tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/cbs-10339/articlesCBS – The Conversation2023-05-21T20:00:05Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2040352023-05-21T20:00:05Z2023-05-21T20:00:05ZSumner Redstone: the other media baron who inspired Succession was more toxic and dysfunctional than Logan Roy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526103/original/file-20230515-18-7g22tf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C1920%2C1270&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">HBO</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Just before the third season of the hit HBO television show <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-succession-feeds-the-hidden-fantasies-of-its-well-to-do-viewers-201936">Succession</a> began, the show’s creator, Jesse Armstrong, was asked (again) what it was about real-life media tycoons Sumner Redstone and Rupert Murdoch that drove him to create a TV series about a fictional media family that bore some resemblances to each of them.</p>
<p>Armstrong’s answer was simple: when Redstone and Murdoch had been asked about their succession plans, both had joked they didn’t plan to die.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Hollywood Media Empire – James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams (Cornerstone Press)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>“It felt like something quite basic about not wanting to give up and feeling that loss of influence at the end of your life,” Armstrong <a href="https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/435246.aspx">explained</a>. “And I started to feel there was a show about what those people are like in general.”</p>
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<span class="caption">Jesse Armstrong (second right) was inspired to write Succession by Sumner Redstone and Rupert Murdoch, who both joked they intended not to die.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chris Pizello/AP</span></span>
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<p>Armstrong’s success has been to combine the all-too-common anxiety about our legacy with the elevated stakes that come with being one of those rarefied ultra-wealthy corporate media figures who believe mortality is negotiable.</p>
<p>It appears that for these media tycoons’ families, an inheritance goes beyond how much it’s worth, or what corporate outpost might come their way: it’s also about the family dynamic. Sibling rivalry, parental respect – and often, the banality of favouritism. Emotional fealty can have dollar signs attached to it. </p>
<p>We understand this almost instinctively in Armstrong’s depiction of the Roy family and the gruesome fascination patriarch Logan Roy conjures from a combination of psychopathic paternalism and deal-making wizardry. </p>
<p>But now we can also see it in even more lurid detail, with the release of a book by two New York Times journalists on Redstone’s savage battle to secure his own legacy: <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/unscripted-9781529912852">Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Hollywood Media Empire</a> by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams.</p>
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<h2>An American success story</h2>
<p>Redstone was one of those classic American success stories. His father sold linoleum, and went on to run two drive-in theatres, which Redstone would later develop into the movie theatre chain National Amusements. (And as a child, <a href="https://www.theringer.com/tv/2019/9/29/20886840/succession-season-2-episode-8-recap">just like Logan Roy</a>, Redstone briefly lived in a house with no inside bathroom.)</p>
<p>Redstone escaped his background with a scholarship to Harvard that set him on the path to a career that, at its peak, delivered him control of Viacom, Paramount Pictures, CBS, MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and publisher Simon & Schuster, as well as National Amusements. It was a playpen of great wealth and wide influence.</p>
<p>Unscripted makes clear that Redstone’s travails are even more compelling and incredible than his small-screen avatar’s. The reality is more toxic, more dysfunctional and far more complicated than any TV script. </p>
<p>Unscripted catalogues Redstone’s sexual predations – including finding on-air roles for women he was interested in (another Logan move), and repeatedly dating or trying to date his grandson’s girlfriends. Said one Hollywood executive of his behaviour: “He acts like a 15-year-old kid at summer camp.”</p>
<p>His fed-up grandson eventually hired TV’s Millionaire Matchmaker, Patti Stanger (whom Sumner called his “dream girl” and unsuccessfully pursued), to find him a companion. This would have unforeseen consequences.</p>
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<p>But what Unscripted really reveals is how desperately Redstone clung to the hallmarks of his successful life, and how vulnerable that made him to those who wanted to take advantage of him. </p>
<p>Central to the book, and his later life – as Armstrong noted – is Redstone’s gobsmacking denial of his own mortality.</p>
<p>At the age of 85, and having survived a hotel fire in his 50s, and later prostate cancer, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/02/sumner-redstone-in-love-the-cringey-sexcapades-of-a-horny-billionaire">Redstone boasted</a> to CNN’s celebrity interviewer Larry King that he had “the vital statistics of a 20-year-old”.</p>
<p>In case Larry had any doubts, Redstone laid out his case. “Even 20-year-old men get older. Not me. My doctor says I’m the only man who’s reversed it. I eat and drink every antioxidant known to man. I exercise 50 minutes every day.” Redstone even told one of his numerous paramours that he was the inspiration behind <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421715/">The Curious Case of Benjamin Button</a>, a film about a man who defies chronology by getting younger.</p>
<p>Not long after the King interview, Redstone’s health started to deteriorate. And that, of course, brought his family’s inheritance and succession issues into sharp relief. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rich-are-pouring-millions-into-life-extension-research-but-does-it-have-any-ethical-value-201774">The rich are pouring millions into life extension research – but does it have any ethical value?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The successor: Shari Redstone</h2>
<p>Redstone had two children: a son, Brent, who was estranged from his father, and Shari, a lawyer, three years younger than her brother. The similarities of Shari (who, incidentally, has red-blonde hair) to Shiv Roy, played by Sarah Snook, have been noted.</p>
<p>Over the years, Shari had clashed bitterly with her father, sometimes publicly. At the same time she craved his affection and approval, which he dangled frequently before her (especially when he needed something) but then withdrew his favour. </p>
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<p>Shari was initially nominated as his successor, but after a public feud between them, Sumner announced his inheritance would instead be shared between his five grandchildren. </p>
<p>The book hums with the steady undercurrent of the cruel and fraught relationship between Sumner and Shari, reaching its crescendo as Sumner chose two of his lovers to become his live-in carers in a bizarre affront to his family. </p>
<p>One of them was Sydney Holland, introduced to Redstone by the Millionaire Matchmaker: she became his live-in fiancee. The other was his old flame, Manuela Herzer, who moved in (with her daughter) while the house Redstone had bought her was being renovated – and stayed, sharing Holland’s duties of managing the household and Redstone’s medical care. </p>
<p>Together, they not only found every way possible to prevent Shari from visiting him – but also <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/sumner-redstone-sues-companions-elder-abuse-reclaim-150m-gifts-937749/">extracted US$150 million</a> from him.</p>
<p>By that stage, Redstone was being fed through a tube into his stomach. He spent most of his day watching sport on TV, and could barely speak. The fate of his companies swung in the wind. Shari, who was still part of the corporate landscape, was trying to salvage something from the wreckage. </p>
<p>She never gave up, although she came close to walking away. All she wanted was a signal from her father that – after years of being patronised, yelled at, ignored and belittled – he trusted her. </p>
<p>After she managed to extract the two carers from the Redstone home (no easy feat), Shari “all but moved to Los Angeles” to be near her father. His nurses installed a large clock so he could track the hours and minutes until her arrival, and she “became adept at interpreting Sumner’s speech”.</p>
<p>There is an echo here too of Succession: Logan Roy’s business rival, Sandy, whose daughter Sandi – also apparently inspired by Shari – is his translator to the world, after he falls seriously ill (with what’s <a href="https://screenrant.com/succession-season-3-sandy-illness-syphilis-what-happened/">rumoured</a> to be syphilis, seemingly a dig at his hypersexuality).</p>
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<span class="caption">Succession’s Sandi (Hope Davis) is also inspired by Shari Redstone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">HBO</span></span>
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<p>Sumner and Shari’s conversation turned to the proposal to sell a stake in Paramount to a Chinese property conglomerate. Sumner was viscerally opposed to the idea, hatched by a longtime executive whom Sumner now determined was on the outer. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“What do I do?” Redstone asked his daughter. </p>
<p>“This is your battle, not mine […] I have a new life,” Shari replied. </p>
<p>Redstone pleaded: “Shari, you have to do this. You need to stop this.” </p>
<p>For Shari, that was the moment he finally said: “Shari, I trust you.” </p>
<p>“I’ll do it for you,” she said.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Shari’s determination to follow her father’s wishes helped make sure the deal never happened.</p>
<p>All this will resonate with those Succession fans who felt the whiplash of Logan Roy’s disdain towards his children, and its savage counterpoint as he tried to woo them. </p>
<p>Logan seems indomitable, but what makes the Redstone story so compelling is, eventually, the patriarch’s vulnerability – his confrontation with mortality – and the desperation and loneliness that drove him to restore his relationship with his daughter. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-first-biography-of-lachlan-murdoch-provides-some-insights-but-leaves-important-questions-unanswered-192403">The first biography of Lachlan Murdoch provides some insights, but leaves important questions unanswered</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<h2>Corporate misogyny</h2>
<p>There is no denying the other essential thread in Unscripted is one that clearly links Redstone’s appalling behaviour towards the women in his life with the corporate play that finally resolves his legacy.</p>
<p>The deal was to be a merger of the successful CBS network with the ailing Viacom, an idea Redstone had aggressively rejected for years. But the older Redstone became, the more appealing the merger became to the executives at CBS, particularly its chief executive, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-les-moonves-got-to-leave-cbs-on-his-own-terms-while-others-in-metoo-miscreant-club-got-canned-103041">Les Moonves</a>.</p>
<p>As the heat around the deal increased, rumours started to circulate about Moonves. Several women <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/08/06/les-moonves-and-cbs-face-allegations-of-sexual-misconduct">came forward</a> to accuse Moonves of sexual harassment and, in some instances, alleged sexual assault.</p>
<p>As Unscripted follows Moonves and the complex network of law firms and investigations that surrounded him, Sumner Redstone recedes from view. Shari, emboldened and central to the corporate action, becomes the character linking the two ends of the Redstone story. She had counted Moonves as a friend who had helped make CBS successful. Her father had championed him – but the CBS chief had let Shari down and betrayed her with his behaviour. He had to go.</p>
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<span class="caption">Sumner Redstone and Les Moonves with Ewan McGregor at movie premiere Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chris Pizello/AP</span></span>
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<p>Recurring and relentless misogyny characterises the corporate, entertainment and media worlds. We see this in Redstone’s corporate kingdom – and in the fictional setting of Waystar Royco, the corporate behemoth in Succession. Truth marches alongside fiction, without a sideways glance.</p>
<p>The book is an assiduous piece of journalism from two Pulitzer Prize winners: Abrams was part of The New York Times reporting team that worked on the Weinstein stories, and her knowledge of that context gives Unscripted a sharp clarity. </p>
<p>But Abrams and Stewart also have some great material to work with: we eavesdrop on conversations, and read text messages and emails, that together amount to a picture of greed, arrogance and despair. Most of these details are on the public record because there has been so much litigation between various parties seeking to either protect Redstone’s legacy or snatch some of it for themselves.</p>
<p>It ended on August 11 2020, when Sumner Redstone died at the age of 97. The merger between CBS and Viacom went ahead and Shari attempted to reshape the culture with seven women on the 13-member board of the merged company.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-people-crave-the-approval-of-an-abusive-or-narcissistic-parent-and-what-can-they-do-about-it-203664">Why do people crave the approval of an abusive or narcissistic parent? And what can they do about it?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Living+</h2>
<p>Redstone might have died, but Armstrong’s other inspiration – Rupert Murdoch – continues. Murdoch turned 92 in March and seems resolute, if less robust.</p>
<p>Just like Redstone, Murdoch had his moment to pronounce on his longevity. He was 69 and had triumphed over prostate cancer. </p>
<p>“I’m now convinced of my own immortality,” <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/04/rupert-murdoch-cover-story">he declared</a>, although it’s highly likely he was half-joking. Nonetheless, there is longevity in the family genes: Murdoch’s mother, Dame Elisabeth, died at 103.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rupert Murdoch joked, aged 69, ‘I’m now convinced of my own immortality’. That idea seems to have inspired Succession’s retirement product, Living+.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">HBO</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>After Redstone’s departure, Murdoch remains the oldest media tycoon still actively in charge. It’s clear he believes there’s still much work to be done, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/celebrity-money-and-power-tvs-obsession-with-the-murdoch-family-dynasty-146113">who will follow him</a> from among his four grown-up children remains a work in progress.</p>
<p>Whatever happens, it’s highly unlikely the public turmoil and angst that surrounded the Redstone succession will be repeated with Murdoch: it has so far felt like a much more discreet display.</p>
<p>If there’s any doubt about how the Murdochs want to keep all this private, it’s that one of the terms of the settlement of Murdoch’s divorce from his fourth wife, model Jerry Hall, was that she couldn’t give story ideas to the writers of Succession.</p>
<p>And yet in a recent episode from what is the final series, Kendall Roy launched a new retirement product from Waystar, <a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/succession-living-plus-inspiration-explained.html">Living+</a>, which he described in his unique corporate mangling as a “personalised longevity journey”.</p>
<p>What actually is that, Ken? Somewhere to go while you’re waiting, or just maybe some intimations of mortality? Most likely, it’s just a Jesse Armstrong joke.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204035/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Richardson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new book, Unscripted, tells the incredible story of Sumner Redstone, the other model for Succession’s Logan Roy – and the epic succession journey of his daughter, Shari, now chair of ViacomCBS.Nick Richardson, Adjunct Professor of Journalism, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2044922023-05-04T12:10:32Z2023-05-04T12:10:32ZThe firings of Don Lemon and Tucker Carlson doesn’t mean the end of hyperpartisan cable news networks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523059/original/file-20230426-20-hol5pe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=684%2C19%2C3747%2C2750&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Then-CNN anchor Don Lemon speaks during a Democratic presidential debate in Detroit on July 31, 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/moderator-don-lemon-speaks-to-the-crowd-attending-the-news-photo/1165418659?adppopup=true">(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Television host <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/the-view-celebrating-tucker-carlson-exit-mourn-don-lemon-termination">Sara Haines</a> of ABC’s “The View” spoke for many viewers when she celebrated the departure of right-wing television host Tucker Carlson from the Fox News Network.</p>
<p>“I am happy to know someone like him no longer has the platform he had built,” she exclaimed. </p>
<p>Similarly, CNN anchor Don Lemon’s ouster on April 23, 2023 – the same day as Carlson’s – generated an equal amount of celebration from conservatives. </p>
<p>One of them was <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/04/24/nikki-haley-trolls-don-lemon-over-firing-hawks-beer-koozies/">Nikki Haley</a>, the presidential candidate and former governor of South Carolina, whom Lemon had previously described as a woman past her prime when she <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/elections/100000008772357/nikki-haley-president-2024.html?searchResultPosition=2">launched her 2024 campaign</a>.</p>
<p>Lemon’s dismissal is “a great day for women everywhere,” Haley exclaimed. </p>
<p>In this age of hyperpartisan news programming, both Carlson and Lemon proved talented at providing perspectives that confirmed their audience’s view of the world.</p>
<p>It is not clear why Lemon and Carlson were fired, but in my view as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=YBntiP0AAAAJ">media scholar</a>, they were removed because they no longer provided the benefits their employers expected. </p>
