Posted on 07/13/2002 6:53:13 AM PDT by TomGuy
Censoring John Stossel's Media Hype Story
ABC's 20/20 special on Friday, July 12, 2002, was hyped to be a rip of the media and how the Media can deceive the public. Overall the presentation was interesting, but more of slick media-magazine piece than a scandalous revelation.
At the very opening, John Stossel introduces the night's venue with VH1's original and the re-released-edited-for-consumers versions of Hillary Clinton's very short speech at the WTC firemen's fundraiser. In the original version, Clinton did not receive a warm welcome, but rather, she was welcomed with a few cheers and a roar of boos. She cut her intended lengthy speech to a brief 20 seconds or so and then exited the stage, post haste. In the re-released-edited-for-consumers version, the boos were technologically replaced with a rousing round of cheers as Clinton walked onto the stage and gave her brief 20 second speech.
Stossel continued his report on numerous other examples of how the media (both print and broadcast) hypes and deceives and alters. He says the deceptions are not always "intentional." All in all, Stossel's report was interesting, but it wasn't much of a rousing, blockbuster revelation of the evil media. The report may have been somewhat shocking to the novice; but to those who have watched and read the media with critical eyes for any length of time, the report was lukewarm.
Stossel's report for the evening continued with a story of sensationalizing the news, another of how the media gets fooled at times, and one of how print media can be deceptive and highly influenced by advertisers.
Stossel's report probably had many ABC News executives squirming a bit, and they probably had significant input into the content and direction of the report. After all, the report was not flattering, even with Stossel's making light of the we make mistakes; we get fooled too; we don't sensationalize intentionally, do we? Media-watchers could have provided Stossel with literally thousands of examples of obvious and overt deceptions and errors.
Apparently, though, Stossel's report was too hot for the ABC News executives. Looking at their website this morning, a few obvious and overt things are noticeable, especially to anyone who watched Stossel's report.
First, as you open the ABCNEWS.com: 20/20 webpage, you notice Revved-Up Reality prominently shows a glaring image of a shark. Remember how Stossel reported that The Summer of the Shark was hyped and that there were not significantly more shark attacks than in most other years--there was just less of any other kind of news to report.
As you scroll down the webpage, you find the report in Media Mission about Joey Skaggs who has fooled the media many times. Beside this article is the report on print media and auto magazine deceptions in Taken for a Ride?.
Do you notice anything obvious and overt that is missing?
Ah, maybe it is at the John Stossel link on the right side of the screen. Nope, that only brings up some of Stossel's previous reports.
Scrolling down the screen, you find a Watch 20/20 on Demand, on Your Computer, When it's Convenient for You! link. Nope, that is a dead link that takes you to the top of the webpage.
Has the ABC News executives or did the webmaster censor Stossel? The website has no mention of, nor does it have video of, Stossel's opening introduction to Media Hype. Even the ABC News Website Chat for 20/20 and for John Stossel show only a half-dozen comments about Stossel's opening remarks. Maybe Friday night was just a slow night for comments.
But, where is the video or the opening introduction report? Where is the video or report on VH1's altering Hillary Clinton getting booed, then cheered? Apparently, Stossel's introduction to 20/20's venue for the night was too hot for the web page.
Just kidding.
I thought that this was a great quote that slipped by the censors.
The media won't admit that they're biased and discriminatory in their "reporting" because, from their standpoint, they're NOT. That was the whole point of Goldberg's book. When you're a liberal sycophant surrounded by liberal sycophants, liberal sycophancy becomes the norm and deviation from it becomes suspect. The media whores are all liberals, their compatriots are all liberals, and anyone who deviates from the orthodoxy is considered a conservative extremist. There ARE no liberal extremists; there can't be when the people applying that label are themselves liberal extremists!
Apparently, though, Stossel's report was too hot for the ABC News executives.
