seemingly complete and coherent alternate reality around their case. Every bit of evidence that you can point to has been analyzed by them to come up with a carefully crafted explanation. The only exception is eyewitnesses who are usually dismissed as unreliable. The final argument, at least for my script-kiddie denier, was that at least the numbers of Jews killed should be open to debate, that's all he was asking for, such a reasonable little request.
Question this morning.....WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM YESTERDAY'S HEARING ON BASEBALL.
Agree with President Bush
Agree with Democrats
Agree with Other
Other than using this as another opportunity to bash the President, what could these questions possibly elicit?
"The truth should always be the issue."
That really doesn't mean anything. If the "truth" of the holocaust is the issue (and it is not the issue that the author addresses, since she studies holocaust deniers), then there is no reason to listen to holocaust deniers, since they clearly fall outside the realm of "truth." It's just silly. Yes, I want people to think for themselves, always. But if they think there was no holocaust, they are wrong, plain and simple. Should we be debating the "truth" of gravity? If CSPAN has on a Civil War historian, would it be reasonable to have a Civil War denier come on and debate the "truth" of the Civil War?
Then don't listen.
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