<p>Instead, I believe they had become potential threats to the networks’ audience shares and advertising revenue. Rather than a victory for women or truth, I view these firings as an effort to sustain and grow corporate profits. </p>
<h2>Hyperpartisan news media</h2>
<p>The advent of <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520347878/the-anatomy-of-fake-news">cable news</a> in the 1980s created more channels for audiences to watch, and thus fractured the audience long dominated by networks NBC, ABC and CBS.</p>
<p>The internet, smartphones and social media <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Lets-Agree-to-Disagree-A-Critical-Thinking-Guide-to-Communication-Conflict/Higdon-Huff/p/book/9781032168982">further fragmented audiences</a>. As <a href="https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/hate-inc/">journalists</a> and <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520347878/the-anatomy-of-fake-news">media scholars</a> have noted, the solution for many media companies in the 1990s was to target their programming to a single demographic instead of trying to attract a larger, general audience. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-165X.2009.tb01921.x">Scholars</a> and <a href="https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/hate-inc/">journalists</a> note that in order to attract a targeted demographic, cable news media relied on hyperpartisan reporting that framed news stories as liberal versus conservative. This approach proved viable, as subsequent studies found that television audiences preferred news outlets that confirmed <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/2018/05/15/fake-news-social-media-confirmation-bias-echo-chambers/533857002/">their political views</a> and attacked <a href="https://www.livescience.com/3640-people-choose-news-fits-views.html">their political rivals</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-165X.2009.tb01921.x">Liberal outlets</a> focused on <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520347878/the-anatomy-of-fake-news">confirming liberals’</a> <a href="https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/hate-inc/">views</a> by introducing <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/chris-hedges/empire-of-illusion/9780786749553/?lens=bold-type-books">caricatures</a> of conservatives who could be easily villainized. The inverse was true at conservative outlets.</p>
<p>By 2021, in my view, the unintended result of such partisan programming was that audiences perceived that the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/17/poll-we-have-met-the-enemy-and-it-is-us-459948">No. 1</a> threat to their lives was other Americans.</p>
<h2>Carlson’s duplicity</h2>
<p>In this cable news environment, Carlson started working at <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/24/business/media/tucker-carlson-career-history.html">CNN</a> in 2000, moved to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna8049787#.W6cJZVInaRs">MSNBC</a> in 2005 and arrived at Fox News Channel in 2009, where he became a megastar with his own program, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” in 2016. </p>
<p>Whether it was accurate or not, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” provided far-right ideological content that drew an average of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/tucker-carlsons-exit-fox-news-may-be-ratings-bane-advertising-boon-2023-04-25/">3 million nightly viewers</a>, and Carlson became the highest-rated personality in cable news media. </p>
<p>Among Carlson’s falsehoods were that <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/dec/18/tucker-carlson/carlson-falsely-claims-immigrants-are-dirtying-pot/">immigrants were mostly</a> responsible for polluting a U.S. river; that the <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/aug/17/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlson-wrongly-says-united-states-ended-sl/">U.S. ended slavery</a> around the world; and that <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/aug/15/tucker-carlson/carlson-guns-dont-kill-people-bathtubs-do/">more children died</a> from drowning in their bathtub than accidentally from guns.</p>
<p>Whether he actually believed any of those falsehoods remains unknown. </p>
<p>What is known is that Carlson did not personally believe Donald Trump’s claims that he won the 2020 presidential election – and yet he publicly echoed rather than challenged Trump’s baseless assertions. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A billboard shows an image of a white man wearing a necktie next to his words that read I hate Trump passionately." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523855/original/file-20230502-1802-jpfgdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523855/original/file-20230502-1802-jpfgdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523855/original/file-20230502-1802-jpfgdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523855/original/file-20230502-1802-jpfgdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523855/original/file-20230502-1802-jpfgdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523855/original/file-20230502-1802-jpfgdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523855/original/file-20230502-1802-jpfgdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An image of former Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson and his view of Donald Trump are displayed on a billboard in West Palm Beach, Fla.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/billboard-put-up-by-progressive-activist-group-moveon-that-news-photo/1479574560?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/tucker-carlson-fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-trump-5d6aed4bc7eb1f7a01702ebea86f37a1">In a text message</a> to Sidney Powell, one of Trump’s most ardent lawyers, Carlson wrote:</p>
<p>“You keep telling our viewers that millions of votes were changed by the software. I hope you will prove that very soon. You’ve convinced them that Trump will win. If you don’t have conclusive evidence of fraud at that scale, it’s a cruel and reckless thing to keep saying.” </p>
<p>But in a text message to his Fox News colleagues, Carlson was less hopeful:</p>
<p>“<a href="https://apnews.com/article/tucker-carlson-fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-trump-5d6aed4bc7eb1f7a01702ebea86f37a1">Sidney Powell is lying</a>,” he wrote. </p>
<p>At the time, nearly 70% of <a href="https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/70-percent-republicans-falsely-believe-stolen-election-trump/">Tucker’s target audience</a> believed that the election was stolen. </p>
<p>As a result, despite knowing the 2020 election was not stolen, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/03/07/tucker-carlson-doubles-down-on-2020-election-fraud-claims-with-jan-6-footage-despite-fox-defamation-lawsuit/?sh=8679b345e75e">Carlson continued to report</a> the exact opposite of what he knew to be false.</p>
<h2>A boorish Lemon</h2>
<p>In stark contrast to Carlson, Lemon positioned himself as CNN’s chief <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzZGuFJTs1I">liberal scolder</a> of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLctkkxEDTs">Trump era</a>. </p>
<p>Much like Carlson, Lemon manipulated evidence to create stories that confirmed liberal biases against conservative media personalities, such as falsely reporting that <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3664744-hurricane-expert-brushes-off-don-lemon-climate-change-question-i-want-to-talk-about-the-here-and-now/">Hurricane Ian</a>’s size was a result of climate change; that President Joe Biden “<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-don-lemon-partisan-biden-false-comments">misspoke</a>” rather than lied (which other <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/30/biden-falsely-claims-new-georgia-law-ends-voting-hours-early/">news outlets</a> claimed was the case) about Georgia’s voting procedures; that it is plausible that Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disappeared into <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpVd7k1Uw6A">black hole</a>; and that <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/joe-rogan-don-lemon-cnn-ivermectin-sanjay-gupta-lying-1639240">CNN</a>’s <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/now/joe-rogan-considers-suing-cnn-190606533.html">reporting</a> on <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043740/#:%7E:text=Discovered%2520in%2520the%2520late%252D1970s,of%2520billions%2520of%2520people%2520throughout">ivermectin</a> and popular podcaster Joe Rogan was <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/joe-rogan-don-lemon-cnn-ivermectin-sanjay-gupta-lying-1639240">accurate</a>.</p>
<p>CNN’s support for Lemon began to wane after a CNN broadcast on Feb. 16, 2023, when he declared that Haley was “past her prime.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman stands on a stage holding a microphone surrounded by people sitting on chairs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523859/original/file-20230502-16-k2bgvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523859/original/file-20230502-16-k2bgvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523859/original/file-20230502-16-k2bgvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523859/original/file-20230502-16-k2bgvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523859/original/file-20230502-16-k2bgvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523859/original/file-20230502-16-k2bgvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523859/original/file-20230502-16-k2bgvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks at a town hall event in New Hampshire on April 26, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-and-former-u-n-ambassador-news-photo/1485559320?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Feeling the disdain from his two female co-hosts, whom he had a long history of <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11716895/CNNs-Don-Lemon-seen-talking-host-ignoring-air-tension-builds-show.html">berating on and off camera</a>, <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2023/02/17/don-lemon-sexist-cnn/">Lemon clarified</a>: “That’s not according to me. … If you Google ‘when is a woman in her prime,’ it’ll say ‘20s, 30s and 40s.’” </p>
<p>Lemon was removed from the air so he could attend <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABG4fZSfIQQ">sensitivity trainings</a> to address his sexist attitudes. </p>
<p>An April 2023 <a href="https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/cnn-don-lemon-misogyny-history-nikki-haley-1235574286/">report from Variety</a> appeared to spell the end for Lemon on CNN. The report detailed other incidents of Lemon’s misogyny that included malicious texts, sexist mocking and vicious tirades aimed at <a href="https://tvline.com/2023/04/05/don-lemon-soledad-obrien-feud-cnn-controversy/">female co-workers</a>. </p>
<p>According to the report, <a href="https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/cnn-don-lemon-misogyny-history-nikki-haley-1235574286/">Lemon was accused</a> of threatening several female co-workers because they were hired for positions he felt he deserved. </p>
<p>In another incident, Lemon claimed during a 2008 editorial call with roughly 30 staffers that <a href="https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/cnn-don-lemon-misogyny-history-nikki-haley-1235574286/">Soledad O'Brien</a> should not host “Black in America” because she is not Black. O'Brien identifies as Afro-Cuban.</p>
<h2>Credibility gap</h2>
<p>In this age of hyperpartisanship, the revelations about Carlson and Lemon made it difficult for their networks to sell them as authentic ideological voices.</p>
<p>Furthermore, both of these individuals were a hassle for management. </p>
<p>At CNN, audience size for the show on which Lemon was co-host was shrinking for quite some time -– much like that for <a href="https://theconversation.com/cnn-was-just-the-latest-failed-attempt-of-the-cable-news-trailblazer-to-remain-relevant-182195">the network</a> in general. </p>
<p>At Fox News, Carlson’s texts revealed his disdain for the network’s <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/04/tucker-carlson-fired-after-calling-fox-news-exec-the-c-word.html">leadership</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/may/01/tucker-carlson-fox-nation-streaming-service">streaming platform</a>. Furthermore, since 2021, major companies such as Disney, Papa John’s, Poshmark and T-Mobile had refused to advertise on Carlson’s program.</p>
<p>Although a <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2023/04/28/american-approval-tucker-carlson-fired-fox-news">YouGov poll</a> found that viewers who cite Fox News as the cable news network they watch most often are more likely to disapprove – 50% – than approve – 29% – of Carlson being fired, Fox News Channel had good reason to believe it could replace Tucker and still find success with conservative audiences. </p>
<p>For one, an <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/most-arent-familiar-tucker-carlson-don-lemon-exits">Ipsos poll</a> found that non-Fox News Channel viewers are more likely to consider the channel as a news source now that Carlson has been fired. This means that the absence of Carlson may attract more audiences. </p>
<p>Furthermore, Fox News Channel has developed a formula for creating and replacing conservative personalities for decades, such as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/04/06/135181398/glenn-beck-to-leave-daily-fox-news-show">Glenn Beck</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/business/media/bill-oreilly-fox-news-allegations.html">Bill O'Reilly</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/north-america-ap-top-news-entertainment-megyn-kelly-business-a84a7250b109411591ed6b976be800a0">Megyn Kelly</a>.</p>
<p>Rather than celebrate the removal of Lemon and Carlson, audiences should be questioning what truths have some of the current on-air personalities had to sacrifice in order to stay employed. </p>
<p>For cable news personalities, partisanship – not journalism – can be a job requirement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204492/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nolan Higdon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since the 1980s, cable news networks have focused on hyperpartisan news coverage to attract core audiences in an increasingly fragmented media market.Nolan Higdon, Lecturer of History and Media Studies, California State University, East BayLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1882642022-08-06T12:21:38Z2022-08-06T12:21:38ZHow Vin Scully scored his Dodgers gig at 22 years old<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477903/original/file-20220805-20-qfxk61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C8%2C2968%2C2317&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Barber called Scully, pictured in a broadcast booth prior to a Brooklyn Dodgers game, 'the son I never had.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/announcer-vin-scully-of-the-los-angeles-dodgers-poses-for-a-news-photo/482028781?adppopup=true">Sporting News via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Vin Scully, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/02/sports/baseball/vin-scully-dead.html">who died on Aug. 2, 2022</a>, is widely viewed as the greatest baseball announcer of all time. But for an earlier generation, his mentor, Red Barber, held that distinction.</p>
<p>In our recent biography “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Red_Barber/lWhgEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">Red Barber: The Life and Legacy of a Broadcasting Legend</a>,” we uncovered moving private letters and public references documenting the rich personal bonds between these two great voices of the game. </p>
<p>In 1939, Barber brought daily radio broadcasts of Dodgers baseball to Brooklyn’s fans for the first time. By the time Scully arrived in 1950, Barber – known as “<a href="https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19921022&slug=1520043">the Old Redhead</a>” – was the toast of Flatbush. </p>
<p>For a combined century – 33 years for Barber and 67 for Scully – the two blessed baseball fans with some of the sharpest word pictures ever painted of the grand old game. Together in the Brooklyn booth for four crucial years, from 1950 to 1953, they forged a relationship that proved to be both demanding and gratifying.</p>
<h2>The chance of a lifetime</h2>
<p>After Scully graduated with a degree in English from Fordham University in 1949, he papered East Coast radio stations with applications. <a href="https://vault.si.com/vault/1964/05/04/the-transistor-kid">He eventually scored an interview with CBS Radio</a>, where Barber was director of sports. Barber came away impressed, but there were no openings at the time.</p>
<p>Barber later phoned Vin Scully when, at the last minute, he needed a reporter to cover a college football contest at Fenway Park in Boston for CBS College Football Roundup. Scully’s mother answered the phone and took the message for Vin that <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Voices_of_the_Game/oNBwQgAACAAJ?hl=en">“Red Skelton” wanted to talk to him about a job</a> – confusing Barber with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Skelton">the popular entertainer</a>.</p>
<p>Fortunately, Scully figured out who was calling. He hustled to the park, only to learn there was no room for him in the press box. With only a light topcoat to defend himself against the cruel New England elements, he had to call the entire game from the roof, braving the winds on a chilly fall day with only a 60-watt light bulb to warm his hands. Barber, initially unaware of Scully’s plight, later wrote that when he learned his announcer had called the game from the roof, he was impressed by the young broadcaster’s stamina and even more impressed that Scully had never complained about the brutal conditions.</p>
<p>When <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ2EG3t3fEI">Ernie Harwell</a>, who would become the legendary voice of the Detroit Tigers, left the Brooklyn Dodgers’ broadcast booth for the New York Giants, Red Barber needed to find a replacement. He decided to go with the young broadcaster <a href="https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00067187/00001/downloads">who had so impressed him</a> – later describing Scully as “a pretty appealing young green pea … a boy who had something on the ball.”</p>
<p>So Vin Scully, just 22 years old, <a href="https://dodgers.mlblogs.com/on-this-date-70-years-ago-today-vin-scully-joins-the-booth-a66648e399e8">was given the chance of a lifetime</a>, to broadcast the games of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the National League’s most successful team. </p>
