MEDIA COMMENTARY:

Networks censored Kerry-Edwards midnight response to Bush on 9/2

Yet following the Bush acceptance speech Sept. 2, when John Kerry and John Edwards made an unprecedented, live appearance at a midnight (11 p.m. Central) rally in Springfield, Ohio, the broadcast news media, save for CSPAN, refused to broadcast the live feed of Kerry and Edwards to the American people.

The live Kerry-Edwards event was the first time in American history that the challenger has made an immediate and direct challenge and rebuttal of the incumbent at midnight on the day of the incumbent's own acceptance speech. That alone should have made the Kerry-Edwards speeches newsworthy, let alone the fact that Kerry and Edwards aggressively refuted and rebutted the distortions and lies of the Bush-Cheney speeches--and Republican lies and distortions of the horrific Bush-Cheney record.

Yet this unprecedented, historic, informative, authentic and true midnight event was censored by the corporate broadcast news media. No matter what pretty words the networks might use to obscure their failure to broadcast the Kerry-Edwards response, I say that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must indubitably be a censorship duck!

Oh, sure, old reliable C-SPAN carried it, but the major networks--ABC, NBC and CBS and even corporate-supported PBS--failed to do so. Yet these networks were all advised well in advance that the live Kerry-Edwards event was planned and that there would be a live feed. These corporate networks made a conscious, premeditated decision to censor.

To give credit where credit is due, MSNBC did start covering Kerry-Edwards from the beginning, but constantly cut away to Chris Matthews' interruptions and commercials. CNN started covering after Kerry began speaking--ignoring Edwards--but then jettisoned its live feed to Larry King, who wanted to talk Republican only. Fox carried it for a minute or two in the background before sharply returning to their right-wing gabfest of obeisance and awe to the anointed American Caesar and Savior. Headline news didn't cover it at all. (I didn't check Nickelodeon or the Cartoon network.)

So, one might ask, what sort of programming was of such significance, such immediacy, such importance and such awesome moment that the networks felt obliged to run regular programming instead of Kerry-Edwards live? Just guess. It was the usual, tired, repetitive, ordinary menu of programming like Leno and Letterman, God bless 'em both.

This is certainly not an example of broadcasting to serve the public interest that any ordinary person expects. People expect more from the freeloading corporate broadcast networks which use "we the people's" broadcast radio spectrum for free. The difference this time is that the freeloading corporate media can expect to pay for its ongoing arrogance and contempt of the requirement to serve the people's public interest.