This morning's
Washington Post headlines,
"Not Playing on MTV: Political Ads". The story chronicles how Viacom (which owns MTV, VH1, Comeday Central and BET) is using monopoly status to effectively keep political ads from being seen by young voters. Yesterday, the industry publication
Broadcasting & Cable reported:
MTV spokeswoman Jeanine Smartt says suggesting that Viacom is squelching speech is "not a fair characterization since on all of our channels we speak directly to our audience about issues."
China doesn't censor, since it has Xinhua to talk about the issues people should care about. Likewise, should we just trust the people who own the TV networks to tell us what issues are important? Never mind that MTV is owned by Viacom and Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone set off a huge debate when he endorsed George Bush (see last weeks' in-depth
Newsweek article).
"Disenfranchising Youth Voters"
Matt Stoller says this censorship is "disenfranchising youth voters":
And now, Viacom steps in to the fray, and shows a cynical disregard for its viewership by refusing to run political advertising on the youth oriented networks it controls, which comprises most watched youth programming nationwide. This is another way of disenfranchising youth voters, by treating them as if the political system does not apply to them and enforcing censorship on the channels they use to get information about their lives.
Of course, there are always ways of getting around censorship, they just cost a lot more money. That is why Viacom has created a situation where an ad on equal pay for equal work would cost three or four times as much as an ad for Girls Gone Wild. If you wanted to run ads on BET focusing on issues important to black voters, you would face the same price gourging. Broadcasting & Cable continues:
Because it can’t buy time on Comedy or networks like MTV and Spike TV, Compare Decide Vote now has to buy time on local cable and broadcast to reach potential young voters, which is pricier than buying time on a national network, according to director Lisa Seitz Gruwell.
Naturally, a lot of us young people are pissed off. Which accounts for the huge traffic over at the
Viacom Action Center.
Over at Music for America,
Josh Koenig writes:
They probably believe they have a right to refuse to run political content because they give space to 501c(3) orgs like Rock The Vote and Declare Yourself, which urge people to vote more or less "just because."
But here's the thing: becoming an engaged participant in civic life and the political process isn't something you do "just because." It's about formulating and acting upon opinions, and that's about information. Participation starts with making choices based on your (hopefully informed) judgement as to which candidate(s) will best protect and advance your interests, not printing a voter reg form off the internet because a celebrity implied that it was cool. While I'm glad (super glad!) that Rock the Vote and Declare Yourself exist and are registering gobs and gobs of people to vote, they do not in and of themselves express or constitute an informed political consciousness.
Viacom apparently believes that their channels, which reach millions of potential young participants, are not an appropriate forum for additional data which might set their viewers down the path towards forming such a consciousness for themselves.
On the other hand, if an ad promotes getting drunk (Bass, Guiness, Baileys, Coors Light), flashing your tits (Girls Gone Wild), getting regular boners (Enzite), or even just staying in and playing video games it's all good.
So, yeah. The message is clear. Consumerism, intoxication and sex are great, but don't try and spread the raw materials from which people might form some political opinions. We oppose that. We will not take your money to run ads which do this.
Can you think of anything more condescending than that? Anything more patronizing? Anything more un-American? Our future is on the line -- our jobs, our education, our health, the looming spectre of widening warfare and compulsatory military service -- and the corporate masters of our media universe want to keep us in a happy haze. Viacom really wants to be the opiate of the masses.
That and they want to hide the fact that Bush's record and agenda sucks ass from the youth perspective. Sumner Redstone is clearly trying to help his man out by keeping Bush's record on education and the minimum wage off the airwaves. My response? Fuck you, Sumner. I will burn you down.
So lets make a stink. I'm tired of the anesthetization of our generation by the broadcast giants. This is bullshit, and we shouldn't stand for it. If we can put the screws to Sumner and his Viacom cronies, maybe we can get them to re-think their position.
JOIN THE EFFORT
Visit the Viacom Action Center.
Call to complain: 1-800-421-0245
And of course, let's not forget why we are doing this. If you know any young, or virgin voter, let them know they can get information on where Bush and Kerry stand on the issues by visiting www.comparedecidevote.org.
If you want to follow this scandal, visit the CDV Blog
Coalition members include Compare Decide Vote, Music for America, Downhill Battle, Project Billboard, People for the American Way, America Votes, 21st Century Democrats, Stonewall Democrats, New Democrat Network, The Youth Project, American Progress Action Fund, Network Progress and the Participatory Politics Foundation.
