Censorship

In another blow against freedom of speech on the Internet, Fox News is reporting that Google has taken the measure of de-listing the work of an anti-UN blogger named Matthew Lee. For several years, Lee has run the Inner City Press, a small news/opinion site that is focused on criticizing the United Nations. But since Google has teamed up with the UN on recent initiatives, Google has found that Lee's criticism is too much for them to handle.

Mr. Lee has been taking after big targets for a long time, so he is no newcomer to the scene. In 1987 he went after Citigroup with his corruption exposes, but since 2005 the United Nations has been his favorite target. He has especially focused on the "inner workings of what could be called the practical-applications arm of the international organization, the United Nations Development Programme."

As Fox News reports:

After provoking a small scandal among pro-lifers, YouTube has restored a video which it had previously removed from its database. The show, produced by the American Life League, was originally yanked by YouTube after being "flagged" as inappropriate by YouTube viewers.

Now that the video has been restored, it seems that this was yet another case of liberals abusing YouTube's flag feature. Originally designed to alert the video sharing service of inappropriate content or copyright violations, flagging is often the tool of angry people upset at speech they find disagreeable. (Many Muslims seem to be similarly inclined.)

How slowly do the regulatory agencies move? A few weeks ago, the FCC decided to fine ABC for airing nudity in prime time -- in a 2003 episode of "NYPD Blue." (It was still on the air in 2003? And why was Charlotte Ross's police babe hanging around with schlubby Sipowicz?) In his culture column this week, Brent Bozell looks at how Disney, formerly a brand name for family entertainment, filed lawyerly briefs against the FCC ruling that no one can defend on the grounds of common sense. 

When it was finally rapped on the knuckles, Disney-owned ABC was petulant. It responded first by joining the crowd in Tinseltown now asserting in federal court the “right” to drop the F-bomb on millions of children. Then the lawyers insisted to the FCC that there’s nothing inappropriate in an ABC show lovingly fixating the viewer on the young woman’s bare behind  several times. It was only seven seconds, they protested.

[Warning: Foul Language]

Besides her left wing activism, famous North Vietnamese propagandist Jane Fonda spouts foul language on morning network television, when some children almost certainly saw it. Discussing the feminist play "The Vagina Monologues" on the February 14 edition of "Today," Fonda used the obscene term to describe part of the female anatomy.

Although it is only February, this is the second time this year that a celebrity used an obscene word on morning television. On the January 15 edition of "Good Morning America," Diane Keaton dropped the F-word. Unlike host Diane Sawyer, Meredith Vieira did not appear shocked.

MRC President Brent Bozell previously expressed concern about networks airing foul language and some networks’ stubborness.

The transcript is below.

On the New York Times's political blog this morning, Ariel Alexovich reported in a very mild tone on a very shocking speech by National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguia -- "A Call to End Hate Speech."

By calling to end "hate speech" (an inflammatory phrase the Times doesn't put in quotation marks), Murguia means that anyone harshly criticizing illegal immigrants -- specifically, mainstream opinion-makers like Sean Hannity on FOX News and Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck of CNN -- should be removed from the air waves.

"The head of the country's largest Latino civil rights organization called on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News to stop providing a forum for pundits who consistently disparage the documented and undocumented Hispanic immigrant population.

American freedom is under assault within the scientific establishment and the academic community where the proponents of Intelligent Design (ID) theory are being silenced and marginalized at the expense of research that could potentially expand human knowledge and boost medical research, according to a new documentary that raises questions about Darwinian assumptions.

A growing number of scientists with expertise in biology, chemistry, physics and astronomy have encountered a level of complexity in the observable universe that in their estimation cannot be sufficiently explained by a random, directionless process. For this reason, they are compelled to offer up alternative theories for biological and astronomical objects that appear to be carefully calibrated and finely tuned by way of an intelligent agent.

Unfortunately, scientists in the United States who offer up Intelligent Design as a possible alternative to Charles Darwin’s 150 year old theories about the origins of life and the evolutionary process often find they cannot speak out without jeopardizing their careers and professional reputations.

“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” calls attention to the plight of highly credentialed researchers and scholars who have been forced out of prestigious positions. Instead of entertaining a free, unrestrained open debate on the merits of competing theories, the scientific establishment has instead moved to suppress the Intelligent Design movement in a “systematic and ruthless” fashion at odds with America’s founding principles, the film asserts.