<p>But this golden opportunity was challenging in ways Scully did not foresee.</p>
<h2>Barber takes Scully under his wing</h2>
<p>Red Barber, who early in life planned to be a college professor, was a tough grader. He demanded a lot of himself, and he held those who worked with him to just as high a standard. </p>
<p>When Vin first entered the Dodgers broadcast booth, Barber told the young man that his job was to do whatever Red and his colleague Connie Desmond didn’t want to do. He also made it clear that any Scully errors would be corrected on air for all to hear. When Barber saw Scully drinking a beer with his pregame sandwich – a common practice at the time – <a href="https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00067191/00001/downloads">he told Vin he never wanted to see him do it again</a>.</p>
<p>Barber was no teetotaler – far from it; leisure hours drinks were something he treasured. But he believed a broadcaster should never have a drink, even a beer, on the job. Barber reasoned if Scully made an error, something inevitable for a broadcaster ad-libbing for hours at a time, anyone who saw him sipping the press room brew would conclude that alcohol had clouded his performance.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man holding microphone interviews baseball player." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477902/original/file-20220805-7920-unk7jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477902/original/file-20220805-7920-unk7jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477902/original/file-20220805-7920-unk7jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477902/original/file-20220805-7920-unk7jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477902/original/file-20220805-7920-unk7jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477902/original/file-20220805-7920-unk7jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477902/original/file-20220805-7920-unk7jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Barber could be a hard-driving boss.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-sports-journalist-red-barber-interviews-american-news-photo/57394862?adppopup=true">Robert Riger/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of Red’s broadcasting mantras was <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Broadcasters/bpFZAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">pregame preparation</a>. So before one game, when Scully told his mentor that a Dodgers’ regular would be out of the lineup, Barber demanded to know why. Scully told him he had no idea. To Barber, that was unacceptable.</p>
<p>Scully quickly realized that he needed to know the “whys”; he had to get to the stadium early and spend time talking with managers and players, absorbing compelling facts and stories to keep listeners engaged during slow stretches of each contest.</p>
<p>The delicate bonds that develop between any mentor and mentee, though often fruitful, almost always involve some degree of resentment and frustration, likely because each member of the pair has so much vested in winning the respect and affection of the other. Some of Barber’s barbs must have stung. But throughout his career Scully always credited Red for instilling in him the discipline and values of a professional baseball announcer. <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Red_Barber/lWhgEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">He claimed</a> that the greatest virtue of Red as a mentor “was the fact that he cared. I wasn’t just another kid in the booth, just another announcer. … He made sure that my work habits were good, and he rode me if I drifted away from his ideal of the right way to work.”</p>
<h2>Scully in the spotlight</h2>
<p>In 1953, Barber left the Brooklyn booth after a dispute over his pay. </p>
<p>Ahead of that season’s World Series between the Dodgers and the New York Yankees, the Series’ sponsor, Gillette, offered Barber only $200 per game, take it or leave it. Barber left it, and when he did not get the support he wanted from Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, he decided to sit out the Series and sign with the Yankees for the following season.</p>
<p>Gillette then turned to Scully, asking him if he’d announce the Series. Scully called Red seeking his permission. Barber was genuinely moved by Scully’s request, given that his permission clearly was not needed. </p>
<p>All of a sudden, Scully, at the age of 25, was thrust onto the national stage. He remains the youngest person to ever call a World Series. Two years later, he announced the Brooklyn Dodgers’ only World Series win, and in 1958 he moved with the club to Los Angeles, where he would call games for the next 59 seasons.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xCS8jmV0WiE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Vin Scully recaps the 1953 World Series in one of the earliest recordings of the legendary broadcaster.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Barber and Scully maintained an affectionate dialogue for the remainder of Red’s life.</p>
<p>When Barber and Mel Allen were honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame as the first recipients of the <a href="https://baseballhall.org/discover-more/awards/887">Ford C. Frick Award</a>, presented yearly to a broadcaster for “major contributions to baseball,” <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Red_Barber/lWhgEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">Scully wrote his old teacher</a>, “I know as well as anyone alive what a true artist you were behind the mike. There is a great deal of you in anything I do well in play-by-play, and it will live in me as long as I am working.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/23/obituaries/red-barber-baseball-voice-of-summer-is-dead-at-84.html">When Barber died in 1992</a>, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lWhgEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA421&lpg=PA421&dq=%22radio%27s+first+poet%22+vin+scully+reader%27s+digest&source=bl&ots=eKTwjzRZ9i&sig=ACfU3U20PiKT9ghjq_j_phD7Wi3yq3zg8g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwipi_j9srD5AhXvGFkFHaZ5AIQQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q=%22radio's%20first%20poet%22%20vin%20scully%20reader's%20digest&f=false">Scully penned a tribute</a> in Reader’s Digest, calling him “radio’s first poet … and the most honorable man I ever met.” </p>
<p>At Barber’s funeral, Scully <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lWhgEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA416&lpg=PA416&dq=%22Now+don%E2%80%99t+you+talk+about+me+during+the+game.+These+people+aren%E2%80%99t+tuning+in+to+hear+about+me.+Talk+about+the+game.%22&source=bl&ots=eKTwjyO0aa&sig=ACfU3U0RPFLsb-840mAH9SYnTQ8e10yLOQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjBsqDXg7D5AhWthIkEHSHWAt0Q6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q=%22Now%20don%E2%80%99t%20you%20talk%20about%20me%20during%20the%20game.%20These%20people%20aren%E2%80%99t%20tuning%20in%20to%20hear%20about%20me.%20Talk%20about%20the%20game.%22&f=false">told a reporter</a> that he was preparing to announce the fourth game of the World Series when he first learned of Red’s death. After absorbing the sad news, he began hearing his old mentor chiding him: “Now don’t you talk about me during the game. These people aren’t tuning in to hear about me. Talk about the game.”</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct the year Scully graduated from Fordham.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188264/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Legendary broadcaster Red Barber took a chance on Scully when he asked him to be an announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Three years later, Scully was the voice of the World Series.James Walker, Past Executive Director, International Association for Communication and Sport, Emeritus Professor of Communication, Saint Xavier UniversityJudith R. Hiltner, Emeritus Professor of English, Saint Xavier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1880482022-08-01T20:49:11Z2022-08-01T20:49:11ZThe story behind ‘Star Trek’ actress Nichelle Nichols’ iconic interracial kiss<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476990/original/file-20220801-73371-j3yn5e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C526%2C371&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The kiss aired one year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned laws banning interracial marriage.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nichelle-nichols-as-uhura-and-william-shatner-as-captain-news-photo/156913470?adppopup=true">CBS via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708443/">a 1968 episode</a> of “Star Trek,” Nichelle Nichols, playing Lt. Uhura, locked lips with William Shatner’s Capt. Kirk in what’s widely thought to be first kiss between a Black woman and white man on American television. </p>
<p>The episode’s plot is bizarre: Aliens who worship the Greek philosopher Plato use telekinetic powers to force the Enterprise crew to sing, dance and kiss. At one point, the aliens compel Lt. Uhura and Capt. Kirk to embrace. Each character tries to resist, but eventually Kirk tilts Uhura back and the two kiss as the aliens lasciviously look on. </p>
<p>The smooch is not a romantic one. But in 1968 to show a Black woman kissing a white man was a daring move. The episode aired just one year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loving v. Virginia decision struck down state laws against interracial marriage. At the time, Gallup polls showed that <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-whites.aspx">fewer than 20% of Americans approved of such relationships</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tMLTqzcAAAAJ&hl=en">As a historian of civil rights and media</a>, I’ve been fascinated by the woman at the center of this landmark television moment. Casting Nichols, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/31/obituaries/nichelle-nichols-dead.html">who died</a> on July 30, 2022, created possibilities for more creative and socially relevant <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=list_works&authuser=2&gmla=AJsN-F5Tq3S07JaTym4ggipQ2ywifKwXWexcK4OKzMurZJvHMSp4Ay3a-7D2FrPLHlppsoEw7gbBOO8SRsu2uxvQ50GkEDmajw&user=tMLTqzcAAAAJ">“Star Trek” storylines</a>.</p>
<p>But just as significant is Nichols’ off-screen activism. She leveraged her role on “Star Trek” to become a recruiter for NASA, where she pushed for change in the space program. Her career arc shows how diverse casting on the screen can have a profound impact in the real world, too.</p>
<h2>‘A triumph of modern-day TV’</h2>
<p>In 1966, “Star Trek” creator Gene Rodenberry decided to cast Nichols to play Lt. Uhura, a translator and communications officer from the United States of Africa. In doing so, he made Nichols the first Black woman to have a continuing co-starring role on television.</p>
<p>The Black press was quick to heap praise on Nichols’ pioneering role. </p>
<p>The Norfolk Journal and Guide hoped that it would “broaden her race’s foothold on the tube.” </p>
<p>The magazine Ebony featured Nichols <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=6iZkedjSfZoC&lpg=PA70&vq=%2522Nichelle%2520Nichols%2522&dq=%2522Nichelle%20Nichols%2522&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false">on its January 1967 cover</a> and described Uhura as “the first Negro astronaut, a triumph of modern-day TV over modern-day NASA.”</p>
<p>Yet the famous kiss between Uhura and Kirk almost never happened.</p>
<p>After the first season of “Star Trek” concluded in 1967, Nichols considered quitting after being offered a role on Broadway. She had started her career as a singer in New York and always dreamed of returning to the Big Apple. </p>
<p>But at an NAACP fundraiser in Los Angeles, she ran into Martin Luther King Jr.</p>
<p>Nichols would later recount their interaction. </p>
<p>“You must not leave,” <a href="https://youtu.be/pSq_UIuxba8">King told her</a>. “You have opened a door that must not be allowed to close … you changed the face of television forever. … For the first time, the world sees us as we should be seen, as equals, as intelligent people.” </p>
<p>King went on to say that he and his family were fans of the show; <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/29/gene-roddenberry-son-star-trek_n_1119119.html">she was</a> a “hero” to his children.</p>
<p>With King’s encouragement, Nichols stayed on “Star Trek” for the original series’ full three-year run. </p>
<p>Nichols’ controversial kiss took place at the end of the third season. Nichols <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hKKkGhEDoU">recalled</a> that NBC executives closely monitored the filming because they were nervous about how Southern television stations and viewers would react.</p>
<p>After the episode aired, the network did receive an outpouring of letters from viewers – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRfRXcP1Gsg">and the majority were positive</a>. </p>
<p>In 1982, Nichols would tell the Baltimore Afro-American that she was amused by the amount of attention the kiss generated, especially because her own heritage was “a blend of races that includes Egyptian, Ethiopian, Moor, Spanish, Welsh, Cherokee Indian and a ‘blond blue-eyed ancestor or two.’”</p>
<h2>Space crusader</h2>
<p>But Nichols’ legacy would be defined by far more than a kiss.</p>
<p>After NBC canceled Star Trek in 1969, Nichols took minor acting roles on two television series, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053510/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Insight</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066645/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">The D.A.</a>” She would also play a madam in the 1974 blaxploitation film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072325/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Truck Turner</a>.” </p>
<p>She also started to dabble in activism and education. In 1975, Nichols established Women in Motion Inc. and won several government contracts to produce educational programs related to space and science. By 1977, she had been appointed to the board of directors of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Space_Institute">National Space Institute</a>, a civil space advocacy organization.</p>
<p>That year she gave a speech at the institute’s annual meeting. In it, she critiqued the lack of women and minorities in the astronaut corps, <a href="https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/30908/201302SH.pdf">challenging NASA</a> to “come down from your ivory tower of intellectual pursuit, because the next Einstein might have a Black face – and she’s female.”</p>
<p>Several of NASA’s top administrators were in the audience. They invited her to lead an astronaut recruitment program for the new space shuttle program. Soon, she packed her bags and began traveling the country, visiting high schools and colleges, speaking with professional organizations and legislators, and appearing on national television programs such as “Good Morning America.”</p>
<p>“The aim was to find qualified people among women and minorities, then to convince them that the opportunity was real and that it also was a duty, because this was historic,” Nichols told the Baltimore Afro-American in 1979. “I really had this sense of purpose about it myself.” </p>
<p>In her 1994 autobiography, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=AbtNPgAACAAJ&dq=Beyond+Uhura&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiatNz-xpDdAhXCTN8KHdQ2AdwQ6AEIJzAA">Beyond Uhura</a>,” Nichols recalled that in the seven months before the recruitment program began, “NASA had received only 1,600 applications, including fewer than 100 from women and 35 from minority candidates.” But by the end of June 1977, “just four months after we assumed our task, 8,400 applications were in, including 1,649 from women (a fifteen-fold increase) and an astounding 1,000 from minorities.” </p>
<p>Nichols’ campaign recruited several trailblazing astronauts, including Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, Guion Bluford, the first African American in space, and Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233939/original/file-20180828-86153-6dakin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233939/original/file-20180828-86153-6dakin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233939/original/file-20180828-86153-6dakin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233939/original/file-20180828-86153-6dakin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233939/original/file-20180828-86153-6dakin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233939/original/file-20180828-86153-6dakin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233939/original/file-20180828-86153-6dakin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nichelle Nichols speaks after the Space Shuttle Endeavour landed at Los Angeles International Airport Friday in September 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Space-Shuttle-Last-Stop/f4c443def09a428c91ddcc7d6e228dde/1/0">AP Photo/Reed Saxon</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Relentless advocacy for inclusion</h2>
<p>Her advocacy for inclusion and diversity wasn’t limited to the space program.</p>
<p>As one of the first Black women in a major television role, Nichols understood the importance of opening doors for minorities and women in entertainment. </p>
<p>Nichols continued to push for African Americans to have more power in film and television. </p>
<p>“Until we Blacks and minorities become not only the producers, writers and directors, but the buyers and distributors, we’re not going to change anything,” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7dgDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA150&ots=wbTFv3IH98&dq=nichelle%20nichols%20ebony%201985%20billy%20dee%20williams&pg=PA154#v=onepage&q=nichelle%20nichols%20ebony%201985%20billy%20dee%20williams&f=false">she told Ebony in 1985</a>. “Until we become industry, until we control media or at least have enough say, we will always be the chauffeurs and tap dancers.”</p>
<p><em>This story has been updated from <a href="https://theconversation.com/tvs-first-interracial-kiss-launched-a-lifelong-career-in-activism-101721">the original version</a> published on April 15, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Delmont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At the time, Gallup polls showed that fewer than 20% of Americans approved of interracial marriage.Matthew Delmont, Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of History, Dartmouth CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1496672020-11-06T21:16:27Z2020-11-06T21:16:27ZHas Donald Trump had his Joe McCarthy moment?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368035/original/file-20201106-19-ivqtmq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C12%2C1440%2C885&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The moment Lester Holt of NBC News cut into a statement from President Donald Trump.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ-9R1ElhLo">NBC News via YouTube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When CBS, NBC and ABC <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/business/media/trump-tv.html">cut away</a> from President Donald Trump’s news conference at the White House on the evening of Nov. 5, they took pains to explain why they were shutting off the nation’s commander-in-chief.</p>
