Simon & Schuster is Viacom is CBS is incestuous (You woke up, Rush! media consolidation is bad!)

rushlimbaugh.com ^ | March 22, 2004 | Rush Limbaugh

[Destro]

Simon Und Schuster Infomercial

March 22, 2004

Richard Clarke's book is published by Simon & Schuster, which is Viacom, which is CBS. It's incestuous. Paul O'Neill's book was published by Simon & Schuster. He also got a big blurb on 60 Minutes, like Richard Clarke, and in a few weeks, Bob Woodward will have a new book looking at the Bush administration, called "Plan of Attack." It's also a Simon & Schuster/CBS/Viacom book.

Will Bob Woodward go on 60 Minutes before he spends his requisite two weeks on Larry King talking about this book? This is a coordinated assault on the president, during wartime, by a bunch of people hoping to protect their own keisters and rewrite their own legacy. These are Clinton administration people and simpaticos, with the exception of O'Neill, who apparently had some score to settle over something.

This is just the latest onslaught. There have been countless other coordinated attacks like this on this president throughout his three years, and he's still sitting there in the latest CBS/New York Times poll, leading John Kerry handily, and by even a larger margin if you factor Ralph Nader in the race. The economy is doing well, despite all of this. They're launching their best salvos here, folks. They're launching everything they've got, but it's going to land with a thud.

[Destro]

How rich! This from Rush, the (former?) champion of media consolidation. True conservatives (like the NRA) told y'all that media consolidation was bad and restricted information not increased it. I guess Rush can think clearly now that he is not hopped up on goof balls.

Break up ClearChannel - break up Viacom - break 'em all up!

[Cosmo]

Umm....I think you need to reconsider.

[CyberAnt]

There's nothing wrong with consolidation - the problem comes from those who are corrupted and don't want to acknowledge the connection.

If Fox can acknowledge their connection to the NYPost, then CBS can acknowledge Viacom and Simon & Schuster.

The reason CBS doesn't want to acknowledge Viacom is because too many Fox viewers/Rush listeners know that Viacom is Hillary's largest donor. Obviously, CBS didn't want Hillary to be connected with Clarke. But .. he is!

And .. your comments about Rush are way over the top, and totally out of line.

And .. please explain to me how Clear Channel is "consolidated".

[Asclepius]

Umm....I think you need to reconsider.

Indeed. What the Destros of this world fail to understand is that media consolidation is an effect of media disintermediation by new or newer media. Rush's point, I think, is simply that CBS and its parent VIACOM colluded to cash in on the victims of 911.

[Destro]

Rush's point, I think, is simply that CBS and its parent VIACOM colluded <p. Is that not the whole point of consolidation of media? Print, radio, television, etc.

[CyberAnt]

No, it's not the whole point!

However, unscrupulous people would use it for that purpose.

I think you're assuming ALL consolidation is bad .. and I just don't agree.

And .. please show me where Clear Channel - who is only radio (as far as I know) is consolidation ..?? You didn't answer that question.

[finnman69]

Howard Stern fan?

[BigSkyFreeper]

Clear Channel isn't consolidated with anyone. I think you need to check your own facts before you take such great leaps in the future.

[BigSkyFreeper]

What you're describing is not consolidation of media, what you're getting at is essentially "conflict of interest". The fact that CBS won't acknowledge to the unknowing viewer that Richard Clarke's book is being published by Simon & Shuster (which is owned by Viacom, the parent company of CBS), is disengenious. A media company is doing a service if it lets the viewer know it's being run by a larger company. Like MSNBC saying "MSNBC is a joint venture of General Electric and Microsoft" somewhere in their report of either GE or Microsoft. It's called "public disclosure".

[Destro]

It is called synergy. Enjoy it.

[CyberAnt]

Right! It's called drop and run. Drop the bad info and run like hell.

Get lost - and take your loser comments with you!

[Pelham]

It's rich irony indeed. Russell Kirk, whose name Rush sometimes tosses about but whose writing Rush evidently never has read, often warned against conflating conservatism with big business. They're not the same, and big business is often a driving force for radicalism. What do people think the big business of the entertainment industry is? Not to mention the long list of corporations which routinely donate to the radical activists that conservatives despise.

The old Right was as wary of big business as it was of big government. But today we find a foolish cheerleading for both in "conservative" circles, until something of this sort smacks them in the face with the dangers of consolidated power. They won't learn. They'll just spin until their hero comes out and explicitly admits he was mistaken. For that admission, don't hold your breath.

[Destro]

Well out Pelham. CyberAnt you might not enjoy his post.

[Destro]

That should read - Well PUT Pelham.

[Destro]

What is ironic is that Rush defended the consolidation and the cross media ownerships that the FCC had recently allowed as being a good thing. It was a good thing - for Clarke that is.

[spycatcher]

Conservatism is not enough:

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37800

[Pelham]

An interesting Farah essay, but flawed IMO.

For European scholars like von Mises and Hayek, 'conservative' has monarchist and class associations that are missing in American usage. The term is especially misleading in their field of economics- for them, an advocate of free markets and limited government is a 'liberal', while for us he is a 'conservative'. We would refer to an advocate of large, intrusive government as a 'liberal', they would call the same advocate a 'socialist'. Von Mises and Hayek, not being defenders of the mercantile system of preferences that characterized pre-'liberal' Europe, naturally rejected the label of conservative. They described themselves as 'liberals'.

Washington is another matter. Some writer on the American War for Independence called it a "conservative revolution", not to be confused with a "radical social revolution" of the French sort. The American revolutionaries were seeking to defend their Rights as Englishmen, which were being infringed by the Hanover monarchy and Parliament after the Seven Years War. When Parliament treated them as second class citizens, and used troops to enforce their edicts, the British North Americans fought back. Their revolution was in the form of goverment they established, not in their social arrangements.

[Asclepius]

Is that not the whole point of consolidation of media? Print, radio, television, etc.

No. Not in the least. Some critics decry media consolidation because they argue it limits the options available to media consumers, limits edititorial selection strategies etc.; what they do not seem to get is that media consolidation--like any industry consolidation, e.g. defense industry, automobile industry--is either an artifact of collapsing demand or intense competition. What is causing older media vehicles to consolidate is new and newer media, which is a good thing, not a bad thing. The political right as we know it now could not exist without new media.

As for Rush, he was making a particular point about a particular collusion among particular players without disclosing up front what they were up to, which is what good journalists are supposed to do. This is far more about journalistic ethics than it is about industrial policy. Murdoch's Fox and his publishing arm would not have colluded with a person like Clarke.

[NYCVirago]

I guess Rush can think clearly now that he is not hopped up on goof balls.

Nothing says class like making drug jokes about Rush Limbaugh.

[PGalt]

Consolidation will not stop the demise of propaganda in an age of information.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Well which is it? Synergy or consolidation? Make up your mind will ya?

[pointsal]

It is the "sameness" of the programming....robots operate the stations. There is no employment multiplier in the local community. That's what's wrong with the bean-counting consolidation.

[CyberAnt]

What problem do you have with that "sameness"

I mean - if a station wants to play classical music and buys 600 stations to play classical music - what is that to you - certainly there must be a market for it?

[CyberAnt]

Oh .. on the contrary - I was very interested to see how jealous people are that Rush and the conservative message have finally made it out past the fire wall of LIBERALISM.

[Destro]

Both!