The woman who got her big break on network TV thanks to the firing of Don Imus now apparently wants another host to lose his job over some tasteless remarks.

Morning Joe is the show that took over MSNBC's early-morning time slot after Imus was bounced for his offensive observations about the Rutgers women's basketball team. Mika Brzezinski, a regular member of the Morning Joe crew, has now left little doubt she would like to see John Gibson fired for the callous comments about the death of actor Heath Ledger the Fox News host made on his radio show.

View video.

My my, the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) is busy these days -- aiding and abetting those who wish to suppress the human right of free speech and expression.

Even though (or is it because?) the vehicle that enabled and emboldened the CHRC's thought police and those who complain to it was the passage of the kind of "non-discrimination" legislation Congress has considered passing for several years, US Old Media could care less.

Some of the CHRC's targets:

• A Catholic magazine (also noted by NB's Tim Graham last month) --

  In February 2007 Rob Wells, a member of the Pride Center of Edmonton, filed a nine-point complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission alleging that Catholic Insight had targeted homosexuals as a powerful menace and innately evil, claiming it used inflammatory and derogatory language to create a tone of “extreme hatred and contempt.”

  Catholic Insight responded to these charges in its January 2008 issue, saying the complaint consists of “three pages of isolated and fragmentary extracts from articles dating back as far as 1994, without any context.”

  ..... The magazine has continually emphasized that, with the respect to homosexual activity, it follows the guidance of the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church.

  Although I doubt it will happen (yet), it seems "logical" that CHRC could say, "OK, you're right, the entire Catholic Church is engaged in 'extreme hatred and contempt.'"

In the past few decades, as political correctness has taken hold of virtually every industry, folks involved in sports and sportscasting that have made racist or sexist remarks on camera have typically been fired or forced to make public apologies.

Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder's termination by CBS back in 1988 is a fine example, with the recent two-week suspension of Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman being another.

Yet, given what happened on an Atlantic City dais on January 11, where a high-profile ESPN anchor went on an alcohol-induced tirade which included a vulgar reference to Jesus Christ, it appears public antitheism is not politically incorrect.

After all, until this moment, you probably hadn't heard about this incident, and the person involved apparently has not been publicly admonished for her behavior by her employer.

While you consider such a double standard, Press of Atlantic City reported on January 12 (h/t NB reader Andy Traynor, readers are warned that vulgarity and blasphemy appear after the jump):

Ten years ago today, a website whose name at the time was unknown to most Americans released information about the President of the United States having an affair with a 22-year-old White House intern.

This eventually led to impeachment proceedings against then President Bill Clinton - which many political analysts feel is a partial cause of the continued acrimony and contentiousness between Democrats and Republicans across the country - whilst also radically changing the journalism industry as we know it.

Lest we not forget how this sad event impacted sexual mores in our nation, unquestionably for the worse.

Given the extraordinary historical importance of this event to America and Americans on so many levels -- and the wife of the president in question currently involved in a presidential campaign of her own -- one has to wonder just how much focus media will give this anniversary today.

Thankfully, we can always count on journalists across the Pond to report that which goes counter to our press's agenda; here's what the British Times had to say about this issue (emphasis added):

[Warning: Profanity to follow]

Actress Diane Keaton appeared live on Tuesday's "Good Morning America" and dropped the F-bomb while attempting to compliment GMA co-host Diane Sawyer's looks. After gushing over how much better her life would be with "those lips," the movie star blurted, "I'd like to have lips like that. Then I wouldn't have worked on my fucking personality or my-- excuse me. My personality."

Video (:20): Windows Media (634kB) or MP3 audio (131kB).

Sawyer, who had been attempting to get the actress to talk about "Mad Money," Keaton's new film, appeared momentarily shocked and then started laughing. She retorted, "My mother is going to work on your personality with soap in your mouth, is what she's going to do."

A few years back, I interviewed Michael Moore and asked him if Fahrenheit 9/11 should be considered a political advertisement, and if so, whether campaign finance laws should apply. Moore admitted the film contained his opinions, but that his film should be treated like an op-ed in the paper.

During the 2004 election, neither ads for the Bush-bashing Fahrenheit 9/11, nor the film itself were regulated under campaign finance laws.

But now that there’s a new film about Hillary Clinton, all of a sudden, campaign finance laws do apply to political perspective films:

What is not reported is often far more important than what is 

The Media, Their Mouths and Their Minds

And you thought the media made it tough with their mouths open.  They make things far more difficult when they choose to keep them shut.

