The Daily Stern
: THE TODAY SHOW’S MADE-UP NEWS: Saw the most ludicrous segment on The Today Show this morning, arguing that America is turning wholesome. It was so made up. The evidence: Right-wing bore Michael Medved says people are into religion (that’s a new view) and Jay Leno beats David Letterman (and where does Leno air?). Stern airs the segment later and says, “Why don’t they point out I beat all my competitors.”
After the say-nothing “report,” adman Donny Deutsch stands up for free speech against right-wing blatherer Peggy Noonan.
No story. No reporting. No evidence. No point.
Unjournalism.
ON THE RIGHT SIDE: Here’s a story on the representatives who voted against the House’s indecent indecency bill.
…for Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) the issue created barely a ripple.
“I go all over this city and all over this district. … No one, but no one, asked me one thing about it. No one said one word,” Lewis said Friday, a day after voting against a bill to greatly boost fines for indecent programming …
: ONE MAN’S INDECENCY: A Kansas senator wrote to Viacom head Mel Karmazin telling him to take Stern off the air and Karmazin replied regarding the show that caused Clear Channel to pull Stern: “Our editors made the good faith judgment that the references which aired were not graphic, patently offensive descriptions of sexual activity.”
: IT’S NOT ABOUT HOWARD; IT’S ABOUT US: I forgot to mention this from Howard’s show yesterday but it’s a good thing, because Tony Pierce did a fear better job reporting and analyzing it than I could have:
howard stern was right this morning. rolling stone wants to put him on their cover and write about his problems with the fcc and at first he was going to do it, but then he realized that this wasnt His problem, it’s Everyones problem. for 20 years hes been doing his show and the public has been eating it up.
nothing that he does is obscene. it’s about sex a lot of the times, but that doesnt instantly make it obscene.
the radio waves are the public’s airwaves. how public is it when one company owns 80% of it? how public is it when a few republicans are dictating what can be broadcast? how public is it when the number one broadcaster is suddenly deemed obscene the same month he comes out against the president of the united states?
i know a lot of my elected officials read this.
and some officials, like senator clinton read this too.
if you fools dont start fighting the repubs on this issue and on the issue of free speech and of the issue of censorship and of the issue of assholes bulldozing their quote unquote morals all over my shit im going to not only vote them out but vote you out too.
where is the main democratic voice standing up and saying, oh no you didn’t!
do i have to elect the audience of the jerry springer show to run my senate?
Bravo, Tony.
: INCONSISTENT: Greg Ross from GoKart records sends an eloquent defense of Stern and attack on Clear Channel to the German site Ox:
But the standard Clear Channels applies to radio does not appear to apply to some of its other lucrative businesses, like the concert venues it owns all over the country. This summer, performers like Blink-182, the Ozzfest with Ozzy Osbourne, Britney Spears, Ludacris, and Slayer will be performing at numerous Clear Channel-owned concert venues.
Before I continue, let me clarify, no criticism of the performers above is intended; rather I wish to draw attention to the hypocrisy of Clear Channel