<p>It was a moment that for me, as a journalism historian, carried echoes of the 1954 takedown of another flamboyant populist demagogue, Sen. Joe McCarthy.</p>
<h2>Making false accusations</h2>
<p>The key reason, the networks explained, was that Trump had made false claims about the integrity of Tuesday’s presidential election. As ballot counting signaled the increasing likelihood that he would lose to former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump accused the Democrats of trying to steal the election from him.</p>
<p>“They’re trying to rig an election, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/business/media/trump-tv.html">we can’t let that happen</a>,” Trump said. </p>
<p>The networks’ anchors criticized the president for peddling false claims to support his vanishing hopes for retaining the presidency. So did some of Trump’s staunchest allies.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-jpH2jjDrMk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump addresses the press on Nov. 5, 2020.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An echo from history</h2>
<p>Others have earlier drawn parallels between Trump and McCarthy, including journalist Peter Beinart, who wrote in The Atlantic that “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/trumpism-will-be-new-mccarthyism/614254/">McCarthy built his political career on demagoguery, intimidation, and a cult of personality</a> – not tangible achievements or coherent ideas.”</p>
<p>McCarthy rose to fame and popularity by exploiting Americans’ fear of communism. He smeared his political opponents with accusations that they were communists.</p>
<p>As the news media <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-37952249">later did with Trump</a>, they <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/05/28/donald-trump-keeps-taking-pages-joe-mccarthys-playbook/">helped create the spectacle</a> of “McCarthyism” by providing McCarthy the means to make baseless charges against political opponents.</p>
<p>McCarthy exploited a key weakness in the model of so-called “<a href="https://mediaengagement.org/research/objectivity-in-journalism/">objective</a>” journalism: the practice of journalists to report what politicians say, without questioning whether what they’re saying is factual. </p>
<p>McCarthy “<a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1982/1/11/the-press-and-joe-pbjboseph-mccarthy-americas/">lied with such boldness</a> that he distracted a nation and shot it full of distrust,” one writer said.</p>
<p>In 1954, the senator’s excesses were exposed. The U.S. Army accused McCarthy of seeking preferential treatment for one of his aides. During the televised Senate hearings, he charged that one of Army attorney <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/mccarthy-hearings/have-you-no-sense-of-decency.htm">Joseph Welch’s</a> associates had ties to a communist organization. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wJHsur3HqcI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The famous exchange between communist-hunting Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Army lawyer Joseph Welch.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An emotional Welch then responded by saying, “<a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/mccarthy-hearings/have-you-no-sense-of-decency.htm">Until this moment</a>, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” </p>
<p>Welch went on to famously scold McCarthy: “<a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/mccarthy-hearings/have-you-no-sense-of-decency.htm">You have done enough</a>. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? <a href="https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/welch-mccarthy.html">Have you left no sense of decency</a>?”</p>
<h2>The media turns</h2>
<p>It was that moment from 1954 that I thought of as the news broadcasts cut away from President Trump.</p>
<p>“We have to interrupt here, because the president made a number of false statements, including the notion that there has been fraudulent voting,” said Lester Holt, the anchor of “NBC Nightly News,” as his broadcast cut away from the president’s speech. He added, “There has been no evidence of that.” </p>
<p>David Muir, anchor of “ABC World News Tonight,” was even more direct: “We’re not witnessing <a href="https://www.poynter.org/newsletters/2020/networks-pulled-away-from-president-trumps-shocking-press-conference/">anyone stealing anything tonight</a>.”</p>
<p>CNN and Fox News continued to broadcast the news conference but later reported that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/business/media/trump-tv.html">Trump provided no evidence</a> for his claims of vote fraud.</p>
<h2>Longtime allies shift</h2>
<p>Some of Trump’s loyal defenders, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2020-11-06/trumps-boasting-of-victory-was-too-much-for-the-gop">criticized the president</a> for his baseless charges.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>After Welch’s rebuke of McCarthy’s baseless claims, millions of viewers watching the hearings finally had enough of the senator. His immense national popularity disappeared. He was censured by Senate colleagues, ostracized by the GOP and – finally – ignored by the press. <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/mccarthy-hearings/have-you-no-sense-of-decency.htm">He died three years</a> later, an alcoholic and a broken man, at age 48.</p>
<p>It is too soon, of course, to know whether Trump meets the same fate as McCarthy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149667/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When President Trump claimed in a press conference that the election was being stolen from him, three major TV networks cut off their coverage. A media scholar asks if this is a turning point.Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1255272019-11-08T12:24:36Z2019-11-08T12:24:36ZThe battle between NBC and CBS to be the first to film a Berlin Wall tunnel escape<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300755/original/file-20191107-10905-1i01ftt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=520%2C469%2C4613%2C3675&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">NBC Berlin correspondent Piers Anderton inside the tunnel during the network's 1962 escape project.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Special Collections & University Archives, University of Maryland</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the Berlin Wall was completed in August 1961, East German residents immediately tried to figure out ways to circumvent the barrier and escape into West Berlin.</p>
<p>By the following summer, NBC and CBS were at work on two separate, secret documentaries on tunnels being dug under the Berlin Wall. </p>
<p>The tunnel CBS chose was a disaster that resulted in arrests and court trials. NBC’s tunnel ended up being in one of the most decorated documentaries in American television history. And yet, in the fall of 1962, NBC was under tremendous pressure from both sides of the Iron Curtain to scrap its documentary altogether.</p>
<p>You would think that the U.S. government would be thrilled to have a film broadcast to Americans showing the desperation and resolve to escape communist East Germany. After all, when the Berlin Wall fell 30 years ago, images of East Berliners streaming across the border were broadcast around the world in what was cast as a triumph for Western democracies and capitalism.</p>
<p>But in my new book, “<a href="https://www.oldmediaenthusiast.com/contested-ground">Contested Ground: The Tunnel and the Struggle over Television News in Cold War America</a>,” I use declassified government documents to tell the story of how political pressure and naked journalistic competition nearly derailed the NBC documentary before more than a handful of people had seen a single frame of the film.</p>
<h2>Two separate, secret projects</h2>
<p>In the 1960s, Berlin was a flash point in Cold War politics. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.visitberlin.de/en/living-divided-city-west-berlin">West Berlin</a> was a landlocked capitalist political enclave surrounded by communist East Germany. </p>
<p>By the summer of 1961, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/10/27/die-mauer">up to 30,000 East Germans were escaping to the West each month</a>, mainly through the border in Berlin. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to let East Germany close the city’s border, first through stationing troops and installing barbed wire, and then through the construction of the Berlin Wall. </p>
<p>Even after the completion of the wall, some East Germans, desperate to be reunited with friends and family in the West, sought ways to get to the other side.</p>
<p>In May 1962, NBC producer Reuven Frank and reporter Piers Anderton struck a secret deal with a group of West Berlin college students who were building an elaborate escape tunnel under the wall to help their relatives and classmates who were stuck in East Berlin. NBC paid the diggers $7,500 for exclusive filming access. The students would receive another $5,000 if the tunnel escape plan was a success.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300757/original/file-20191107-10952-9y3vhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300757/original/file-20191107-10952-9y3vhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300757/original/file-20191107-10952-9y3vhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300757/original/file-20191107-10952-9y3vhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300757/original/file-20191107-10952-9y3vhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300757/original/file-20191107-10952-9y3vhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300757/original/file-20191107-10952-9y3vhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300757/original/file-20191107-10952-9y3vhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">NBC producer Reuven Frank.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tufts University Digital Collections & Archives, Medford, Mass.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In late July, CBS Berlin reporter Daniel Schorr found a separate, almost completed tunnel project and paid the organizers $1,250 to film the escape. Schorr wanted to run a documentary on the one-year anniversary of the wall’s completion: Aug. 13.</p>
<p>But unlike NBC’s project, CBS’ chosen tunnel wasn’t a secret. West German police and American intelligence members knew of it – and of CBS’ involvement. When Secretary of State <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/22/obituaries/dean-rusk-secretary-of-state-in-vietnam-war-is-dead-at-85.html">Dean Rusk</a> caught wind of the plan, he pressured CBS to get Schorr out of the city in case the East Germans also knew about the tunnel. </p>
<p>Under protest, Schorr left Berlin. Rusk’s instincts were correct. When the diggers broke through just beyond the wall in East Berlin, police were waiting to arrest several of those involved.</p>
<p>One month later, the NBC tunnel, dug underneath the Bernauer Strasse neighborhood, broke through in a basement in East Berlin. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009jkb">At least 29 people escaped</a> in the most successful tunnel project escape to date.</p>
<h2>No longer a secret</h2>
<p>While the escape was reported in American newspapers, NBC’s involvement stayed a secret until early October 1962, <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,829178,00.html">when Time magazine revealed</a> NBC’s payment to the diggers, calling the arrangement “chicanery.” Other print journalists piled on, insinuating that the payment had made NBC part of the story and that the network had relinquished its role as objective reporters. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, NBC announced it would run the 90-minute documentary, titled “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2221494/">The Tunnel</a>,” on Oct. 31, 1962. Frank argued that since the tunnel was already under way when the payment was made, NBC was merely covering the effort.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300741/original/file-20191107-10901-e01v2w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300741/original/file-20191107-10901-e01v2w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300741/original/file-20191107-10901-e01v2w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300741/original/file-20191107-10901-e01v2w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300741/original/file-20191107-10901-e01v2w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300741/original/file-20191107-10901-e01v2w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300741/original/file-20191107-10901-e01v2w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An aerial view of the wall in Bernauer Strasse, where the tunnel featured in NBC’s documentary was built.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Bernauer_strasse_luftbild.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not surprisingly, officials in East Germany urged NBC to cancel the documentary. But West German and West Berlin officials also objected to the project, partly because they were worried people identified in the documentary could be endangered.</p>
<p>Both CBS and the State Department released statements that implied CBS had followed government directives, painting NBC as reckless in its pursuit of its tunnel project. Neither CBS nor the government revealed that the network’s tunnel had been compromised or that it had also paid for access to a tunnel.</p>
<h2>‘Adventurous laymen’ or journalists?</h2>
<p>On Oct. 22 of that year, New York Times television columnist Jack Gould <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1962/10/22/archives/tv-nbc-and-berlin-wall-tunnel-payment-for-films-of-digging-is.html">blasted NBC</a> as “adventurous laymen” stumbling into dangerous Cold War issues they weren’t equipped to handle. He called the payment “distasteful commercialism,” ignoring the reality that payment for images was not uncommon in journalism. Life magazine, for example, was paying NASA astronauts <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/astro-mad-men-nasas-1960s-campaign-to-win-americas-heart/278233/">about $25,000 apiece</a> for exclusive access to their personal lives. </p>
<p>That same night, President John F. Kennedy went on national television to announce the Soviet Union was building missile bases in Cuba. NBC quietly postponed “The Tunnel” while the nation nervously waited to see how the Cuban Missile Crisis would play out.</p>
<p>Behind the scenes, NBC President <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1980/12/23/robert-e-kintner-ex-head-of-abc-and-nbc-radio-and-tv-dies/dac9cafe-dcf4-4349-93ff-147d43eb9106/">Robert Kintner</a> got involved. He sent a company attorney to West Berlin to reassure government officials that the documentary would only show faces of people who had agreed to be filmed. NBC also convinced West German officials that the project would draw more attention to the Berlin Wall, which was still a sore point in West Berlin. </p>
<p>After the Soviet Union backed down and agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba, Kintner wrote a private letter to Secretary of State Rusk seeking his approval of – or at least to remove his objections to – the network’s documentary. Rusk replied to Kintner that he still opposed NBC’s involvement in the escape project, but that it was the company’s decision whether or not to run the program. </p>
<p>On Monday, Dec. 10, 1962, NBC broadcast “The Tunnel” <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Out-Thin-Air-News-Beginning/dp/0671677586/">and 13.5 million people tuned in that night</a> – a rare feat for a documentary on American television. </p>
<h2>The real reasons behind NBC’s shaming</h2>
<p>The lingering question, though, is why NBC came under such intense criticism for a project that shows the risks people were willing to take to escape communism. </p>
<p>The declassified government documents reveal public and private versions of the controversy.</p>
<p>American newspapers mostly chastised NBC for the payment to the diggers. The State Department scolded NBC for getting involved in a delicate Cold War issue, especially since East Germans considered tunnels under the Berlin Wall as attacks on the border.</p>
<p>Private communications paint a much more complicated picture. First, the State Department didn’t know about the tunnel – or NBC’S involvement – until the media reported on it, leading to some embarrassing cables between Washington and Berlin. </p>
<p>CBS, instead of admitting that NBC had simply found a better tunnel project, complained to the State Department that NBC shouldn’t benefit after CBS backed out of its documentary at the government’s behest. Part of the State Department’s public shaming of NBC seemed to partly stem from a desire to appease CBS. </p>
<p>But the State Department’s behind-the-scenes pressure on both networks shows the extent to which the government expected journalists to cooperate with them on sensitive Cold War issues. Some of the cables cast the reporters as misbehaving employees instead of independent journalists.</p>
<p>Finally, the print press played up the payment ethics angle because it viewed television as a growing threat. Newspaper and magazine journalists were watching their power and influence being challenged by this newer medium, so they took the opportunity to question the professionalism of television journalists, an approach that <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Media_at_War.html?id=PkXTrh4eDlcC">was first used against radio news earlier in the century</a>.</p>
<p>It was a tide they couldn’t stop: The next year, a poll showed that television news had, for the first time, surpassed newspapers as the most popular and most trusted news format in the United States. “The Tunnel” <a href="https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000223/1963/1/">was honored with three Emmy Awards</a>, including Program of the Year.</p>