Consuming news as a conservative is always an unappetizing proposition, given the Leftist slant to nearly everything on the menu.  Being fed a steady diet of what collectively amounts to "You are wrong, and an ass (to boot) for what you think" leaves the average diner unsatisfied.

We are delivered so many servings of these media bias sins of commission we have been forced to make antacids the fifth food group. Here at the Media Research Center we find ourselves perpetually understaffed and overwhelmed in our efforts to chronicle it all.  (We were going to address this by conducting a hostile takeover of the New York Times, but we found them to be too hostile and with too little left to take over.)

Far too often, the media folds under pressure from Hillary and Bill 

Editor's Note: Originally published December 12th, 2007 by Human Events.

Distress

The latest edition of Gentleman's Quarterly -- GQ for short -- has just hit the stands.  On its cover is an in your face photograph of former President Bill Clinton, as he "Leads (Their) Men of the Year Issue".

"Bill Clinton - Public Citizen" is the fawning Clinton tosh we have all come to expect.  It is thirteen magazine pages with small type and large pictures, and authors George Saunders (in word) and Brigitte Lacombe (on camera) could not be any more in thrall to the man from Hot Springs (not Hope).

But there is more than just that to this tale.

This cover glory almost did not come to pass.

Whitewash, written by MRC's very own President L. Brent Bozell III with Director of Media Analysis Tim Graham and the tome for all your Christmas giving needs, was reviewed most excellently by Phil Brennan of and for the most excellent publication NewsMax.

Behold some of the many extraordinary excerpts therefrom:

In the book "Whitewash: What the Media Won't Tell You About Hillary Clinton, but Conservatives Will," by L. Brent Bozell and Tim Graham, the inside cover asks, Why Hillary? "How did the first lady to a disgraced impeached president become a presidential front-runner despite never having held elective office before 2001; her staggering number of personal political and financial scandals and her leftist political agenda?"

The authors have a ready answer: a media so enamored of Hillary Clinton that they have no problem shamefully protecting, defending, promoting, covering up her numerous scandals, and relentlessly advancing her presidential ambitions.

...

It must be wonderful to be a Democrat and know that your indiscretions are very unlikely to get much attention by media minions only willing to cover the crimes and shortcomings of folks on the opposite side of the aisle.

Take for example James Michael McHaney, an aide to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) who NewsBusters reported had been arrested last Friday for trying to lure a thirteen-year-old boy into a sexual encounter.

Not only did this get buried on Friday so as likely not to take focus away from Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) looking regal and presidential during that day's hostage crisis in New Hampshire, but also once the Associated Press deigned to actually inform subscribers on Monday that something potentially nefarious had occurred, press outlets either continued to ignore the subject, or buried it nicely so that precious few would be made aware of it.

On the television side, according to LexisNexis, the only outlet which felt this newsworthy was CNN which aired its only report on this matter during the 6:00 AM EST "American Morning" Tuesday:

Returning to the airwaves this morning after a seven-month exile, Don Imus seemed intent on demonstrating two things. First, that he was unequivocally contrite concerning the comments he had made about the Rutgers University women's basketball players that resulted in his firing. Second, his contrition notwithstanding, he wasn't going to change his irreverent ways when it came to the country's political leaders.

To prove his iconoclastic bona fides, Imus concluded his monologue by observing "Dick Cheney is still a war criminal, and Hillary Clinton is still Satan."

Listen to audio here [with apologies for the mediocre sound quality.]

But before ending on that defiant note, he took several minutes to describe his meeting with the women of the Rutgers team, and the way the entire experience had changed him.

Excerpts from Imus's remarks:

Dictator-groupies Sean Penn, Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover are at it again. They are among the “artists, scholars and performers” calling themselves “representatives of the cultural sphere in the US,” who sent a letter to President Bush asking him to “end the travel ban,” allowing a cultural exchange between nations.

Most troubling is the group did not address Cuba's lack of freedom and limited their travel demands to Cuba's “artists and scholars.” That wasn't a mistake. As faithful fans of the Cubano Dear Leader, they don't care about all Cubans' ability to travel, just those carefully-selected Party-approved “artists and scholars." Under heavy guard, of course, to avoid more embarrassing defections.

