Corporate and political power. An example. October 21, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in US Politics.trackback
This I missed some time back, but it’s an amazing story really, and perhaps shows up the distortion of the US media discourse. In September as noted in a piece in Slate by Sonia K. Katyal and Eduardo M. Penalver of Fordham Law School…
Fox News sued Robin Carnahan, Missouri’s Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, for copyright infringement. Admittedly, Fox attacking a Democratic politician isn’t surprising. Nevertheless, the lawsuit is something of a watershed, because it appears to be the first time a news organization has filed a copyright lawsuit against a political candidate for using a news clip in a campaign ad before an election.
Carnahan had done what any number of candidates have done before, take a clip from a TV newsreport, in this instance from Fox, of her opponent Republican Roy Blunt in an interview where Chris Wallace of Fox News ‘questioned Blunt… about his ethical standards’.
You can read the suit here. It’s interesting to see that Fox argue that the ad breaks copyright and ‘represents a threat to its reputation for objectivity’. No threat there I suspect most of us would assure them. Not on that score.
As Katyal and Penalver note:
The network said it sued to protect the reputation of its news business for accuracy and objectivity. But, curiously, the complaint reads more like a press release for the Blunt campaign: “In a smear ad against political rival Roy Blunt, Defendant [Carnahan] . . . has usurped proprietary footage from the Fox News Network to make it appear–falsely–that FNC and Christopher Wallace, one of the nation’s most respected political journalists, are endorsing Robin Carnahan’s campaign for United States Senate.”
Now as noted by Slate, it’s not unprecedented that news organisations refuse the right to rebroadcast, but this is the first time that someone has been sued. And it’s particularly curious because Blunt has used Fox footage himself in his own ads with, as Slate says, ‘no objection’.
The problem? A chilling effect on political speech in the US. Now there’s a counter thesis that US political discourse would be better off with out political spots on television, but that’s a broader argument and one which seems unlikely to be ever implemented given freedom of speech issues. In this instance it is the appearance of a partisan approach… As On The Media, on NPR, notes:
FOX’s parent company, News Corp., recently made a one-million-dollar donation to the Republican Governors Association, not to mention a donation [$10,000] to Blunt himself.
And the further problematical aspect is that, as Brooke Gladstone on OTM asked…
So you got to wonder whether objectivity is really what the network is defending with this lawsuit or its brand as pro-Republican.
That’s an interesting one for Fox to tussle with. As Katyal, interviewed for OTM noted:
SONIA KATYAL: I agree with that. I mean, I think we have a news organization that – you’re entirely right – has made very strongly partisan claims on behalf of one of the candidates and against the other.
But here’s the thing. One has the feeling that Fox has recognised the reality of its situation, that it is influential but niche (albeit an expanding one) and this would seem to indicate that it is happy for the situation to remain that way. During the Bush era that also made sense. They were after all an outrider for the administration and the prevailing political worldview – at least for much of even the second term. The current period though has brought them something of a dilemma, torn between the insurgency of the Tea Party and the broader Republican base.
In a way that’s mighty odd because one would imagine that they would seek to build market share by softening a little at the edges. But not at all. Perhaps there is also the recognition that there is no particular boundary beyond which if they step they will have gone too far, at least not in a time when Tea Party candidates are on the rise.
Meanwhile, in passing, another most interesting report in the same edition of On The Media also on Fox pointing out that likely hopefuls for the 2012 Presidential Elections, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, are all employees of FOX News. And this has remarkable implications. They’ve signed agreements with FOX that they are exclusive to them. So short of publicly broadcasted events they cannot be on other news channels or shows. And this has a serious political impact.
JONATHAN MARTIN: Well, you have to either air their appearances at public events or you just have to pick up what they said on FOX, where they’re getting little scrutiny because they’re on the staff.
In my reporting I talked to folks inside the network who were deeply uncomfortable with what is going on because it obviously puts them in a very tough position on the news side. They have to deal with those candidates or potential candidates that are not being paid by FOX, who are complaining about equal access and about what it means for the campaign. They’re going to be running against candidates that are FOX employees.
BOB GARFIELD: There’s an – I think, an even more disturbing wrinkle, and that is that now presumed candidates are literally on the payroll, so not only do they have the benefit of FOX’s audience to campaign for free, they actually get paid to do so. At some point, does this amount to an in-kind contribution to a political campaign?
JONATHAN MARTIN: Well, that’s the word that came up when I was talking to one longtime GOP strategist who was not involved yet in the campaign, was “in-kind contribution”. There is no question that having that FOX news platform is perhaps the most coveted sort of pulpit for any potential GOP presidential aspirant.
There is no better way to communicate directly, and with really little filter, too, to the kind of voters that are going to decide the next nominee of their party.
Although as noted by Bob Garfield this cuts both ways.
BOB GARFIELD: But what about the flip side of that question, what about the notion that FOX’s audience is already so hardcore -
JONATHAN MARTIN: Right.
BOB GARFIELD: – that by staying within the comforts of home, these candidates actually surrender access -
JONATHAN MARTIN: Yeah.
BOB GARFIELD: – to the audience that will make the difference in the election?
JONATHAN MARTIN: That’s a great question, and, and I think that, if one of them does win the nomination, they’ll almost certainly have to broaden their media availability beyond FOX News to reach a broader audience.
But I think what’s important is that for now, looking toward the primary, this is sort of a FOX primary.
