Mark Lloyd is Obama’s Diversity Czar, and as one might imagine, he has surrounded himself with some people who have deep concerns about the nature of the US. As WTH points out in his piece, Lloyd has been making noises about returning some kind of “Fairness Doctrine” to radio, and bailing out newspapers. This comes at the same time that it has been reported that USA Today has fallen behind WSJ as the paper with the highest circulation in the country.
The White House this weekend also went on a whining binge about FOX, led by Anita Dunn, who looks as though she’s been hit by a cluebat, but obviously hasn’t. This comes hot on the heels of Axelrod’s meeting with Roger Ailes, which apparently didn’t yield up the results he had hoped for.
Massive spending on Census ads may skip FOX:
The Bureau then lists the criteria that would put a media company on its blacklist:
# Excessive sex or violence
# Anti-U.S. government sentiments or supporting any violent acts toward the government or the American people, including but not limited to terrorism.
# Questionable moral or ethical values, particularly dealing with bigotry or prejudice.
# Denigration of any cultural group or faith-based communities (imams, ministers, nuns, priests, rabbis, etc.).
# Anticipated controversial programming that cannot be pre-screened (i.e., reality programming).
# Controversial talk formats.
Newsmax focuses on that last bit about “controversial talk show formats.” What could be controversial about a format? Don’t people go to talk shows in order to witness controversy? Is there something wrong with controversy in the media?
Why is it important that potentially controversial shows be pre-screened? Once again, who is going to decide what is “controversial,” and what are their criteria supposed to be?
Is denigration of any faith-based community really going to exclude Disney, do you think? Will Kevin Jennings be required to recant his criticism of Christians? Will Jew-bashing media be held to account? Honestly?
Questionable moral or ethical values? When you’ve got administration members who advocate queer-friendly curricula for kindergartners, and others who think we ought to condone polygamy? When Chris Dodd earns your support, and the House can’t even get Rangel out of his committee chair? When you support Chavism in Central and South America? When your DoJ is apparently using public funds to spam blogs that post stuff you don’t like? Seriously?
Anti-government sentiments? Like, that there should be less of it, maybe? How does it become a matter of state policy to apologize whenever possible for the US as a nation, but to punish criticism of the US government?
So, self-identifying liberals: where are you on this?
And while we’re being honest, Anita, let’s be honest about why Obama sent Arne Duncan and Eric Holder to Chicago in the wake of the Derrion Albert murder (but after the Olympics committee made its decision): because it wouldn’t have been safe to send in a gay School Safety Czar.