The December 1 Post-Chronicle, an online paper, excerpted the letter (bold mine):

As YouTube is gearing up with CNN to host a Republican presidential debate on Wednesday, the video-sharing service is finding itself embroiled in another censorship controversy with an Egyptian blogger named Wael Abbas:

The video-sharing Web site YouTube has suspended the account of a prominent Egyptian anti-torture activist who posted videos of what he said was brutal behaviour by some Egyptian policemen, the activist said.

Wael Abbas said close to 100 images he had sent to YouTube were no longer accessible, including clips depicting purported police brutality, voting irregularities and anti-government demonstrations. YouTube, owned by search engine giant Google Inc, did not respond to a written request for comment. A message on Abbas's YouTube user page, http://youtube.com/user/waelabbas, read: "This account is suspended."

"They closed it (the account) and they sent me an e-mail saying that it will be suspended because there were lots of complaints about the content, especially the content of torture," Abbas told Reuters in a telephone interview. Abbas, who won an international journalism award for his work this year, said that of the images he had posted to YouTube, 12 or 13 depicted violence in Egyptian police stations.

First published in Human Events on November 27th, 2007.

Wash, spin, rinse, spin. Phone, spin, report, spin, poll, spin. The similarities between the work of the mainstream media and a laundry machine are striking. Yet there is nothing about the cycle -- the spin-report-poll-spin cycle -- that does for political events what detergent does for your boxers or briefs.

The media, as One, spend days or weeks bashing someone or something they do not like. They then conduct a poll to prove to you that they were right all along. In a campaign season, their one-sided coverage is calculated, then executed to produce a result. It’s not about reporting the events, it’s about changing the prevailing view.

And the polls -- such as the ones by the media, which are not independent surveys like those undertaken by the likes of Rasmussen or Gallup -- aren’t intended as much to gauge the public view of a candidate or events as they are to reinforce that which they have “reported”, or provide the media guidance on how effective their spinning of the news has been.

Update | 10:25 AM -- Zogby says Penn should know better . . . Clinton campaign #1 user of Zogby results. See entire Zogby response at foot.

Presaging the kind of press control a President Hillary Clinton might try to impose, a member of her inner circle scolded Joe Scarborough today for having the audacity to mention a poll with results unfavorable to Clinton.

Yesterday, Zogby International released a new poll indicating that in a general election head-to-head match-up, Hillary Clinton would lose to all of the leading Republican contenders by a 3-5% margin. Even worse from the perspective of Clinton heading into the Dem primaries, the same poll shows Barack Obama beating each of the Republicans by 5-7%.

Chief Clinton strategist Mark Penn was a guest on "Morning Joe" during today's 7:30 ET half-hour. Nothing could be more natural than for Scarborough to raise these newsworthy results. But Penn wasn't pleased.

View video here.

So, did you hear the United States was recently ranked by an independent, international economic think-tank as number one in global competitiveness?

You didn't?

Well, how could you, for according to LexisNexis, not one major American press outlet aside from Investor's Business Daily thought the announcement was important enough to share with the citizenry.

I guess this would go too contrary to all the reports about a looming recession.

Regardless, as we at NewsBusters love presenting to our readers that which media hide from you, the World Economic Forum announced October 31 (emphasis added, h/t NBer Parker1227):

Team Edwards, both eminently coiffed candidate John and his designated political hitter bride Elizabeth, on Wednesday, Novemeber 21st cancelled their scheduled appearance on The View, doing so, according to the UnDynamic Duo, to “honor the members of the Writers Guild of America”, who are currently on strike.

Not to be outpandered, Michelle Obama, wife of the incredibly audacious Barack, later that same day pulled out of her December 5th guest co-hosting duties.

Obviously, sucking up is more important than being sucked up to in Democratic presidential politics.

This is related to nearly every Donkey candidate promising to not participate in a scheduled December 10th CBS debate (moderated by the ratings Juggernaut Katie Couric) should their news writers decide to join their union brethren and sistren (one must be, in this age of PC, all-inclusive) and abandon that foundering network vessel to the waves unscribed.

Is the maker of “Indoctrinate U“ being sued by “a major taxpayer-funded university?” A November 12 message at filmmaker Evan Coyne Maloney's personal site Brain-Terminal.com states just that:

Due to a threatened lawsuit from a major taxpayer-funded university, the Indoctrinate U homepage has been taken down temporarily. On The Fence Films LLC is deciding how best to proceed, and we will not be commenting on anything until after our final response has been executed.

Don’t worry, though, this will not derail the film.