The ABC News execs love Stossel. He gets high ratings, with very desireable demographics, in time slots that ABC would otherwise practically be losing to UPN and The WB. This is why he gets more hour-long prime time slots for his shows than anybody else at ABC besides Peter Jennings (and Jennings has his allotment of prime time specials written into his contract). It's the staffers and correspondents that can't stand him. (Some of that dislike is legit - Stossel is not the easiest guy on the planet to get along with - but most of it is ideological. To them, he's a Bernie Goldberg-style "traitor," someone who used to carry the liberal banner with pride who suddenly woke up one day, realized he was peddling complete BS, and turned libertarian.)
First, as you open the ABCNEWS.com: 20/20 webpage, you notice Revved-Up Reality prominently shows a glaring image of a shark. Remember how Stossel reported that The Summer of the Shark was hyped and that there were not significantly more shark attacks than in most other years--there was just less of any other kind of news to report.
I don't understand what your argument is here. The shark attack crap is a perfectly legitimate example of the sort of inanities the media was peddling last summer and has pulled out of the filing cabinet and dusted off over the last few weeks as well. The media has literally learned nothing from 9/11 about what news OUGHT to be. If you click on the link, you get a page of "commentary" by Stossel (in actuality, it's cut more or less verbatim from Stossel's 20/20 script), that explains the shark attack thing in detail.
Scrolling down the screen, you find a Watch 20/20 on Demand, on Your Computer, When it's Convenient for You! link. Nope, that is a dead link that takes you to the top of the webpage.
This, in inimitable ABCNEWS.com fashion, is a screwup because nobody bothered to copyedit the page before publishing it. It's supposed to open a separate window imploring you to pay up for a RealNetworks subscription.
Has the ABC News executives or did the webmaster censor Stossel? The website has no mention of, nor does it have video of, Stossel's opening introduction to Media Hype. Even the ABC News Website Chat for 20/20 and for John Stossel show only a half-dozen comments about Stossel's opening remarks. Maybe Friday night was just a slow night for comments.
It generally is. Only Saturday night is slower, under normal circumstances. And note that the 20/20 board isn't particularly bustling at any given time anyway. The board software sucks, the pages take forever to load and you have to load a new page for each individual comment, which tend not to be particularly incisive anyway ... most people just don't waste their time.
But, where is the video or the opening introduction report? Where is the video or report on VH1's altering Hillary Clinton getting booed, then cheered? Apparently, Stossel's introduction to 20/20's venue for the night was too hot for the web page.
Oh, so that's what this is about, a Hillary conspiracy. No. It's not there for two reasons:
1) Clearance issues. It's not ABCNEWS video, it's VH1 video. They probably don't have the rights to put it on the web site in the first place. For reasons I'll never understand, outfits that couldn't care less if you put their video or audio into a news report go absolutely nuts if you make it available on your web site. It doesn't help that using just the VH1 portion of the show would essentially be using Viacom's copyrighted content as a pure piece of advertising for an ABC program.
2) ABCNEWS.com puts very little video on its web site at all these days. They want you to pay up the $9.95/mo for a RealPlayer "SuperPass". This lets you watch most ABC News TV program video in their entirety at your convenience, not just snippets, but it also puts cash into ABCNEWS.com's pocket, which it desperately needs because nobody reads their site.
As for the opening intro in print form, some production assistant just took the script from the show and edited it down to create the "commentary" page. Perhaps he or she as an individual specifically left out the Hillary stuff because he or she is a Clintonoid; more likely the kid just thought the shark attack angle was better. (The shark thing, after all, is about the news media; the VH1 thing is just a piece of entertainment repackaged to kiss Hillary's massive ass.) The job of "repurposing" the news show scripts is total scut work; no real thought was put into it, I can assure you. The PA's only thought was "Please let me get this finished as soon as possible so I can go home."
Besides, ABCNEWS.com did send out the promo email to everyone on Stossel's mailing list a few days ago, and in that email the Hillary alteration was given major play.
In the end, I wouldn't worry about any of this even if what you thought was true really was. I've seen the numbers, and I can assure you that far fewer people are going to access that 20/20 page today than are going to load the average single FR thead.
I welcome the day.
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