Slashdot Mirror
NBC Believes They Own Political Discourse
PoliSciASU writes "MSNBC has established draconian rules regarding the use of the Presidential Primary Debates on the internet. Some examples: '5. No excerpts may be aired after 8:30 pm on Saturday, May 26th. Excerpts may not be archived. Any further use of excerpts is by express permission of MSNBC only. 6. All debate excerpts must be taped directly from MSNBC's cablecast or obtained directly from MSNBC and may not be obtained from other sources, such as satellite or other forms of transmission. No portions of the live event not aired by MSNBC may be used.' Kevin Bondelli talks about why this is 'shameful and wrong'. Voters are missing out on the ability to actually have an engaged conversation about the candidates and their debate performances because of NBC's greed." Alexander Wolfe at InformationWeek and Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine share similar sentiments, and discuss the matter in different ways.
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Well, they've paid for it so it is not too unreasonable. Besides, I thought big business allready owned US politics.
I once lived in a country with a very muzzled press, but everybody knew this and was suitably skeptical.
In the USA people live under the illusion of a free and open press which means that they believe the news media. How easily they are fooled!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Adaptation of existing contractual usage rights...
Not here to defend NBC or MSNBC; however, if you look at the industry standard wording for usage of their content is exactly this.
This applies to CNN using content from the debate to any Radio show across america. The exception here is that this debate was not on free air waves, so they are using industry standard usage right sharing policies.
Yes they need to update with the times of Internet and people sharing media, but out of ALL the major news outlets NBC and MSNBC have been some of the most liberal about usage on places from Youtube to grandma's website.
Even Olbermann himself said in the segment prior to the debate that the internet would create the winners and losers of the debate if anything major happened, as it would be shared and up on sites like YouTube before the night was out. So do you really think MSNBC doesn't get it?
Ya, the wording isn't ideal, but if this was a 'major' issue with MSNBC, they would have had places like YouTube yank Olbermann and other shows a long time ago, and they just haven't.
I know we like to get excited about things like this here, but I see smoke not fire.
Are the voters are missing out on the ability to demand that the candidates not accept this? You have almost a month to be heard, and felt if you watch where you spend your money.
What?
I used to think these televised debates were a good idea until I watched the debates between Gore and Bush. For anyone watching the first debate it was blatently obvious that Bush was totally and utterly out of his depth and could not possibly be considered a credible candidate. Gore was devoid of charisma but was at least informed and coherent. Yet by the time the third debate came round the much of media had managed to portray Bush's lack of awareness and knowledge as a good thing(tm) because he was 'trying' and that Gore was a pompous arrogant know it all because he happened to be properly informed with facts and figures and could substantiate his responses. Utterly astonishing. It seems the debates themselves are irrelevant now and its the media circus that follows them that matters.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Who is going to do the dirty work? There is still an audience. One video camera will render this nonsense moot. Personally, I would prefer the complete video that a private citizen would most likely post opposed to the "talking points" the media would feed us.
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
It's not as if they just walked in, set up cameras, and said "we'll be running these debates -- everyone else out NOW!!"
If they have this extreme level of control that basically means they *paid* for it, somehow, and outbid everyone else.
Or did they just ask all the candidates nicely?
Personally, I think this should be illegal. The output of our political process should be public domain immediately. Tax payers are paying the salaries already of most of these candidates, and funding the rest of the election process. If MSNBC wants to pay the costs of running the debates -- hey, sure, let them put their logo on the podiums or whatever, but the content of the debates themselves should not be permitted to be sold.
Pre-election debates are one of the single best ways for the public to actually get a sense of who they'll be voting for... they aren't perfect, but we at least get some back and forth, and some of the more difficult questions get raised.
I don't know much about how the debates are set up currently, but this just isn't working.
Somehow they also believe that a system where one of two groups has controlled the government for the last 150 years is an open multi-party system.
It's ironic this incenses people so... these are debates between candidates already vetted by those in control. The powers that be don't care which one gets elected... they own them all!
The when, where, and how of primary and presidential debates are decided by committees. Those committees can negotiate the conditions of the debates and the ownership of the audio/video material.
I suspect that the conditions for the democratic primaries are decided by some committee in the DNC. So, the people to complain to in this case are in the DNC. If the next debates are held and released under the same restrictions, then you have your answer: the DNC either doesn't care or prefers it this way. Same for the RNC.
I have a sneaky suspicion that the DNC and RNC prefer the debate videos to be tightly controlled. The idea of hundreds of debate clips showing up on YouTube and being analyzed and discussed almost certainly scare the political control freaks in those organizations, and this way, they think they have at least some means by which they could stamp out unflattering uses of that video content.
Votes matter.
Bullshit. Votes matter if you live in a swing state and are completely worthless if you don't.
I live in a "blue" state (that's a Democratic-party dominated state for non-US readers). Last election I didn't vote for either Kerry or Bush (but I did vote). Didn't make a bit of difference - state went something like 90% for Kerry.
Thanks to "winner takes all" my vote was essentially thrown out and changed to Kerry since that's what the majority of my state voted for.
If you want votes to matter, you need to get rid of the electoral college.
Until it's gone, votes only matter if you live in a swing state. Otherwise you're just wasting your time.
MSNBC has established draconian rules regarding the use of their coverage of the Presidential Primary Debates on the internet.
There you go.
Now if theirs is the only coverage that exists, then I humbly suggest that that is the real issue here. Important, planned events should be recorded by multiple independent parties; allowing anything else is just plain wrong.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I guess your state doesn't have a legislature?
