4 ms·

To be fair, this being mentioned 2-3 times per channel kind of pales in comparison to when the Duck Dynasty thing happened it was on every news station nearly 2

To be fair, this being mentioned 2-3 times per channel kind of pales in comparison to when the Duck Dynasty thing happened it was on every news station nearly 24/7 for a week. I think the complaint is the amount of coverage this has been given, not whether it has been covered at all.

dbunkah 13y ago
I have sneaking feeling these are the same people who freak out on youtube... "THE GOVERNMENT IS CENSORING THIS VIDEO cuz they dont want you to see it. IT'S STUCK AT 301 VIEWS!!!1111!"
dbunkah 13y ago
I have sneaking feeling these are the same people who freak out on youtube... "THE GOVERNMENT IS CENSORING THIS VIDEO cuz they dont want you to see it. IT'S STUCK AT 301 VIEWS!!!1111!"
bananacurve 13y ago
The fucking title says blacked out.
krapp 13y ago
"Blackout" implies a direct or implicit threat of violence by the government against the media, and the media either willingly or unwillingly complying to censor something they would otherwise cover. The American media is in the business of selling time to advertisers, not necessarily informing the public. Duck Dynasty is more popular than Edward Snowden and that particular story was incredibly sensational, so it gets covered more, so it gets more viewers, so it makes the commercial time worth more. Conspiracies aren't necessary to explain it... it's not worth more effort for stations than it gets.
- emn13 13y ago
  Controversy sells. Also, crazy paranoid ravings are a time honored entertainment tradition. I don't buy for a second that Snowden's interview is being avoided because it's not newsworthy enough. In any case, since when did youtube exert editorial control to bar un-entertaining videos? This looks like real self-censorship: it's not newsworthy enough to be worth alienating people that you might want to have as your friend later on. You still don't need a conspiracy to explain it; but it's nevertheless toxic for democracy. Frankly, I think self-censorship like this is much worse than explicit censorship. At least with explicit censorship there's still some attempt to question the party line; but with self-censorship you've lost even that. As to the video itself, is it possible ARD simply has a copyright claim it wishes to enforce?
  - krapp 13y ago
    I don't think the Snowden story is that controversial anymore. >As to the video itself, is it possible ARD simply has a copyright claim it wishes to enforce? Maybe? Affiliates certainly aren't going to pay money for it, they'll just take whatever feeds their parent station sends them, and if the parents aren't willing to pay for it then it doesn't get covered in depth.
  - tripzilch 13y ago
    > As to the video itself, is it possible ARD simply has a copyright claim it wishes to enforce? It's on archive.org now: https://archive.org/details/snowden_interview_en https://archive.org/details/snowden_interview_en (thanks to zeeed for the link) Not entirely clear about the license, it says "opensource movies" and credits the NDR person in the metadata.
- calibraxis 13y ago
  I have no idea about whether Snowden was covered, but "media blackout" certainly doesn't require gov't violence: * media (corporations typically owned by larger corporations) can decide not to report what's against owners' interests * advertisers (corporations buying access to eyeballs) may find news against their interests Many journalists might want to report, but they have bosses/editors, and those covering important news are selected for having certain attitudes. Government may threaten to revoke access, but that's probably too marginal to cause a blackout.
- ryguytilidie 13y ago
  Is what you just described any less troubling than a conspiracy? I feel like advertisers dictating the news is just as bad frankly...
- coldtea 13y ago
  >"Blackout" implies a direct or implicit threat of violence by the government against the media, and the media either willingly or unwillingly complying to censor something they would otherwise cover. Or you know, a soft-core version of the above. Blackout doesn't involve violence -- just an order, implicit or explicit and some threat (which could just be "perhaps we'll call our friends at the IRS" or even "this is a matter of national security, trust us and don't play it. We'll return the favor to your media group."). And it doesn't have to involve all the media, just the more wide-reaching networks, to control the main volume of public discussion. E.g they don't care if 20 or 30 million people see it. But they wouldn't like 350 million people watching it day and night, discussed in news and tv panels and editorials for a few days.
GFischer 13y ago
I had to look up what you were talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Robertson_%27%27GQ%27%27_interview_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Robertson_%27%27GQ%27%27_i... I had no idea about that, it's a US thing :) .