It seems that no bad Hillary Clinton deed goes unresponded to.

As we are in the midst of a presidential campaign, this by itself is not an issue. That it is the national media that is leading this charge is. One need focus on but the latest corners of the Clinton pantheon to come to light to see the full court press the press puts on when their girl needs them.

In an October 10 Boston Globe interview, Senator Clinton let her socialism slip a bit, saying "I have a million ideas. I can't do all of them. I happen to think in running a disciplined campaign - especially when it comes to fiscal responsibility, which is what I'm trying to do - everything I propose I have to pay for. You know, you go to my website, you'll see what I would use to pay for what I've proposed. So I've got a lot of ideas, I just obviously can't propose them all. I can't afford them all. The country can't afford them all." (Emphasis ours.)

As Islamic scholar Robert Spencer can tell you, the mainstream media has barely noticed that Google, the Internet search engine giant, is now deciding for its users which ideas are acceptable and which are not. It’s never been a secret that Google leans left and won’t tolerate ideas it doesn’t agree with. The company hired global warming profiteer Al Gore as senior advisor and has a history of purging content based on ideology. More evidence of the company’s thinly-veiled, warm and fuzzy politically correct authoritarianism keeps popping up.

Now Google Video has suppressed a video of a speech that Spencer, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), made at Dartmouth College. Spencer, whose family comes from the Muslim world, sees his work as “calling attention to the roots and goals of jihad violence.” He carefully explains his belief that “Islam is not a monolith,” and says that he has “never” characterized all Muslims “as terrorist or given to violence.”

Google de-listed several conservative e-zines and blogs from its news crawl last year, banned anti-MoveOn.org ads, and is complicit in state censorship in communist China.

In schools and colleges across America, teachers and professors recall the "Free Speech Movement" of the hard left at Berkeley in the 1960s. But today's left often shreds that idea in its own intolerant behavior. At Michigan State University, British Nationalist Nick Griffin was shouted down from a speech on the danger of radical Islam. The Lansing State Journal reported: "Hurling obscenities and using chants to interrupt his address, rambunctious student organizations forced Griffin to abandon his speech and allow an informal question and answer session." This liberal quote is a classic:

"We have all come from different backgrounds," said Authra Khreis, 17, a pre-med student and a protester. "We should accept one another. I don't think he should be allowed to speak. You can use free speech until you hurt another person."

Today I'm pleased to announce a new feature: The NewsBusters Interview. These will be a series of lengthy, candid conversations we'll be conducting with prominent individuals in the media and political worlds.

Recently I had the privilege of attending the premier of the "Indoctrinate U," a documentary that exposes the widespread suppression of conservative and libertarian opinions on America's college campuses. Turns out, the same 60s and 70s radicals who marched for free speech back then aren't so interested in the concept now that they're running academia.

This is a great film and a very necessary one as well. I was so impressed by it that I wanted to interview its creator, Evan Coyne Maloney. We had an in-depth and candid discussion about a variety of things including how he got interested in film, getting funding for it, the background behind campus speech codes, how the media covers academic censorship and much more.

The most interesting aspect of the interview was his discussion of why there are so few conservatives and libertarians in the entertainment media. Read past the fold for excerpts and the full transcript.

Americans on both sides of the aisle should be bitterly angry today.

A United States Congressman stood on the floor of the House of Representatives on Thursday and said that kids are being sent "to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president`s amusement."

As if that wasn't bad enough, the three evening news programs of America's top broadcast networks didn't feel this despicable act was important enough to share with the citizens of our nation.

Frankly, I'm not sure which should anger you more.

Here is a partial transcript of Rep. Pete Stark's (D-Cal.) abysmal statements made on the House floor on October 18, 2007, that America's leading news agencies didn't want you to see (video available here):

The October 16 edition of "Fox and Friends" featured conservative talk trailblazer Rush Limbaugh to discuss Harry Reid’s and 40 other Senate Democrats’ smear of Limbaugh. The radio talk show host called the letter "the smear of a private citizen...based on a total lie."

Video (4:21): Real (3.19) and Windows (2.66 MB), or MP3 audio (1.98).

In response, Rush is now auctioning the letter on E-Bay to raise money for the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, which provides scholarships for children of Marines and federal law enforcement officials killed in the line of duty. Rush noted he will match the final bid to go to the same charity. He asked Reid and the other 40 Democrats to do the same. As of this morning, he has "not heard from them."