<p>In a final vindication for NBC, the United States Information Agency ended up buying 100 copies of “The Tunnel” to show around the world as an example of the benefits of democracy over communism.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Conway does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A media historian uses declassified government documents to show how both sides of the Iron Curtain worked to have the projects canned.Mike Conway, Associate Professor of Journalism, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1192642019-09-10T12:40:24Z2019-09-10T12:40:24ZThe strange connection between Bobby Kennedy’s death and Scooby-Doo<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291750/original/file-20190910-190026-otnyex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=123%2C16%2C1317%2C943&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!' was a funky, lighthearted alternative to the action cartoons that, for years, had dominated Saturday morning lineups.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://i0.wp.com/geekdad.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/09/SCOOBY-DOO_9.38.26.jpg?resize=1748%2C1309&ssl=1">GeekDad</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scooby-Doo has appeared in a whopping 16 television series, two live-action films, 35 direct-to-DVD movies, 20 video games, 13 comic book series and five stage shows. Now, with “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3152592/">Scoob!</a>,” the Mystery Incorporated gang will appear in a CGI feature-length film, which, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is going to be released to video-on-demand on May 15.</p>
<p>The very first television series, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063950/">Scooby-Doo, Where are You!</a>,” was created by Hanna-Barbera Productions for CBS Saturday morning and premiered on Sept. 13, 1969. The formula of four mystery-solving teenagers – Fred, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy along with the titular talking Great Dane – remained mostly intact as the group stumbled their way into pop-culture history. </p>
<p>But as I explain in my forthcoming book on the franchise, Scooby-Doo’s invention was no happy accident; it was a strategic move in response to cultural shifts and political exigencies. The genesis of the series was inextricably bound up with the societal upheavals of 1968 – in particular, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.</p>
<h2>More horror, better ratings</h2>
<p>In the late 1960s, the television and film studio Hanna-Barbera was the largest producer of animated television programming. </p>
<p>For years, Hanna-Barbera had created slapstick comedy cartoons – “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/list/ls029632227/">Tom and Jerry</a>” in the 1940s and 1950s, followed by television series like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0255768/">The Yogi Bear Show</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053502/">The Flintstones</a>.” But by the 1960s, the most popular cartoons were those that capitalized on <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9i0yDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA434&lpg=PA434&dq=secret+agent+craze&source=bl&ots=kMYc6JU0AX&sig=ACfU3U2XAYMoeA24PqOGENx4oWMSi0RsXQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi0sKPqssTkAhWNVN8KHSI_YYQ6AEwCHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=secret%20agent%20craze&f=false">the secret agent craze</a>, the space race and the popularity of superheroes. </p>
<p>In what would serve as a turning point in television animation, the three broadcast networks – CBS, ABC and NBC – launched nine new action-adventure cartoons on Saturday morning in the fall of 1966. In particular, Hanna-Barbera’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060026/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Space Ghost and Dino Boy</a>” and Filmation’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060012/">The New Adventures of Superman</a>” were hits with kids. These and other action-adventure series featured non-stop action and violence, with the heroes working to defeat, even kill, a menace or monster by any means necessary.</p>
<p>So for the 1967-1968 Saturday morning lineup, Hanna-Barbera supplied the networks with six new action-adventure cartoons, including “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061262/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Herculoids</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061237/">Birdman and the Galaxy Trio</a>.” Gone were the days of funny human and animal hijinks; in their place: terror, peril, jeopardy and child endangerment. </p>
<p>The networks, <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/12/08/91244471.html?pageNumber=401">wrote The New York Times’ Sam Blum</a>, “had instructed its cartoon suppliers to turn out more of the same – in fact, to go ‘stronger’ – on the theory, which proved correct, that the more horror, the higher the Saturday morning ratings.” </p>
<p>Such horror generally took the form of “fantasy violence” – <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=owUIvAEACAAJ&dq=television+the+business+behind+the+box&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjfzeagybzkAhXK1FkKHfPZBB4Q6AEwAHoECAAQAQ">what Joe Barbera called</a> “out-of-this-world hard action.” The studio churned out these grim series “not out of choice,” Barbera explained. “It’s the only thing we can sell to the networks, and we have to stay in business.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291575/original/file-20190909-109927-1xdg8r0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291575/original/file-20190909-109927-1xdg8r0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291575/original/file-20190909-109927-1xdg8r0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291575/original/file-20190909-109927-1xdg8r0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291575/original/file-20190909-109927-1xdg8r0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291575/original/file-20190909-109927-1xdg8r0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291575/original/file-20190909-109927-1xdg8r0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hanna-Barbera co-founder Joe Barbera poses with three of his studio’s most popular animated characters, Scooby-Doo, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, in this 1996 photograph.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/AP-A-CA-USA-OBIT-BARBERA/8d05636b91d64f668c5cf196d13a3eb1/5/0">AP Photo/Reed Saxon</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Barbera’s remarks highlighted the immense authority then held by the broadcast networks in dictating the content of Saturday morning television. </p>
<p>In his book “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ibxkAAAAMAAJ&q=entertainment+education+hard+sell&dq=entertainment+education+hard+sell&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwih2r62ybzkAhXBwVkKHah2AgEQ6AEwAHoECAEQAg">Entertainment, Education and the Hard Sell</a>,” communication scholar Joseph Turow studied the first three decades of network children’s programming. He notes the fading influence of government bodies and public pressure groups on children’s programming in the mid-1960s – a shift that enabled the networks to serve their own commercial needs and those of their advertisers. </p>
<p>The decline in regulation of children’s television spurred criticism over violence, commercialism and the lack of diversity in children’s programming. No doubt sparked by the oversaturation of action-adventure cartoons on Saturday morning, the nonprofit corporation National Association for Better Broadcasting declared that year’s children’s television programming in March 1968 to be the “worst in the history of TV.” </p>
<h2>Political upheaval spurs moral panic</h2>
<p>Cultural anxieties about the effects of media violence on children had increased significantly after March 1968, concurrent with television coverage of the Vietnam War, student protests and riots incited by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. As historian Charles Kaiser wrote in his book about <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-heat-and-light-of-1968-still-influence-today-3-essential-reads-108569">that pivotal year</a>, the upheaval fueled moral crusades.</p>
<p>“For the first time since their invention, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/1968_in_America.html?id=Wt1LOgmnlFgC">he wrote</a>, "televised pictures made the possibility of anarchy in America feel real.”</p>
<p>But it was the assassination of Robert. F. Kennedy in June 1968 that would exile action-adventure cartoons from the Saturday morning lineup for nearly a decade. </p>
<p>Kennedy’s role as a father to 11 was intertwined with his political identity, and he had long championed causes that helped children. Alongside his commitment to ending child hunger and poverty, he had, as attorney general, worked with the Federal Communications Commission to improve the “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-newt-minow-fcc-ae-0117-20170118-column.html">vast wasteland</a>” of children’s television programming.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291571/original/file-20190909-109927-1o9gd1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291571/original/file-20190909-109927-1o9gd1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291571/original/file-20190909-109927-1o9gd1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291571/original/file-20190909-109927-1o9gd1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291571/original/file-20190909-109927-1o9gd1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291571/original/file-20190909-109927-1o9gd1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291571/original/file-20190909-109927-1o9gd1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robert Kennedy and his wife and kids go for a walk near their home in McLean, Va.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-VA-USA-APHS406926-Ethel-Kennedy-and-/88ca23037ec14851b89ed2d960cd7b5e/6/0">AP Photo/Henry Griffin</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just hours after Kennedy was shot, President Lyndon B. Johnson <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-11412-establishing-national-commission-the-causes-and-prevention-violence">announced the appointment</a> of a National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. While the commission’s formal findings wouldn’t be shared until late 1969, demands for greater social control and regulation of media violence surged directly following Johnson’s announcement, contributing to what sociologists call a “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Ashgate-Research-Companion-to-Moral-Panics-1st-Edition/Krinsky/p/book/9781409408116">moral panic</a>.”</p>
<p>Media studies scholar Heather Hendershot <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=b6Iqh5umo3sC&lpg=PP9&ots=-M78k0n01U&dq=Saturday%20Morning%20Censors%3A%20Television%20Regulation%20before%20the%20V-Chip&lr&pg=PP9#v=onepage&q&f=false">explained</a> that even those critical of Kennedy’s liberal causes supported these efforts; censoring television violence “in his name” for the good of children “was like a tribute.”</p>
<p>Civic groups like the National Parent Teacher Association, which had been condemning violent cartoons at its last three conventions, were emboldened. The editors of McCall’s, a popular women’s magazine, provided steps for readers to pressure the broadcast networks to discontinue violent programming. And a Christian Science Monitor report in July of that year – which found 162 acts of violence or threats of violence on one Saturday morning alone – was widely circulated.</p>
<p>The moral panic in the summer of 1968 caused a permanent change in the landscape of Saturday morning. The <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/07/20/77179505.html?pageNumber=42">networks announced</a> that they would be turning away from science-fiction adventure and pivoting toward comedy for its cartoon programming.</p>
<p>All of this paved the way for the creation of a softer, gentler animated hero: Scooby-Doo.</p>
<p>However, the premiere of the 1968-1969 Saturday morning season was just around the corner. Many episodes of new action-adventure series were still in various stages of production. Animation was a lengthy process, taking anywhere from four to six months to go from idea to airing. ABC, CBS and NBC stood to lose millions of dollars in licensing fees and advertising revenue by canceling a series before it even aired or before it finished its contracted run. </p>
<p>So in the fall of 1968 with many action-adventure cartoons still on the air, CBS and Hanna-Barbera began work on a series – one eventually titled “Scooby-Doo, Where are You!” – for the 1969-1970 Saturday morning season.</p>
<p>“Scooby-Doo, Where are You!” still supplies a dose of action and adventure. But the characters are never in real peril or face serious jeopardy. There are no superheroes saving the world from aliens and monsters. Instead, a gang of goofy kids and their dog in a groovy van solve mysteries. The monsters they encounter are just humans in disguise.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on September 10, 2019.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119264/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Sandler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Demands for regulation of media violence reached a fever pitch after RFK’s assassination, and networks scrambled to insert more kid-friendly fare into their lineups. Enter: the Mystery Machine.Kevin Sandler, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1090502018-12-19T11:43:05Z2018-12-19T11:43:05ZCBS’ Moonves scandal shows why corporate America needs tougher CEO pay contracts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251380/original/file-20181218-27764-1k5omqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters stand outside the CBS shareholder's meeting.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/CBS-Moonves-Shareholders/9597296dc3564e2ca8e19b7643d8f26e/1/0">AP Photo/Seth Wenig</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Corporate America is <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/it-s-not-just-wells-fargo-disgraced-executives-who-get-n653576">notorious</a> for letting <a href="http://time.com/money/4031287/united-jeff-smisek-scandal-ceo-severance-package/">disgraced CEOs</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/01/business/business-diary-generous-severance-pay-even-for-failed-ceo-s.html">walk away</a> with <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/10/13/wells-fargo-ceo-john-stumpfs-career-ends-with-133-million-payday">millions</a>. </p>
<p>Yet somehow Les Moonves, who was fired from CBS “for cause” on Dec. 17 after a monthslong <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/business/media/les-moonves-cbs-report.html?module=inline">investigation</a> into his alleged misdeeds, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2018/12/17/cbs-announces-les-moonves-denied-120-m-exit-package/2342128002/">lost US$120 million</a> in promised severance benefits – and that’s despite the fact that his contract terms with the network were exceptionally generous. </p>
<p>In other words, the company was incredibly lucky Moonves’ behavior and his efforts to cover it up were so egregious. Otherwise Moonves – like so many of his fallen peers – would have walked away with a windfall.</p>
<p>So why does corporate America make it so easy for favored CEOs to leave under a cloud of disgrace with millions in their pocket? As a former employment lawyer, I blame the “cause” clause. </p>
<h2>Moonves’ fall</h2>
<p>The CBS board of directors’ decision to deny Moonves his severance followed an investigation by two high-profile law firms, which apparently included interviews with <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/leslie-moonves-wont-get-120-million-severance-cbs-says-1170183">“as many as 300 people”</a> and a <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/post-moonves-cbs-asks-employees-if-they-were-assaulted-too">100-question</a> voluntary survey about the workplace culture at CBS.</p>
<p>The board’s decision was not exactly a surprise given the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/business/media/les-moonves-cbs-report.html">regular</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/business/les-moonves-cbs-report-takeaways.html?module=inline">drip</a> of <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/09/les-moonves-admits-to-unwanted-kissing-of-his-doctor-19-years-ago">press</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/business/les-moonves-bobbie-phillips-marv-dauer-cbs-severance.html?module=inline">reports</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/business/media/les-moonves-cbs-report.html?module=inline">about</a> Moonves’ blurred judgment and blundered cover-up.</p>
<p>But the mountain of evidence against him also obscured a different problem. Moonves had a contract that meant anything short of monstrous and clumsy behavior would have enabled him to slink away with a $120 million exit package.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251382/original/file-20181218-27755-1qho7ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251382/original/file-20181218-27755-1qho7ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251382/original/file-20181218-27755-1qho7ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251382/original/file-20181218-27755-1qho7ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251382/original/file-20181218-27755-1qho7ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251382/original/file-20181218-27755-1qho7ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251382/original/file-20181218-27755-1qho7ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">CBS declined to award Moonves momentary compensation after he was let go.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/CBS-Moonves-Contract/5081ae6542d04b5094151ee6425fa132/1/1">AP Photo/Jordan Strauss</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Finding ‘cause’</h2>
<p>Specifically, <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/813828/000119312517116304/d368348ddef14a.htm">Moonves’ contract</a> – excerpted in the company’s public filings – entitled him to keep the severance unless he was terminated for “cause.” But “cause” was defined in a way that permitted all sorts of bad acts. </p>
<p>For example, while “cause” did include “conviction of a felony,” a mere indictment for a serious crime or conviction of a misdemeanor would not have been enough. </p>
<p>“Cause” also referenced violations of company policy – including the harassment policy. But those violations would have had to produce a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/metoo-movement-finds-an-unlikely-champion-in-wall-street-with-the-new-weinstein-clause-100938">material adverse effect</a>” on the company to qualify. That’s business speak for something like a glaring drop in value for the <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/cbs">$17 billion company</a>. </p>
<h2>How CBS got so lucky</h2>
<p>When CBS entered into a contract with Moonves, it basically gave away the store. </p>
