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Marcus Kazmierczak

CBS Censors Superbowl

Date: Jan 24, 2004

CBS has refused to air an advertisement which criticizes the Bush Administration’s increasing budget deficit. From the CBS statement:

“The Network has a longstanding policy prohibiting the sale of advertising time for the advocacy of viewpoints on controversial issues of public importance.”

CBS rightly agrees with me, that this is an issue of public importance. However they refuse to air it. Whatever happened to open debate and the television’s civic duty of the public interest!?

The government (the people) created the FCC and granted it the power to control the public airwaves, in the words from their site: ” - ensure that the American people have available, at reasonable costs and without discrimination, rapid, efficient, Nation- and world-wide communication services;”

Obviously, CBS actions are not without discrimination. They are choosing which ads they will air, the Bush Administration’s, and which ads the public will not see, criticism of the Administration.

Further Reading:

From 1968, The Media Barons and the Public Interest published by The Atlantic. This article ends with a rather sad and prophetic quote:

“And if we are unwilling to discuss this issue fully today we may find ourselves discussing none that matter very much tomorrow.”