They already do. It’s called, among other things, the law of libel.

You know, I’m worried about falsehoods too, certainly, but do you really want the government and the majority getting to decide what can and can’t be broadcast? That’s a far more pervasive challenge to free speech than a misleading documentary.

Do you want a country where the Bush Administration could have revoked CBS’s license for using forged memos?

The whole “public property” theory is the exact same one that the FCC uses to crack down on obscenity, too. Not something I’d like to encourage.

Who knew that the right to broadcast false and misleading political propaganda over the public airwaves was a right guaranteed by the constitution? Where do I sign up to get my six hours of nationwide broadcast time?

I guess I missed the part where being the current holder of a broadcast license conferred an unchallengeable ownership right in the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, rather than a promise to do what the law says one should with a piece of public property of which one is the temporary custodian.

If this is not what Senator Reid had in mind, he has’t gone out of his way to explain himself. So there it is – a member of the U.S. Government making something that might be considered to be a threat to a media firm because they are planning to air something the senator disagrees with. There is a huge difference between a bunch of people writing / phoning / emailing ABC, or threatening to boycott sponsors and Congress threatening to pull the license of ABC. One is a bunch of members of the public at large exercising their right to free expression, another is members of the government threatening the independence of the media. Quite a difference, if you ask me.

Faculty have opinions, like everyone else, and a right to express them. But, again, I find myself less impressed by people who think they can make an accurate assessment of the merits of a program before they see it. Especially if they are basing it on people who have a vested interest in it. Perhaps some of these faculty members have seen the advance copies of the program. But if they haven’t they are engaging in dubious scholarship. Yes, it is protected by the consitution. But then, so is the right to make crappy historical movies. I can’t get much enthusiasm for stifling anyone’s free expression, even if that free expression is junk.

Bottom line for me is simple: Let the movie be aired, and if it is as bad as everyone here says it is, then let the academics and the Democratic Party have a field day picking it apart. That shouldn’t take too long. Look how fast the blogisphere took apart Dan Rather’s poor use of documents in his 60 Minutes segment. If this program is as bad as that, it should self-destuct about as fast – and maybe there would be some changes in the management at ABC. The big winners would be the Democratic Party, just as the Republicans won big on the 60 Minutes fiasco.

No, it isn’t. You make the same accusation in another thread, repeatedly, but that doesn’t make it so. There is a fundamental difference between the government prohibiting a film from being shown, and private citizens mobilizing via letters, boycotts, etc. to pressure a network not to air something. The former constitutes censorship; the latter does not.

Is that so hard to understand?

SFB

Right, except the stakes are not even remotely similar. Perhaps if Reagan were still visibly in power, and they had had him say, “Mr. Gorbachev, repair the chinks in this wall!” then the comparison would be justified.

And like that one, the neorepublicans will win this too, because they bought the country and the neodems are content to let them keep it.

I know that, as always, you are pulling facts out of your ass, Steve, but in Berkeley, Schlesinger would probably be the far right wing.