<p>They did that willingly because Moonves was seen as a <a href="https://nypost.com/2018/09/10/les-moonves-spectacular-rise-before-his-fall-from-grace/">golden boy</a> in television programming, so much so that CBS apparently could not imagine ever firing him. So CBS entered into a contract that made it incredibly difficult to get rid of him without paying $120 million in severance.</p>
<p>But it lucked out. Moonves tripped the “cause” definition again and again.</p>
<p>In this case, the board <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cbs-les-moonves-sexual-stock-price-2018-7">was able to connect</a> a hit to the company’s stock to the Moonves revelations. Had the reports been less public, or Moonves less famous, it would have been a much harder case to make.</p>
<p>Moonves’ inept cover-up was another gift to the CBS board. That’s because the <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/813828/000119312517116304/d368348ddef14a.htm">“cause” definition</a> would be also triggered by Moonves’ “willful failure to cooperate fully with a … company internal investigation” or “intentional failure to preserve documents … relevant to any such investigation.” </p>
<p>Moonves repeatedly shot himself in the foot. First, when he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/business/media/les-moonves-cbs-report.html">deleted text messages</a>. Then when he tried to pass off <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/business/media/les-moonves-cbs-report.html">his son’s iPad</a> as his own. And again when he offered an 11th-hour <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/business/les-moonves-bobbie-phillips-marv-dauer-cbs-severance.html?module=inline">payoff</a> to a sexual assault victim. </p>
<p>Put another way, under the terms of the contract, the cover-up was worse than the crime. </p>
<h2>No more exceptions</h2>
<p>As with other near misses, however, the takeaway from the Moonves’ story should not be that corporate America has finally gotten its act together on this #MeToo stuff. </p>
<p>Instead, as I argued in a <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3170764">recent law review article</a>, corporate boards need to be a lot more careful – and fair – in the way they define “cause” in their executive employment agreements.</p>
<p>Contracts like Moonves’ reference company policies that apply to all workers but may also include loopholes that give executives extra chances or require policy violations to be “willful” or “material.” That allows them to keep their severance on their way out the door, while regular employees are held to a higher standard. </p>
<p>Although there are signs <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-metoo-executive-contracts-20181102-story.html">this is changing</a>, boards need to draw a hard line. After all, it is corporate leaders that set the rules. Every executive should be ready and willing to abide by those same rules in their contracts. </p>
<p>And if an executive crosses the line, the golden parachute should disappear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109050/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth C. Tippett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An employment law expert explains why it’s time CEOs had to follow the same rules and harassment policies as every other employee.Elizabeth C. Tippett, Associate Professor, School of Law, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1030412018-09-12T18:46:02Z2018-09-12T18:46:02ZHow Les Moonves got to leave CBS on his own terms while others in #MeToo miscreant club got canned<p>On Sept. 9, CBS Chairman Les Moonves resigned, following <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/08/06/les-moonves-and-cbs-face-allegations-of-sexual-misconduct">accusations by 12</a> <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/as-leslie-moonves-negotiates-his-exit-from-cbs-women-raise-new-assault-and-harassment-claims">women</a> of harassment and assault.</p>
<p>His departure, however, has not followed the script of other executives publicly shamed over harassment allegations and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/10/us/men-accused-sexual-misconduct-weinstein.html">thrown out onto the curb</a>. </p>
<p>Unlike television hosts <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/business/media/nbc-matt-lauer.html">Matt Lauer</a> or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/business/media/charlie-rose-fired-cbs.html">Charlie Rose</a>, he kept his job for several weeks after The New Yorker published the first of two articles on his alleged transgressions, which contained accounts from six accusers. Lauer and Rose were fired within days.</p>
<p>Moonves was also able to negotiate an <a href="http://investors.cbscorporation.com/node/27191/html">exit package</a> with a number of face-saving provisions, including the opportunity to resign, a temporary non-disparagement clause, and confidentiality of the results of the CBS internal investigation currently underway. </p>
<p>He also retains the theoretical, if unlikely, possibility of receiving a portion of his more than US$180 million severance package, pending the outcome of that investigation.</p>
<p>Why was Moonves allowed to stick around and leave on his own terms, when so many others were unceremoniously dumped? CBS – which could have easily stuck to the script – isn’t saying. </p>
<p>But I have a different theory, based on the timing of the deal and the contracts involved, where Moonves was used as a shield in an unrelated power play. If true, it reveals how #MeToo has become more than just a movement in the corridors of corporate power. </p>
<h2>Firing Moonves for ‘cause’</h2>
<p>Back in July, when The New Yorker published its first story, the CBS board would have been within its rights to fire Moonves based on harassment allegations from two former CBS employees, as well as a job candidate he reportedly assaulted during a pitch meeting. </p>
<p>Under CBS’s employment contract with Moonves, the company could have fired Moonves for “cause” with no severance package or settlement. The definition of “cause” included a “willful and material violation of any company policy,” including the <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/280/2016_CBS_Corporation_BCS.pdf?1536781333">harassment policy</a>, that proved <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cbs-les-moonves-sexual-stock-price-2018-7">harmful</a> to the company.</p>
<p>As a former employment lawyer, I don’t think CBS’ lawyers would have had trouble finding language in the <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/280/2016_CBS_Corporation_BCS.pdf?1536781333">harassment policy</a> to support a “cause” determination. Prohibited conduct includes “threaten(ing) or engag(ing) in retaliation after an overture or inappropriate conduct is rejected,” “a pattern of unwanted advances” and “unwanted touching.” </p>
<p>In other words, Moonves could have been fired summarily in July, just as CBS didn’t hesitate to end the career of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/business/media/charlie-rose-fired-cbs.html">one of his employees</a>, Charlie Rose, back in November.</p>
<p>Given the taint surrounding men accused of this kind of behavior ever since #MeToo became a household word in October, why did CBS keep him around? </p>
<p>It’s possible directors on the CBS board didn’t consider the initial allegations sufficient to warrant termination. However, I would attribute their hesitation in part to an unrelated lawsuit – and their hope that Moonves could be a useful bargaining chip.</p>
<h2>Moonves v. Redstone</h2>
<p>For the last six months, CBS has been <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6531012443734105408">caught up in a lawsuit</a> with its majority shareholder, National Amusements. That company is owned by 95-year-old business magnate Sumner Redstone and now run by his daughter Shari.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/cbs-sues-shari-redstone-national-amusements-in-bid-to-block-viacom-merger-1202809526/">lawsuit</a> centers around a disagreement over the Redstones’ wish to merge CBS with Viacom, another company they own.</p>
<p>Moonves and a faction of the CBS board tried to thwart the Redstones by voting to dilute their powerful Class A shares, which give them control of the network. CBS basically proposed giving Class B investors the same voting rights. </p>
<p>This was like resolving a fight over the executive bathroom by giving keys to everyone at the company. Technically, you’re not taking anything away. Except that you’ve transformed it into a regular bathroom.</p>
<p>Both sides sued over this coup-by-dilution, and the trial was <a href="https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/cbs-national-amusements-settlement-talks-leslie-moonves-shari-redstone-1202928317/">scheduled to start</a> Oct. 3. As the parties engaged in settlement talks, the stakes were high. But it also gave Moonves some unexpected leverage.</p>
<h2>Settling scores</h2>
<p>Negotiation scholars note that bargaining power comes from your own ability to <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/324551/getting-to-yes-by-roger-fisher-and-william-ury/9780143118756/">walk away</a> from a deal. And your ability to make life painful for those on the <a href="http://www.fnc.roundtablecenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/hbr-masterful-negotiating-2d-edition.pdf">other side of the table</a> if they don’t agree to your terms.</p>
<p>Although <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/business/cbs-les-moonves-board.html">some directors</a> on the board were so loyal to Moonves that they were apparently indifferent to the allegations, even independent board members may have faced a difficult choice. CBS needed the pretense of keeping Moonves in order to negotiate a favorable settlement deal with the Redstones. Moonves was likely to be an important witness at trial. </p>
<p>If CBS fired him before settling with the Redstones, he might not cooperate in court. That would erode CBS’ trial prospects and thus its bargaining position with Redstone.</p>
<p>At the same time, Moonves’ contract was also a pain point for the Redstones. </p>
<p>That’s because Moonves’ contract also had a provision known as a <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/10/a-short-history-of-golden-parachutes">“golden parachute”</a> clause. A golden parachute entitles an executive to a massive payout if certain changes are made to the company.</p>
<p><iframe id="vqVIZ" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/vqVIZ/7/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/813828/000119312517116304/d368348ddef14a.htm">golden parachute</a> allowed Moonves to resign and receive a monstrous $182 million exit package – for a “good reason” resignation – if the Redstones wanted to change the composition of the board or force the company into a merger.</p>
<p>In other words, even if the Redstones won the lawsuit and kept their controlling stake, they wouldn’t be able to make big changes without enriching Moonves. This would be the pain – a controlling stake that can’t actually be wielded without awarding your adversary a mountain of cash.</p>
<p>So, I believe the swing votes on the CBS board sat on their hands in August – even as they confidentially learned of an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/business/cbs-les-moonves-board.html">attempted cover-up</a> by Moonves. They wanted that settlement with Redstone before cutting Moonves loose.</p>
<h2>The #MeToo movement presents a curveball</h2>
<p>Moonves likely used this time to negotiate his own exit. </p>
<p>But the #MeToo movement wasn’t done. On Sept. 9, The New Yorker published <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/as-leslie-moonves-negotiates-his-exit-from-cbs-women-raise-new-assault-and-harassment-claims">fresh accusations</a> against Moonves, and his options dwindled. </p>
<p>His settlement package mostly consists of CBS promising to do things it was willing to do anyway. Keep matters secret. Let the internal investigation run its course. <a href="https://mashable.com/article/les-moonves-leaves-cbs/">Donate $20 million</a> to the #MeToo movement to rebuild its reputation. </p>
<p>The high stakes game of chicken with Redstone had crumbled. CBS really could no longer credibly say it wanted Moonves to stay.</p>
<p>Hours later, CBS <a href="https://www.cbscorporation.com/cbs-corporation-and-national-amusements-announce-resolution-of-governance-disputes-and-transition-to-new-leadership/">announced</a> both the settlement of the lawsuit and Moonves’ departure.</p>
<h2>What it means</h2>
<p>This isn’t the first time, and probably won’t be the last, that the #MeToo movement collided with other business interests – for better or for worse. </p>
<p>Harvey Weinstein’s victims may have decided to go public against him last year at least in part because his power in the industry was already <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-harvey-weinstein-rise-fall-20171008-story.html">on the decline</a>. While #MeToo revelations fueled the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/business/nike-harassment.html">leadership shakeup</a> at Nike earlier this year, they apparently gained added force through an unrelated corporate <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/expo/news/erry-2018/07/93d33bff127706/vanquishing_team_edwards_a_new.html">power struggle</a>. </p>
<p>Like any social movement that resides in the workplace, #MeToo can be attractive to competing business interests within an organization. For example, in the 1970s and 1980s, human resources departments capitalized on civil rights laws to cement their internal status and expertise, as sociologists <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/8909.html">Frank Dobbin</a> and <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo24550454.html">Lauren Edelman</a> have documented.</p>
<p>For the #MeToo movement, the Moonves story is a partial victory, clouded by the board’s delay and his face-saving exit. But in a way, that’s okay. Business is messy. And the #MeToo movement is still very much at the table.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103041/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth C. Tippett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Moonves, accused by 12 women of sexual harassment and assault, managed to walk away with a face-saving exit package that may even include some of his $182 million severance.Elizabeth C. Tippett, Associate Professor, School of Law, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1013112018-08-19T19:49:58Z2018-08-19T19:49:58ZCan Australian streaming survive a fresh onslaught from overseas?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231410/original/file-20180810-30443-122o9fc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Australia’s already punch-drunk streaming sector is set for even more upheaval, as CBS <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/cbs-confirms-australian-streaming-platform-to-launch-by-end-of-2018-20180806-p4zvpf.html">will launch</a> its streaming service in Australia as early as October. </p>
<p>Disney is also <a href="https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/walt-disney-company-acquire-majority-ownership-bamtech/">set to launch its streaming service in 2019</a>. Based on recent history, Australia will likely be first up when it goes global.</p>
<p>The question is whether Australian streamers can compete locally with the global mammoths. Doing so might require coordination the likes of which we haven’t seen before.</p>
<p>This will impact not just what media Australians have access to, but <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/media-centre/news/2017/06-15-abs-survey-results">more than 31,000 people</a> employed by Australian media.</p>
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<p>We have already seen huge upheavals in Australian streaming.</p>
<p>Stan is the last remaining Australian streaming service from 2015, <a href="https://theconversation.com/netflix-arrival-will-be-a-tipping-point-for-tv-in-australia-38386">when I wrote about the official launch of Netflix in Australia</a>. At that time there were two Australian-based subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) services, Presto and Stan. </p>
<p>Presto, a joint venture between Seven and Foxtel, was shut down in early 2017. </p>
<p>Foxtel then launched <a href="https://www.foxtel.com.au/now/index.html">FoxtelNow</a> in June 2017. It is already set for an <a href="https://www.channelnews.com.au/foxtel-now-dead-new-4k-uhd-service-coming-cricket-launch/">overhaul</a> later this year, to include 4K streaming, along with sports and entertainment streaming packages. </p>
<h2>Aussie streaming services, more than just subscription</h2>
<p>In addition to Stan, there are also transactional video-on-demand (TVoD) services in Australia, although these are discussed far less. A TVoD service is based upon a single payment being made to view singular content for a limited time, e.g. you have streaming access to the latest release for 48 hours. </p>
<p>One such Australian service is <a href="https://www.quickflix.com.au">Quickflix</a>, which launched in 2014. It went <a href="https://theconversation.com/buyouts-mean-the-future-of-australian-video-on-demand-is-hard-to-picture-66683">into receivership</a> in 2016, before being saved and later relaunched. </p>
<p>Quickflix is still a streaming company, but retains the older <a href="https://www.quickflix.com.au/Join">disc mail-out service</a>. This mail-out service could help Quickflix survive against global streaming services. </p>
<p>With the <a href="https://www.smartcompany.com.au/technology/australias-video-shop-association-set-close-can-streaming-keep-demand-high-quality-video/">closure</a> of video stores and retail stores <a href="https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/consumer/2018/06/28/kmart-australia-dvds-cds/">removing discs</a> from their shelves, a mail-out service still has value for Australians with poor internet speed and access.</p>
<p>The other Australian TVoD service is <a href="https://www.ozflix.tv/">OzFlix</a>, which some Australians may not be aware of. </p>
<p>Its differentiation is plans to source “<a href="https://www.ozflix.tv/#!/page/412/about-us">Every Aussie Movie. Ever.</a>”. A big task, but its specific niche may help it survive the onslaught of global media streaming services, while also giving <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-the-rise-of-subscription-and-online-tv-we-need-to-rethink-local-content-rules-79496">local content</a> a dedicated home. </p>
<h2>Global media giants set their sights on Australia</h2>
<p>Australia has been the first country that many media companies expand to when moving outside their own region. <a href="https://theconversation.com/netflix-arrival-will-be-a-tipping-point-for-tv-in-australia-38386">Netflix</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/youtube-red-is-here-and-it-breaks-the-video-on-demand-mould-59656">YouTube Red</a> (now YouTube Premium) are two examples. </p>