dbunkah 13y ago

I have sneaking feeling these are the same people who freak out on youtube... "THE GOVERNMENT IS CENSORING THIS VIDEO cuz they dont want you to see it. IT'S STUCK AT 301 VIEWS!!!1111!"

dbunkah 13y ago

I have sneaking feeling these are the same people who freak out on youtube... "THE GOVERNMENT IS CENSORING THIS VIDEO cuz they dont want you to see it. IT'S STUCK AT 301 VIEWS!!!1111!"

bananacurve 13y ago

The fucking title says blacked out.

krapp 13y ago

"Blackout" implies a direct or implicit threat of violence by the government against the media, and the media either willingly or unwillingly complying to censor something they would otherwise cover. The American media is in the business of selling time to advertisers, not necessarily informing the public. Duck Dynasty is more popular than Edward Snowden and that particular story was incredibly sensational, so it gets covered more, so it gets more viewers, so it makes the commercial time worth more. Conspiracies aren't necessary to explain it... it's not worth more effort for stations than it gets.

emn13 13y ago
Controversy sells. Also, crazy paranoid ravings are a time honored entertainment tradition. I don't buy for a second that Snowden's interview is being avoided because it's not newsworthy enough. In any case, since when did youtube exert editorial control to bar un-entertaining videos? This looks like real self-censorship: it's not newsworthy enough to be worth alienating people that you might want to have as your friend later on. You still don't need a conspiracy to explain it; but it's nevertheless toxic for democracy. Frankly, I think self-censorship like this is much worse than explicit censorship. At least with explicit censorship there's still some attempt to question the party line; but with self-censorship you've lost even that. As to the video itself, is it possible ARD simply has a copyright claim it wishes to enforce?
- krapp 13y ago
  I don't think the Snowden story is that controversial anymore. >As to the video itself, is it possible ARD simply has a copyright claim it wishes to enforce? Maybe? Affiliates certainly aren't going to pay money for it, they'll just take whatever feeds their parent station sends them, and if the parents aren't willing to pay for it then it doesn't get covered in depth.
- tripzilch 13y ago
  > As to the video itself, is it possible ARD simply has a copyright claim it wishes to enforce? It's on archive.org now: https://archive.org/details/snowden_interview_en https://archive.org/details/snowden_interview_en (thanks to zeeed for the link) Not entirely clear about the license, it says "opensource movies" and credits the NDR person in the metadata.
calibraxis 13y ago
I have no idea about whether Snowden was covered, but "media blackout" certainly doesn't require gov't violence: * media (corporations typically owned by larger corporations) can decide not to report what's against owners' interests * advertisers (corporations buying access to eyeballs) may find news against their interests Many journalists might want to report, but they have bosses/editors, and those covering important news are selected for having certain attitudes. Government may threaten to revoke access, but that's probably too marginal to cause a blackout.
ryguytilidie 13y ago
Is what you just described any less troubling than a conspiracy? I feel like advertisers dictating the news is just as bad frankly...
coldtea 13y ago
>"Blackout" implies a direct or implicit threat of violence by the government against the media, and the media either willingly or unwillingly complying to censor something they would otherwise cover. Or you know, a soft-core version of the above. Blackout doesn't involve violence -- just an order, implicit or explicit and some threat (which could just be "perhaps we'll call our friends at the IRS" or even "this is a matter of national security, trust us and don't play it. We'll return the favor to your media group."). And it doesn't have to involve all the media, just the more wide-reaching networks, to control the main volume of public discussion. E.g they don't care if 20 or 30 million people see it. But they wouldn't like 350 million people watching it day and night, discussed in news and tv panels and editorials for a few days.

GFischer 13y ago

I had to look up what you were talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Robertson_%27%27GQ%27%27_interview_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Robertson_%27%27GQ%27%27_i... I had no idea about that, it's a US thing :) .