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CNET Parent CBS Blocks Review and Award To Dish Over Legal Dispute
Coldeagle writes "It looks as if CNET's parent company, CBS, has laid down the law: 'Just one day after CNet named the Dish "Hopper," a new TV recording system that's drawing rave reviews in the tech press, to an awards shortlist, the site's parent company stepped in and nixed the accolade. Because of a legal battle between CBS and Dish over the Hopper's ad-skipping technology, CBS laid down a ban: CNet won't be allowed to even review Dish products, much less give them awards.' Got to love modern day freedom of the press!"
All the News we think is fit to print and in our best interests.
It's to protect your rights from the government
CBS is a private business and has no obligation to review a product of another business
I'm considering canceling my Comcast subscription because their new dta scheme means no more local HD on the basic plan. I hadn't even heard of hopper, but now I think I've found my replacement. Barbra Streisand would be so proud.
There are more anecdotes, suspicions, etc about this same thing going on each and every day ever since there has been a press, but it's extremely rare for this kind of industry self-censorship to be this blatent and in-your-face.
This could just be a moronic decision by idiots at CBS without thinking of the consequences...or maybe, just maybe, THEY NO LONGER *CARE* ABOUT ANY CONSEQUENCES...
Just a hunch...
Got to love modern day freedom of the press!
If you think this is some sort of new phenomenon, you're dreaming. This is the way it's always been, just a lot less subtle than it might have been a few decades ago.
Got to love modern day freedom of the press!
Cnet is free from government abridgment in this affair; their corporate overlords are not subject to the first amendment's constitutional proscription.
Well, if their product reviews are not objective, they can't really be trusted. What use are they?
If they're in court over the device, they sure don't want any of their subsidiaries reviewing or commenting on the devices. That would provide the opposition with ammunition in court, and could even lead to a dismissal of the case because they didn't keep their opinions and comments in the court system instead of in public.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
C|net should give CBS a handful of baubles and trinkets and GTFO. Do they really need CBS, or is it the other way around?
If CBS doesn't care about journalistic integrity any longer, it should simply change it's initials to mean: Copyright Based Sustenance
I think CBS has opened themselves up to a nice lawsuit. If one of the reasons you were there for the conference was to garner the award and use it in advertisements, who is eligible is extremely important. They've cost Dish network some money and they entitled to some compensation. If I ran the trade show, CBS has diminished the value of the entire convention and the owners should seriously consider suing.
This decision by CBS prompts me to distrust CBS and to choose not to use CBS or its subsidiaries to get my news. I do not Support the right of CBS to decide what CBS will and will not say because I like and trust CBS, I support the right of CBS to decide what CBS will and will not say because I like having the right to decide what I will and will not say.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
It's not as though government is infringing on CNet's ability to publish such reviews or award accolades. The restriction is stemming from corporate politics, and if the parent company chooses a specific course of action such as this, it has absolutely nothing to do with freedom of the press. That said, we do need more independent, non-corporate journalism and information sources. What's left of the free market is responding to fill this gap. Only by breaking down the intimate relationships between government and corporations, can we have a more free market, and issues such as this will diminish.
Yes. CBS gets to decide what they publish. You get to decide what you publish. The government has no say in the matter. That's freedom of the press.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Freedom of the press, at least in the USA, is freedom from government censure (as in in the first amendment of the US Constitution).
There has always been a long-standing "tradition" of owners of media (like newspapers) to advance the agenda of the owner and to suppress the opposition.
Fine CNet won't discuss on it's site particular products that happen to have litigation with it's parent company CBS. Fine. You review what you want and have no obligation to take one product over another. I can respect that.
But what I don't respect is that a 'Best Of CES' which was currently being run by CNet, and had been run by others before CNet took it on a few years back, eliminated this product from potentially receiving an award not for anything improper by Dish, but because CNet's parent company CBS told them to eliminate it. It's not journalistic integrity, this is essentially favouritism based on the political whim for an award / contest which didn't originate with CNet but by another party and one which Cnet took responsibility for, one that included everything product that was officially featured at CES. I think it would behoove CES to encourage CNet to pass this 'Best Of' award to someone else in the future because this proves they are certainly incapable of paying the lip service to objectivity which any award/contest at least tries to maintain.
So Microsoft owned Slate for the longest time. A few years. Everything was going swimmingly until Slate named Firefox the browser of the year. Microsoft never told them they couldn't do that, but it didn't take Microsoft long to divest themselves of the media outlet.
This signature intentionally left blank.
The problem is until this story, I had no idea CNET was own by CBS. I can't imagine I'm alone in that.
Indeed, these things change quickly and frequently. It's like trying to figure out if a seemingly indie label is RIAA affiliated.
Media consolidation is never a good thing.
Its not a good thing for a company like CBS to have one part of the business going to court to claim that a key feature of another companies product is killing your main revenue stream and then have another part of the business praising how good the product (and possibly the feature in question) is.
Well, if their product reviews are not objective, they can't really be trusted. What use are they?
Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, WSJ OpEd page ... :-) ]
[ Okay, mainly the very first one, but I'm *trying* to be fair and balanced - I mean "objective".
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
When we comment in their reviews, we should add the phrase 'this is almost as good as the Hopper", or "this is better than the Hopper."
....I am 100% done with CNet. There "journalism" has been bad enough over the last five years, but when news cant report the news then its not even worth it. Good bye CNet, you will not be missed.
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
I seem to be the only person out of my social circle that remembers Tivo getting neutered back in the early 2000's because of features that were less impressive than this. IIRC Tivo was sued by multiple companies because of the 30-second-skip button on their remotes. They eventually had to disable it (you could always re-enable it if you knew what to do) because advertisers wanted their commercials watched, at least in fast forward.
Now we have the hopper just a few years later. It does the same thing the Tivo did, but it's automatic now, and you don't even see the start of the commercial like you did with the Tivo. Only this time it's being marketed by one of the distribution companies, so they'll grease a few advertiser palms and keep going on their merry way. Hooray for our legal system!
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
The first rule of CBS club....
.... is don't dis' any part of CBS.
.... is that the club will hit you in the head if you dare speak the truth about things that CBS doesn't like.
.... is that we are all brainless morons and there is no longer a wall dividing news and editorial content from management and mangerial control.
.... is that we are all sheeple.
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If your reputation is as a shill site that won't review something because some corporate types are fighting with some other corporate types, that's not good for your brand.
Scary how many /.ers seem to believe that the trade press is fair, ballanced, reputable, accurate, responsible, caring, honest, trustworthy, etc.
They make their money from their adverisers. They know not to bite the hand that feeds them. Grow up and move out of your parent's basement. Yellow journalism started with the first paid advertisement.
Cheers,
Daver
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
I'd block all awards to them just based on their horrible streaming data rate. The quality of their HD is a joke. I've seen less compression in a youtube video.
How do you think the Hearst empire was built?
This has nothing to do with "freedom of the press". It's CBS's prerogative to cover what they want to cover. If you don't like what they've chosen not to cover then vote with your feet and don't patronize CBS or its affiliates. Besides, "Streisand Effect".
Both of which are owned by Viacom. http://www.corporations.org/media/
Fanboy Status: Apache Flex, C#, Eclipse, KDE, Pirate Party, Ron Paul, Slackware, Windows 7
the guy who owns the press has lots of freedom in how they use it. it has been ever thus.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
and I hear they got along well in the line at the bank.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
shills for years now. Why would it suprise anyone that they would react this way. They are not in business to review products or advise potential buyers but to MAKE A PROFIT, and advert for their corporate owners.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one" -- A. J. Liebling
--
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