<p>More recently we have seen <a href="https://theconversation.com/amazons-new-grand-tour-series-could-be-the-next-illegal-download-victim-68141">Amazon Prime Video</a> launch in late 2016, although it is yet to have a major uptake locally. </p>
<p>The arrival of CBS All Access will impact Stan particularly. Stan features a number of CBS programs, so future programming will need to be from other distributors or through greater investment in original content. </p>
<p>Disney is also set to <a href="https://www.channelnews.com.au/foxtel-netflix-set-to-face-off-with-new-disney-streaming-service/">acquire</a> 21st Century Fox. This will expand its catalogue on the new streaming service beyond its already huge catalogue. The Marvel movies look set to remain on current services, for now.</p>
<h2>Australians and streaming…. what next?</h2>
<p>A recent <a href="http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/7681-netflix-stan-foxtel-fetch-youtube-amazon-pay-tv-june-2018-201808020452">Roy Morgan report</a> found over 9.8 million Australians had access to Netflix, with Stan at over 2 million. While Stan is clearly behind, it has had a 39.2% increase in the last 12 months. </p>
<p>YouTube premium has over 1 million subscribers, FetchTV 710,000 and Amazon Prime Video last at 273,000 (an 87% increase year on year).</p>
<p>The arrival of CBS All Access and Disney will make an already crowded market only more so. But is more choice a good thing? </p>
<p>A 2014 <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2014/changing-channels-americans-view-just-17-channels-despite-record-number-to-choose-from.html">Nielsen report</a> showed the average channels receivable by US households grew from 129 in 2008 to 189 in 2013. But the average channels tuned in remained at 17.</p>
<p>On top of larger content libraries, the global players also have deeper pockets. Disney looks <a href="https://www.tubefilter.com/2018/08/14/star-wars-live-action-series-will-cost-100-million-be-streamed-exclusively-on-disneys-platform/">set to spend</a> US$100 million on a new Star Wars series for its streaming service. Netflix will <a href="https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/netflix-original-spending-85-percent-1202809623/">spend</a> more than US$8 billion on content in 2018 alone, and Amazon last year spent US$4 billion on content. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-the-rise-of-subscription-and-online-tv-we-need-to-rethink-local-content-rules-79496">With the rise of subscription and online TV, we need to rethink local content rules</a>
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<p>Australian services will need to have a point of difference. Quickflix and OzFlix have their points of difference, but what about a larger service like Stan? </p>
<p>Stan can’t compete with the global companies on quantity of content, so it must, like others, have a point of difference. </p>
<p>Stan could become a premium platform for content of which some is broadcast on Nine later. That would be a similar approach to when Australian FTA broadcasters would buy US content months after it was broadcast in the US – to save on costs.</p>
<p>For an Australian service to compete, a better solution would be a combined approach, an all-Australian streaming service that combines the strengths and finances of the Australian media industry. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.freeview.com.au/freeviewfv/">Freeview app</a> is an example of how Australian television has tried to work collaboratively but failed. The users can view all the catch-up content from Australian broadcasters, but to view it they are taken from the app to the specific broadcasters’ own catch-up apps. </p>
<p>This requires six apps in total to be installed to view all catch-up content.</p>
<p>But is the Australian media industry willing to come together to fight against global streaming media companies, or will they continue to battle each other? Failure here could result in a further decline in Australian media.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101311/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc C-Scott is a board member of C31 Melbourne (Community Television Station).</span></em></p>Is the Australian media industry willing to come together to fight against global streaming media companies, or will Australian media continue to battle each other?Marc C-Scott, Lecturer in Screen Media, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/920092018-07-26T10:36:26Z2018-07-26T10:36:26ZA conservative activist’s quest to preserve all network news broadcasts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229155/original/file-20180724-194143-1l0jvgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon smiles for the cameras during a 1968 news conference.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty years ago, in the middle of a typically hot and humid Nashville summer, a Metropolitan Life insurance manager named Paul Simpson sat with Frank Grisham, the director of the Vanderbilt University Library, in the rare books room of the main library building.</p>
<p>Using three <a href="https://www.ampex.com/ampex-history/">Ampex video recording machines</a>, three television sets and $4,000 of Simpson’s own money, they began what they thought would be a 90-day experiment: From then until election night in November, they would record the ABC, NBC and CBS evening news broadcasts, which usually aired at the same time.</p>
<p>The day Simpson and Grisham started taping, August 5, 1968, was an eventful one. The Republican Convention began, <a href="http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/campaign68/timeline.html">and Ronald Reagan officially announced his candidacy for the presidential nomination</a>, joining with liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller in an attempt to stop Richard Nixon’s hopes of a first ballot nomination.</p>
<p>The news broadcasts also included the era’s biggest stories: fighting in Vietnam, communist leaders meeting in Eastern Europe and the civil war in Nigeria. Other reports from that day sound hauntingly familiar: an Israeli strike into Jordan and a violent incident at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, in which an American and North Korean soldier were killed. </p>
<p>Such was the modest beginning of what Rutgers University historian David Greenberg <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7oQsWVsy6tkC&pg=PA185&dq=Do+Historians+Watch+Enough+TV?+Broadcast+News+as+a+Primary+Source&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjLh6Dq-rXcAhVDGt8KHXjCDw8Q6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=Do%20Historians%20Watch%20Enough%20TV%3F%20Broadcast%20News%20as%20a%20Primary%20Source&f=false">has called</a> the “preeminent video resource for scholars of TV news.” </p>
<p>Although legal and copyright issues continue to hinder access, the Vanderbilt Television News Archive – a repository of television news recordings from the past 50 years – is a national archival treasure.</p>
<p>But the archive’s beginnings are rooted in the political and cultural conflicts of the late 1960s. Simpson, the archive’s founder, first financial backer and chief fundraiser, was deeply conservative. <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/Network-Television-News-Conviction-Controversy-Point/22707912691/bd">And he was convinced</a> that the network news broadcasts, with their executive producers living in New York’s “liberal atmosphere,” were contributing to social turmoil and unrest throughout the country.</p>
<p>For this reason, he sought to save the recordings for posterity – to be able to show, years later, that CBS, NBC and ABC were as much a part of the problem as the anti-war movement, drug culture and free love.</p>
<h2>The most trusted men?</h2>
<p>Although he later downplayed political motivations in <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?152200-1/television-news-archives">a 1985 C-SPAN interview</a>, Simpson had long been passionate in his concern about television’s malign influence over “the American mind.” </p>
<p>In 1964, <a href="https://collections.library.vanderbilt.edu/repositories/2/resources/1605">he wrote to CBS</a> to complain about Walter Cronkite’s coverage of the Goldwater campaign. He wasn’t necessarily wrong: Cronkite, who enjoyed his reputation as the “most trusted man” in America, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=XWv46Na-PIcC&lpg=PP1&dq=cronkite&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">did detest Goldwater</a> and was liberal in his politics.</p>
<p>Simpson also believed that television news unfairly blamed President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on the “conservative atmosphere” in Dallas, <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/Network-Television-News-Conviction-Controversy-Point/22707912691/bd">and he recalled with particular disgust</a> a 1967 network interview with psychologist <a href="https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/timothy-leary">Timothy Leary</a>, who was encouraging young people to try LSD.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229293/original/file-20180725-194134-1bo0v1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229293/original/file-20180725-194134-1bo0v1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229293/original/file-20180725-194134-1bo0v1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229293/original/file-20180725-194134-1bo0v1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229293/original/file-20180725-194134-1bo0v1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229293/original/file-20180725-194134-1bo0v1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229293/original/file-20180725-194134-1bo0v1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Simpson was deeply suspicious of Walter Cronkite’s motives and beliefs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/charleskremenak/9399912564">Charles Kremenak</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>On a business trip to New York in March 1968, Simpson toured each of the three networks. At each stop, he asked to see a broadcast from the previous month. They all told him that they weren’t available – they only saved their broadcasts for about two weeks because it was too expensive to preserve them.</p>
<p>Simpson was shocked. He viewed nightly newscasts as the equivalent of America’s national newspaper. How could they be held accountable if no record existed of their stories, segments and analysis?</p>
<p>When he returned to Nashville, Simpson found an ally in Vanderbilt librarian Frank Grisham. </p>
<p>Grisham didn’t share Simpson’s politics but did believe that the broadcasts should be preserved. The two took the idea to Vanderbilt’s chancellor, <a href="https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2009/07/25/alexander-heard-vanderbilts-fifth-chancellor-dies-85205/">Alexander Heard</a>, a political scientist <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Gone_with_the_Ivy.html?id=G5hlQgAACAAJ">whom historian Paul Conkin described</a> as a true believer in “an open society, one in which divergent views could find expression” and compete for public acceptance. Heard got the board of trustees to approve a short-term experiment, hoping that the Library of Congress might eventually take it over.</p>
<h2>Preserving bias for posterity</h2>
<p>The expensive project may have ended after its three-month test run were it not for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, held a few weeks after the Republican gathering.</p>
<p>On August 28, 1968, the night Hubert Humphrey was nominated, the news networks aired footage of the swelling crowds of protesters, the outbreak of violence in the streets and the demonstrators shouting, “The whole world is watching” as the police attacked them. It was dramatic stuff – and Simpson and Grisham preserved it all.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7_9OJnRnZjU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The dramatic images that emerged from the 1968 Democratic National Convention horrified a huge swath of the electorate.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Although the protesters believed media coverage would create sympathy for their cause, <a href="https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/the-whole-world-was-watching/">a substantial majority of Americans</a>
– including Paul Simpson – sided with the police. When editing the tapes, Simpson realized that NBC had shown the same arrest of one violent protester from three different angles without acknowledging that it was the same person. <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/Network-Television-News-Conviction-Controversy-Point/22707912691/bd">In Simpson’s view</a>, this exaggerated the scale of violence and discredited the police. </p>
<p>In the heated atmosphere of 1968, it was enough to fuel suspicions of media bias. Simpson now had his smoking gun – and a potent fundraising tool.</p>
<p>Over the next two years, the tape of the Chicago violence played a critical role in the survival of the archive. Simpson argued that the only way to be able to study the media’s impact was to ensure copies existed for critics, researchers and academics to review. Two conservative Nashville business executives, one of whom sat on the Vanderbilt board of trustees, made substantial donations to keep the archive functioning. </p>
<p>Nixon’s election made the White House receptive to the project. Simpson sent the tape to <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/249080/nixons-white-house-wars-by-patrick-j-buchanan/9781101902868/">Patrick Buchanan</a>, a Nixon speechwriter who shared the president’s deep distaste for the media. Buchanan even included a reference to the protest footage in Vice President Spiro Agnew’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQpQyJQm2Mk">famous 1969 speech attacking television news as biased</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229157/original/file-20180724-194128-16o7vkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229157/original/file-20180724-194128-16o7vkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229157/original/file-20180724-194128-16o7vkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229157/original/file-20180724-194128-16o7vkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229157/original/file-20180724-194128-16o7vkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229157/original/file-20180724-194128-16o7vkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229157/original/file-20180724-194128-16o7vkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Vice President Spiro Agnew laid into the press, citing the same footage from the 1968 DNC protests that infuriated Paul Simpson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-NM-USA-APHS437970-Agnew-Native-Americans/9778c5b3869c4c9f932504345e7ffd9f/58/0">AP Photo</a></span>
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<p>“Another network,” Agnew announced, “showed virtually the same scene of violence from three separate angles without making clear it was the same scene.”</p>
<h2>The networks fight back</h2>
<p>The networks had never been singled out by elected officials in this way, and they weren’t happy about the scrutiny. Operating as they did with government licenses, they saw Agnew’s speech as intimidation.</p>
<p>With a hubris that, in retrospect, was certain to invite further scrutiny, the three networks pushed back, arguing that they were objective and impartial watchdogs looking out for the public interest. They saw themselves as above politics. As media historian Charles L. Ponce De Leon <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo12345529.html">wrote</a> in 2015, “It was news from Olympus, presented in a tone that suggested the voice of God.” </p>
<p>NBC’s Reuven Frank <a href="https://collections.library.vanderbilt.edu/repositories/2/resources/1605">sarcastically dismissed</a> Simpson’s claim that he was acting in the “spirit of free inquiry,” remarking that “I have never known a self-proclaimed objective student who sought to evaluate my performance because he thought I was doing great.” </p>
<p>The networks also worried that if Vanderbilt continued recording their broadcasts, they would lose the ability to repackage and resell their footage. People could just go to Vanderbilt for it.</p>
<p>CBS accused the Vanderbilt Television News Archive of violating its copyright and sued in December 1973. Amazingly, CBS stated it would destroy the Vanderbilt tapes if it won in court.</p>
<p>Thankfully, Tennessee Sen. Howard Baker helped insert <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108">a clause in the revision of the copyright law</a> that protected the right of libraries to record the news. CBS dropped its lawsuit, but some of the restrictions it insisted upon were put in place.</p>
<p>While the entire collection was digitalized in the early 2000s, the Vanderbilt Television News Archive is only allowed to stream NBC and CNN to researchers. Examining ABC, CBS or Fox segments requires a trip to Nashville. </p>
<p>The recording of the evening newscasts of the big three networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – continues to this day. In 1995, the archive began recording an one hour a day of CNN, and in 2004, an hour of FOX. Over the years it’s been used by researchers to study topics as diffuse as political bias, gender stereotyping and even the evolution of television advertising, since the commercials during the news broadcasts are also recorded.</p>
<p>In recent times, the archive was used in the 2015 documentary “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3518012/">Best of Enemies</a>” because it contained lost footage of the debate between conservative commentator William F. Buckley and liberal writer Gore Vidal. More poignantly, <a href="http://www.newsknowledge.today/episode-002/">it was used by the mother of an American soldier</a> who died in Vietnam; after someone told her that her wounded son had been photographed lying on the ground during a network news segment, she traveled to the archives to review footage and confirm the account.</p>
<p>Even if one thinks Simpson’s perception of deliberate political bias was misguided, his insistence on preserving the evening news in order to study and analyze its presentation was an extraordinarily important contribution.</p>
<p>The British writer Christopher Hitchens <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/boycott-the-gop/550907/">once remarked</a> that political partisanship makes us stupid. </p>