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Thats because the media controls it, decides what we do and dont see/hear.. yep, they own it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Off the top of my head, a few examples of major things that would've been different if Bush hadn't become U.S. President:
- We wouldn't be in Iraq (probably still in Afghanistan though). The troops would have had a CinC that had actually seen combat in Vietnam (and would supposedly eager to avoid making the same mistakes).
- The federal budget would've been a helluva lot more balanced (especially if the Congress had remained in Republican hands).
- The U.S. government wouldn't be regarded with contempt by most of the rest of the world, including many of our "allies".
- There probably wouldn't have been such a big emphasis on torture & "extraordinary rendition" as part of our response to 9/11 (see #3 for partial results of that).
- The Supreme Court wouldn't have had a couple more big-business apologist, social-moral-enforcing, excuses for jurists.
- The various federal agencies wouldn't have been populated with a bunch of incompetent neocon political tools.
I'm sure even YOU could think of a couple others if you're willing to put some thought into it rather than a stupid knee-jerk "they're all the same!" response.Kerry could have just stayed in the White House & picked his nose for his entire term, and the country would've been better off than it is now.
Remember that the debates are ran by a joint R and D controlled group that excludes third party candidates. There is no real debate. The Libertarian and Green presidential candidates were arrested while trying to attend the 2004 debates: http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ ID=40843
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
if you don't like it why don't you sponsor your own debate? there's nothing "draconian" about it. it's ok for media producers to have some control over their product. stop acting like this is wrong. i'm sure if you were making some coin over your own media production you'd find it wise to protect that source of income, especially when there is a high overhead involved in it. i just love the slashfucks who think they're above making a buck when they're living in their mother's basement.
the fact that we have someone who has the fact that their a poli-sci major as part of their nick shows how far off base slashdot has gone over the last few years. this same bitch who's crying about a company making a profit and calling it draconian is probably going to college on my dime. get a house and job and tell me how much making a profit sucks.
Terrorists know they can't actually destroy their more powerful enemies; they intend to provoke a reaction which will garner sympathy for their cause. Invading and occupying unrelated countries like Iraq plays right into their hands. The federal budget would be no more balanced than it is today So you don't think the war (increased spending) and the tax cuts (decreased revenue) have anything to do with the huge deficit? we'd have let [go] pretty much everybody who commits any kind of crime. The only people who'd get jailed are corporate execs who defrauded people as well any white person convicted of crime against any non-white person. Oh, sorry, you're clearly trolling. My mistake taking you seriously. The various federal agencies would have been populated with a bunch of incompetent bleeding-heart political tools. Remove the words "bleeding-heart", and that's exactly what we have now. Heckuva job there.
Forgive my asking but where exactly does it say MSNBC are the only ones allowed to record this?
Rather than assuming they are, how about we go with the assumption they're not? At that point:
If you want to record your own damn footage, go ahead.
MSNBC are being helpful and sharing the footage they paid for a camera crew to go to, they paid for the equipment to record, they paid to make available. All they're saying is, "If you want to use the footage that we went to all of this expense for, please credit us and don't broadcast it against the slot we intend to use to make that money back and hopefully, in an entirely American way, make a profit from too."
Is it really wrong to ask for credit for something you put money in to the creation of?
Is it really wrong to say, "Hey, you're welcome to share - just not at the one time we're hoping to leverage our investment."?
Is it really wrong to say, "Please take the original stream rather than post compression or rebroadcast in a way that might interfere with those rebroadcasters' policies."?
If you get over the assumption that they have some kind of monopoly - and it appears to just be an assumption - the company giving away their work with minimal practical restrictions, whilst letting you still record your own version if you don't like them, is hardly the most heinous crime known to man.
Of course it's always more fun to assume the worst. But then you know what they say about "assume"
The problem with your idea is you're working under the assumption that the presidents do what they choose, as opposed to the reality that presidents do what they are told by unelected power brokers and and power managers that the parties keep in place 100% of the time. You really think GW Bush, with his demonstrated ability to just barely put two words together correctly about half the time, is the intelligence manipulating things like the justifications offered to the public to go into Iraq? You think he can even understand the bills that can cross his desk? Don't be absurd. Mr. "I'm the decider" nuk-u-lar mental-mangler isn't running anything. He's being run. Cheny is another matter - he's intelligent enough, but he's still a puppet. Whoever the party decides to put in there (and they do decide - your choices are limited to those the parties choose for you to choose from, and even in the end, the electoral college will choose the winner, not your vote) that person is well aware that they'll be following the cues given to them like a well planned script. This isn't a democracy; it is a mutated republic with an ultra-powerful upper class whose primary concern is the welfare of the corporate citizens. It is so far from reacting to citizen input that it is almost incomprehensible. Which in turn is why you don't understand it.
Right now, there is exactly one presidential candidate that stands out as really backing a lot of the ideas we, as citizens, hold dear. That is Texan Ron Paul, and the one thing you can just about count on as a certainty is that he will not be made president. But should the unthinkable happen, the other thing you can count on is that he will have caved in and accepted oversight. He'll do what he is told.
Here is an outline of the simplest multi-party general deception these politicians use: Politician A, in power, does something citizens won't like. Politician B, after the fact, claims something along the lines of "I wouldn't have done that!", Politician B, for whatever reason, gets into power. He is now A, and the loop begins again. Also - should B make campaign promises, they won't be kept. Clinton didn't help the gays. Bush didn't keep taxes down. No one has protected our liberties. No politician will make any difference at all. The system is flat out "busted." As a citizen, your rights are gone. In fact, of the Bill of rights, only amendment 3 remains untrampled. The only reason for that, though, is because they don't need it - the military is fully capable of handling its own lodging.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.