Since today is Frank Zappa’s birthday, the least you could do is watch the Crossfire video from 21 years ago. Frank takes on the douche bag Robert Novak and nut case John Lofton. Tom Braden hosts the show.
Needless to say, Frank wins the debate.
Last Sunday night AT&T “sponsored” a live webcast of Pearl Jam’s performance at Lollapalooza. Pearl Jam reports on their website that:
After concluding our Sunday night show at Lollapalooza, fans informed us that portions of that performance were missing and may have been censored by AT&T during the “Blue Room” Live Lollapalooza Webcast.
When asked about the missing performance, AT&T informed Lollapalooza that portions of the show were in fact missing from the webcast, and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them.
During the performance of “Daughter” the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” but were cut from the webcast:
- “George Bush, leave this world alone.” (the second time it was sung); and
- “George Bush find yourself another home.”
This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media.
AT&T’s actions strike at the heart of the public’s concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media.
…
If a company that is controlling a webcast is cutting out bits of our performance -not based on laws, but on their own preferences and interpretations – fans have little choice but to watch the censored version.
What happened to us this weekend was a wake up call, and it’s about something much bigger than the censorship of a rock band.
So AT&T’s “content monitor” cut political speech from a live webcast of a Pearl Jam concert and AT&T’s response to Pearl Jam’s inquiry was that the cuts were “a mistake.”
What does that mean? First off, if you agree to sponsor a webcast of a performance, then just broadcast it. It’s a Pearl Jam concert. What is there to monitor?
Second, the “content monitor” chose to cut political language that was critical of Bush from the broadcast. Was it “a mistake” or was the person following AT&T’s rules for censoring webcasts down to what they’ve decided is acceptable content?
If it was a mistake, what was the mistake? Was it a mistake that somebody forgot to tell the content monitor not to cut anything from a live concert performance or was it a “mistake” purposely made by a content monitor who doesn’t approve of statements critical of Bush?
So yes, this is something much bigger than the censorship of a rock band. It’s about the future of the internet, and this is just an example of what happens when corporate hacks control the content.
Yesterday Molly Ivins proposed that our country adopt a “Media Accountability Day” and then reported on “Project Censored’s annual release of the 10 biggest stories ignored or under-covered by mainstream media.” Coming in at numbers one and two are:
No. 1: Bush Administration Moves to Eliminate Open Government.
This administration has drastically changed the rules on Freedom of Information Act requests; has changed laws that restrict public access to federal records, mostly by expanding the national security classification; operates in secret under the Patriot Act; and consistently refuses to provide information to Congress and the Government Accountability Office. The cumulative total effect is horrifying.
No. 2: Iraq Coverage – faulted for failure to report the results of the two battles for Fallujah and the civilian death toll. The civilian death toll story is hard to get — accurate numbers nowhere — but the humanitarian disaster in Fallujah comes with impeccable sources.
Last week I received an email from my uncle who is visiting Sweden. He commented on how the news reports in Sweden were so different from the U.S. News reports. He said that one big difference is that they actually report on the number of civilian casualties in Iraq, and he sent me this graph:
Translation:
Bomb attacks with casualties in Iraq.
Iraq Index calculates that between 13,800 and 24,300 civilians have been killed since the Iraqi government was formed in March 2003. The total number of casualties due to the widespread criminal activity lies between 33,100 and 67,200.
Our media is not officially “censored” but it seems that most of the mainstream outlets have agreed to follow the Bush Administration’s guidelines about not reporting civilian casualties and not showing photos of the dead-military or civilian.
To see a list of the other eight stories ignored by the media, read Molly Ivins’ column.