It’s easy to rail against the perceived excesses of Fox. It really is, and often that serves as a form of displacement activity. But this, this seems to see a process of crossing lines (even if, as with the issue of interview clips, they will be beaten back here and there). And for all my mistrust of political analyses that position corporations as almost comic book villains – it’s the class and capital that is the bigger issue, it is remarkable how much Fox, quite deliberately one supposes, likes playing to a certain caricature. And that would be find and dandy if it weren’t for the small issue that this has serious apparently partisan and potentially distorting in actual political activity.
Couldn’t disagree with you more on this one, WbS. We could really take a leaf out of the Americans’ book when it comes to political speech. I see a lot of campaign ads from the border states here, mostly Michigan and WA, and they pull no punches. Legally, everything has to be factual of course but that’s just common sense. They’re usually about how awful their opponent is. It’s amusing when you haven’t been used to it.
And there are no ‘objective’ news stations in the US. Are there any in Ireland?
“Legally, everything has to be factual of course but that’s just common sense. They’re usually about how awful their opponent is.”
Really? Isn’t it almost impossible though for the plaintiff to win a libel suit in the US?
I think the internet has become as (more?) influential than the print media in the US. No bad thing IMO.
I don’t know, is it?
In the US, you can rubbish your opponents on tv by name, whereas in a lot of countries you can’t for some reason. So, a lot of ads compare say GM products with Hyundai and Toyota etc by name. So in political ads, it’s mostly “Candidate X wants to…. and we think this is bad”, etc.
We could use more political shouting in Ireland.
Agreed on the new media. It works faster too!
Tim, I’m not sure we do disagree on this.
I have no problem with the attack ads, per se (though I’d prefer a calmer more courteous discourse) as long as who makes and funds them is transparent. The Supreme Court ruling last yearon certain funding issues troubles me in that regard.
My problem is simply that I think it’s hypocritical of Fox to complain about a Democrat using their clips, when they don’t about a Republican using clips from their debates/news whatever. That’s the chilling effect, that Fox would seek to stop one side or another.
re the second issue, my problem would be that the exclusivity agreements between potential candidates and Fox prevent them being probed about their positions on any number of policy issues. That sort of exclusivity agreement seems to me to go against the grain of free speech too.
On the broader point I strongly admire the US constitution on the issue of freedom of expression. It’s not pretty, it’s often ugly but it’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
They’re still sore over Obama’s unprecedented attack on Fox. It goes to prove that when politicians take an interest in business, business returns the favour!
TimeWarner gives money to Dems, NewsCorp gives money to the GOP. I suppose the charge of hypocrisy only sticks if we assume a duty to be unbiased. Maybe we should assume that, although I doubt Fox’s viewers do.
As for the exclusivity thing, you’re right, that’s of far greater concern. I can’t for the life of me see why it’s in the interests of the candidates to tie themselves down like that.
Well isn’t it still an issue of free speech? Even if someone speaks on a network there’s an implied assumption that that is in some way ‘public’… and in the case of political speech it’s particularly so.
And if that’s so then Fox shouldn’t stifle speech if other networks don’t, and by curtailing one candidate because of party affiliation is doing precisely that. It doesn’t even come down to bias or not, because it’s entirely up to Fox to determine who they invite on (there’s no ‘balance’ in the sense the BBC or RTE sort of kind of have, in the US networks IIRC), but then to limit the spread of what those who do speak on their network say, that’s just barmey.
That’s an interesting point you make on the other issue. You’re dead right. I mean at some point they have to break out of Fox because they want to win a nation, though of course if the issue is the primaries they’re presumably betting on getting to their core target vote first… But it is odd in the extreme.
No, I don’t think so. I mean if there wasn’t an MSNBC or CNN etc to balance it out I’d be worried but there’s no danger of voices being silenced in the media overall. Fox doesn’t have to provide a platform for speech it doesn’t agree with, just as CLR doesn’t.
‘Protecting’ candidates from being questioned is a worry, however. Although they may be doing America a favour by shutting Sarah Palin up
I happen to think it’ll backfire. None of those four will be on the ballot for 2012. I’d like to see Michael Steele or Gary Johnson run, they’re less conservative.
Well let’s take the CLR as a platform for speech idea, and once we did think about running interviews with left wing figures but soon dismissed the idea because a) we’re not journalists, b) we’re not a news media but more about comment, at best
. And c) we’re all too busy on other projects or intrinsically just lazy lazy people… Imagine we ran an interview with, say Joe Higgins and Fianna Fail picked up in ads on a quote from it that showed a misstep by him. It’d be a pain but to sue FF would be incredible, it’s freedom of expression on a platform accessible by the public, in other words it’s not really ours in any meaningful sense, unless, and here’s the point we’re not about freedom of expression of news or comment, but that being the case that would cast us in a very poor light.
Yes, you’re right, I see what you mean now. There’s likely some legal distinction between using a quote from an interview and showing actual footage from a particular programme or site that us plebs aren’t aware of.
It does, as you say, reflect badly. Although partly also on what is a litigious society too.
Well, I’d put it this way. I have no problem with the existence of Fox, though I wish the left would learn about polemical approaches from it. But I’d be equally annoyed if say CNN or whoever sought to stop a Republican candidate from using a clip of a Dem making an arse of themselves on a CNN programme. If you can’t take the heat you shouldn’t be a candidate.
And to be honest as long as such clips are honest ie. not using deceitful cutting, why the hell not? It’s a freedom of political speech issue in both respects. And like yourself that’s something I value whoever the source.
The state of New York has somewhat similar economic problems to Ireland,-high unemployment, huge budget deficit. The other night the 7 candidates for governor,-yes 7-had a debate which was widely televised. Democracy in action, or maybe politics as farce. Here’s a video of the Rent-is-too-damn-high Party. Videos of the anti-Prohibition party are also available on YouTube.