-The Marijuana Policy Project, in February 2003, sought to place ads that
-directly responded to the Nick and Norm series on stations within the
-Washington, D.C., area. Comcast rejected the ads as "against [their]
- policy."
-The local NBC affiliate, WRC, rejected the ads without reviewing
-them. The local ABC affiliate, WJOA, originally agreed to run the ads and
-accepted payment to do so, but later decided not to run the ads and
- returned
-the collected fees. Interview with Neal Levine, 15 October 2003.
-These restrictions are, of course, not limited to drug policy. See, for
- example,
-Nat Ives, "On the Issue of an Iraq War, Advocacy Ads Meet with
-Rejection from TV Networks," New York Times, 13 March 2003, C4.
- Outside
-of election-related air time there is very little that the FCC or the
-courts are willing to do to even the playing field. For a general overview,
-see Rhonda Brown, "Ad Hoc Access: The Regulation of Editorial
- Advertising
-on Television and Radio," Yale Law and Policy Review 6 (1988):
-449–79, and for a more recent summary of the stance of the FCC and the
-courts, see Radio-Television News Directors Association v. FCC, 184 F. 3d
-872 (D.C. Cir. 1999). Municipal authorities exercise the same authority as
-the networks. In a recent example from San Francisco, the San Francisco
-transit authority rejected an ad that criticized its Muni diesel buses. Phillip
-Matier and Andrew Ross, "Antidiesel Group Fuming After Muni Rejects
-Ad," SFGate.com, 16 June 2003, available at
-<ulink url="http://free-culture.cc/notes/">link #32</ulink>. The ground was
-that the criticism was "too controversial."
-</para></footnote>
-</para>
-<para>
-I'd be happy to defend the networks' rights, as well—if we lived in
-a media market that was truly diverse. But concentration in the media
-throws that condition into doubt. If a handful of companies control
- access
-to the media, and that handful of companies gets to decide which
-political positions it will allow to be promoted on its channels, then in
-an obvious and important way, concentration matters. You might like
-the positions the handful of companies selects. But you should not like
-a world in which a mere few get to decide which issues the rest of us
-get to know about.
-
+The Marijuana Policy Project, in February 2003, sought to place ads
+that directly responded to the Nick and Norm series on stations within
+the Washington, D.C., area. Comcast rejected the ads as "against
+[their] policy." The local NBC affiliate, WRC, rejected the ads
+without reviewing them. The local ABC affiliate, WJOA, originally
+agreed to run the ads and accepted payment to do so, but later decided
+not to run the ads and returned the collected fees. Interview with
+Neal Levine, 15 October 2003. These restrictions are, of course, not
+limited to drug policy. See, for example, Nat Ives, "On the Issue of
+an Iraq War, Advocacy Ads Meet with Rejection from TV Networks," New
+York Times, 13 March 2003, C4. Outside of election-related air time
+there is very little that the FCC or the courts are willing to do to
+even the playing field. For a general overview, see Rhonda Brown, "Ad
+Hoc Access: The Regulation of Editorial Advertising on Television and
+Radio," Yale Law and Policy Review 6 (1988): 449–79, and for a
+more recent summary of the stance of the FCC and the courts, see
+Radio-Television News Directors Association v. FCC, 184 F. 3d 872
+(D.C. Cir. 1999). Municipal authorities exercise the same authority as
+the networks. In a recent example from San Francisco, the San
+Francisco transit authority rejected an ad that criticized its Muni
+diesel buses. Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross, "Antidiesel Group Fuming
+After Muni Rejects Ad," SFGate.com, 16 June 2003, available at
+<ulink url="http://free-culture.cc/notes/">link #32</ulink>. The ground
+was that the criticism was "too controversial."
+</para></footnote>
+</para>
+<para>
+I'd be happy to defend the networks' rights, as well—if we lived
+in a media market that was truly diverse. But concentration in the
+media throws that condition into doubt. If a handful of companies
+control access to the media, and that handful of companies gets to
+decide which political positions it will allow to be promoted on its
+channels, then in an obvious and important way, concentration
+matters. You might like the positions the handful of companies
+selects. But you should not like a world in which a mere few get to
+decide which issues the rest of us get to know about.
projects / text-free-culture-lessig.git / blobdiff