<p>But in the case of the Vanderbilt Television News Archive, partisanship led to unintended, historically enriching results.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Alan Schwartz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fifty years ago, an insurance agent named Paul Simpson was convinced of rampant bias on the evening news. So he embarked on a project to record each broadcast and store them at Vanderbilt University.Thomas Alan Schwartz, Professor of History, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/943922018-04-05T10:57:09Z2018-04-05T10:57:09ZAmerican broadcasting has always been closely intertwined with American politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213288/original/file-20180404-189804-u1ho88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Louisiana's populist politician Huey Long, giving an address on CBS Radio in 1934</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Louisiana State University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Local television viewers around the United States <a href="https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-local-tv-owner-turned-its-news-anc-1824233490">were recently alerted</a> to a <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/sinclair-forces-reporters-to-read-script-about-fake-news-63ae6fcea30e/">“troubling trend” that’s “extremely dangerous to democracy.”</a></p>
<p>Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of America’s <a href="http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/10/26/fcc-sinclair-tribune">dominant television station owners</a>, commanded its anchors to deliver a scripted commentary, warning audiences about “one sided news stories plaguing our country” and media outlets that publish “fake stories … that just aren’t true.”</p>
<p>This might sound like a media literacy lesson, offered in the public interest. But the invocation of “biased and false news” so closely echoes charges from the Trump administration that <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/2/17189302/sinclair-broadcast-fake-news-biased-trump-viral-video">many observers cried foul</a>. </p>
<p>Sinclair’s record of broadcasting news content favorable to the Trump administration, including mandated program segments such as the “<a href="http://www.newscaststudio.com/2015/11/19/sinclair-creates-terrorism-alert-desk/">Terrorism Alert Desk</a>,” and “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/BottomLineWithBoris/">Bottom Line with Boris</a>,” with former Trump administration official Boris Epshteyn, provides additional evidence of partisan bias. </p>
<p>So, is it time, as some <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/opinion/trump-sinclair-tribune-america.html">commentators are suggesting</a>, to restore the Fairness Doctrine, which used to require broadcasters “to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was fair and balanced”? That policy, adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in 1949, was repealed in 1987. It supposedly sustained responsible political debate on the nation’s airwaves until its disappearance during the Reagan administration.</p>
<p>I would argue that nostalgic calls for the restoration of a golden age of civil political discussion on America’s airwaves mistake what actually happened in those decades.</p>
<h2>Airtime for Nazis, socialists, communists</h2>
<p>Politics and broadcasting have been consistently intertwined in American history. As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YxTJsxoAAAAJ&hl=en">I have found</a> in my own <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1464884910379707">research</a>, the commercial broadcasting community (including advertisers) has consistently aligned news content and commentary in ways favorable to the White House. </p>
<p>But such episodes are often conveniently forgotten. </p>
<p>As Mitchell Stephens’ <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Voice_of_America.html?id=eP-fDgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false">new biography of journalist Lowell Thomas</a> recounts, and as numerous <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=AspCnwEACAAJ&dq=Ed+Bliss+Now+The+News&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjB8f345qDaAhUB64MKHd2RBwsQ6AEILDAB">earlier scholars</a> detailed, U.S. broadcast journalism originated more as subjective and biased commentary than as reportage. </p>
<p>The vast majority of 1930s radio “news” was politically slanted analysis by veteran journalists like Thomas, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=H.V.+Kaltenborn+union&btnG=">H.V. Kaltenborn</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V7EVpYeCvg">Boake Carter</a>. Kaltenborn, for example, was notable for his anti-union commentaries. </p>
<p>The uncertain nature of early broadcast regulation, combined with pressure from organized interest groups and politicians, all made the exact parameters of political speech on American radio ambiguous in the 1930s.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213290/original/file-20180404-189813-11ymb1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213290/original/file-20180404-189813-11ymb1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213290/original/file-20180404-189813-11ymb1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213290/original/file-20180404-189813-11ymb1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213290/original/file-20180404-189813-11ymb1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213290/original/file-20180404-189813-11ymb1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213290/original/file-20180404-189813-11ymb1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ninety million listeners tuned in and heard Father Charles Coughlin, known as the ‘Radio Priest’ of the Depression, defend fascists and attack Jews and communists.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So the networks lent their microphones to a wide range of views from the quasi-fascists like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-E-Coughlin">Father Charles Coughlin</a> (the “Radio Priest”), to homespun socialists like <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/Speeches_Long_EveryManKing.htm">Huey Long</a> and union leaders like the American Federation of Labor’s <a href="https://star1.loc.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/4065/sonic.txt">William Green</a>. As <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=haWh203m7aIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Douglas+Craig+Fireside+Politics&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjpi8qv56DaAhVLyYMKHfYjB-cQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=Douglas%20Craig%20Fireside%20Politics&f=false">Douglas Craig</a>, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Uy6lWnBcjNYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=David+Goodman+Radio%27s+Civic+Ambition&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjOoNO_56DaAhXE44MKHZr5AJkQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=David%20Goodman%20Radio's%20Civic%20Ambition&f=false">David Goodman</a> and numerous other scholars have pointed out, political broadcasting in the 1930s was vibrant, fertile and diverse to an extent unmatched to the present day. </p>
<p>For example: In 1936, both CBS and NBC aired <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Six_Minutes_in_Berlin.html?id=_xB7DQAAQBAJ">Nazi propaganda from the Berlin Olympic Games</a>. They also <a href="https://star1.loc.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/4065/sonic.txt">broadcast live from the Communist Party</a> of the United States of America nominating convention. Programs like “University of Chicago Roundtable,” and “America’s Town Meeting of the Air” aired provocative political discussion that engaged and educated American audiences by exposing them to diverse viewpoints.</p>
<h2>Airwaves rein themselves in</h2>
<p>But as war neared, U.S. political broadcasting narrowed its range. </p>
<p>The Roosevelt administration began to carefully police the airwaves. CBS’ highly rated news commentator, Boake Carter, had often criticized President Roosevelt’s policies. But when he <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lAdv3youHkYC&pg=PA89&dq=%22Now+the+News%22+%22Boake+Carter,+who+had+said+that+Anschluss+might+right%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjwssuZwZ_aAhUmyoMKHVlIDboQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=%22Now%20the%20News%22%20%22Boake%20Carter%2C%20who%20had%20said%20that%20Anschluss%20might%20right%22&f=false">applauded the Anschluss,</a> Germany’s annexation of Austria in 1938, and expressed admiration for Nazi policies, the White House acted. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01439688200260131?journalCode=chjf20">media historian David Culbert revealed</a>, Roosevelt’s adviser Stephen T. Early secretly contacted CBS and Carter’s sponsor, General Foods, to silence Carter. Despite high ratings and a popular following, Carter’s CBS contract was not renewed. Within weeks he was gone.</p>
<p>Broadcasting’s self-censorship under government pressure expanded at the start of World War II. Circumscribing critical analysis and channeling commentary to the political center pleased advertisers and politicians.</p>
<p>With the assistance of such broadcasting pioneers as Edward R. Murrow, subjective radio news commentary morphed into the type of observational reporting now identified as broadcast journalism. </p>
<p>The most famous example of this shift occurred in 1943. That year Cecil Brown, CBS’s top-rated news analyst and author of the best-selling “Suez to Singapore,” <a href="https://search.proquest.com/openview/ba015a60e32458dbb27cd3f65757c767/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1821075">dared to criticize the war effort</a> he witnessed on the American homefront. Brown was fired, and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Cecil_Brown.html?id=_u02DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false">his dismissal proved a warning</a> to every other broadcast commentator. </p>
<p>Not everyone was happy with the neutering of news and opinion on American airwaves. In response to the Brown firing, FCC Chair James Lawrence Fly criticized what he considered corporate censorship. </p>
<p>“It’s a little strange,” <a href="https://archive.org/stream/americanjournali14amer/americanjournali14amer_djvu.txt">Fly told the press</a>, “to reach the conclusion that all Americans are to enjoy free speech except radio commentators.”</p>
<p>But removing partisan politics from broadcast journalism <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Zb-j6Pwcvq8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Susan+Douglas%22+%22Listening+In%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiwyvGakaHaAhUHxoMKHbg3CmYQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=%22By%201943%22&f=false">increased advertising revenue</a> and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08821127.2007.10678081">proved remarkably lucrative</a> for U.S. broadcasters during World War II. </p>
<p>With the lesson learned, and with the support of the advertising community, America’s broadcasters aimed to address only the “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_vital_center.html?id=7ttPAQAAIAAJ">vital center</a>” of American politics in the postwar years. </p>
<h2>Still, politics persisted</h2>
<p>It would, however, be a mistake to believe that the Fairness Doctrine silenced fractious political discourse on the American airwaves. </p>
<p>Throughout the decades that the Fairness Doctrine remained official policy, controversial political broadcasts aired regularly on American television and radio. There was <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/joe-pyne-first-shock-jock-180963237/">Joe Pyne</a>, whose show at its zenith in the 1960s attracted a reported 10 million viewers. Pyne insulted the hippies, Klansmen and civil rights activists he invited to his studio. Though the show is recalled today more for its outrageousness, it was a political show and Pyne propagated a conservative, law-and-order, patriotic message. </p>
<p>Then there’s Bob Grant, who broadcast a popular radio show in New York City throughout the 1970s. Grant’s “arch disdain for liberals, prominent black people, welfare recipients, feminists, gay people, and anyone who disagreed with him,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/nyregion/bob-grant-a-pioneer-of-right-wing-talk-radio-dies-at-84.html">wrote The New York Times</a>, “was familiar to his listeners.” </p>
<p>Nationally syndicated programs like “Donohue” offered liberal perspectives, and even the “CBS Evening News” brought back commentary, with veteran journalist <a href="http://www.museum.tv/eotv/sevareideri.htm">Eric Sevareid</a> providing perspective on the daily news each weeknight.</p>
<p>I’m not equating the well-reasoned, often brilliant political commentary offered by Eric Sevareid to Sinclair Broadcast Group’s transparent political advocacy. Sevareid reached a much larger percentage of the American populace than all the Sinclair newscasts combined, and he was therefore far more influential. </p>
<p>But to express surprise that Sinclair now shapes news content and commentary to be more hospitable to political advertising, and more supportive of the current administration, ignores the fact that political commentary has always sold well in the American commercial system. </p>
<p>I believe Sinclair’s management has identified an underutilized segment of the local TV news advertising market – the pro-Trump segment – as the 2018 midterm elections approach. The broadcaster is now shaping its news products to more effectively appeal to the audience for the political advertisements it seeks to sell this fall. </p>
<p>This economic interest closely aligns with Sinclair’s current political and regulatory imperatives. It makes the propagating of biased news content even more effective from Sinclair’s perspective. </p>
<p>Sinclair clearly hopes that the political consultants who purchase campaign ads, and the federal regulators who must <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/sinclair-media-awaiting-massive-broadcast-merger-gets-trump-defense/">approve their planned purchase</a> of Tribune Broadcasting’s 42 stations, will appreciate their recent media literacy efforts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94392/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Socolow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sinclair network anchors decrying ‘fake stories’ have been condemned for giving biased support to President Trump. But nostalgic calls to restore civil political discussion on the air ignore history.Michael J. Socolow, Associate professor, communication and journalism, University of MaineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/836822017-09-15T20:12:58Z2017-09-15T20:12:58ZHow the Pentagon tried to cure America of its ‘Vietnam syndrome’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186097/original/file-20170914-9021-1w45zl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A couple watch film footage of the Vietnam war on a television in their living room.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2011661230/">Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In August 1965, Morley Safer, a reporter for “CBS News,” accompanied a unit of U.S. marines on a search-and-destroy mission to the Vietnamese village of Cam Ne. Using cigarette lighters and a flamethrower, the troops proceeded to burn down 150 houses, wound three women, kill one child and take four men prisoner. Safer and his crew <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD-RlWdhAIc">caught it all on film</a>. The military command later claimed that the unit had received enemy fire. But according to Safer, no pitched battle had taken place. The only death had been the boy, and not a single weapon had been uncovered.</p>
<p>In describing the reaction, Safer would later say that the public, the media and the military all began to realize that the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/weta/reportingamericaatwar/reporters/safer/camne.html">rules of war reporting had changed</a>.</p>
<p>The New Yorker’s Michael Arlen <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Living_room_War.html?id=NIXK7RkTgncC&source=kp_cover">dubbed</a> Vietnam the “living room war.” The images of the war – viewed on evening news shows on the country’s three networks – enabled the public to understand the war’s human costs. In this sense, media coverage contributed to the flow of information that’s vital to any functioning democracy, and pushed Americans to either support or oppose U.S. involvement in the conflict. </p>
<p>However, in the country’s myriad military conflicts since Vietnam, this flow of information has been largely transformed, and it is now more difficult to see the human consequences of military operations. Despite a digital revolution that’s created even more opportunities to transmit images, voices and stories, the public finds itself further removed from what’s really happening on the front lines. </p>
<h2>A false narrative exposed</h2>
<p>Issues of truth, representation, interpretation and distortion lie at the core of the media’s presentation of war. So do power and control. </p>
<p>Governments aren’t always afraid to show the public what war looks like. During World War II, journalists <a href="http://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_home_communication_news_censorship.htm">were subject to censorship</a>. Yet in September 1943, President Roosevelt and the War Department allowed Life magazine to publish George Strock’s <a href="https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/wwii-buna-beach-george-strock-01.jpg?quality=85">moving photograph of three dead American soldiers</a> sprawled on Buna Beach in the Pacific. </p>
<p>That decision pointed to the administration’s confidence that the public would continue to support the military, even after being brought – as the accompanying Life editorial <a href="http://time.com/3524493/the-photo-that-won-world-war-ii-dead-americans-at-buna-beach-1943/">noted</a> – “into the presence of their own dead.”</p>
<p>But Vietnam destroyed the assumption that the public would always support their government’s military policies, and the images accompanying the conflict were partly responsible.</p>
<p>In Safer’s case, after a heated debate among CBS officials, the footage of American troops setting fire to a Vietnamese village was shown on “The CBS Evening News” with Walter Cronkite. </p>
<p>The government seemed to recognize the power of this footage: It reacted swiftly – and from the top.</p>
<p>The next morning, President Lyndon B. Johnson called CBS president Frank Stanton to berate the network for airing the footage. </p>
<p>“You know what you did to me last night?” <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/controversial-report-changed-war-coverage-in-america/">Johnson asked</a>. </p>
<p>“What?” Stanton replied. </p>
<p>“You shat on the American flag.”</p>
<p>The Pentagon was also furious because the story challenged their own narrative – that enemy troops had died, and that American troops were able to distinguish the Viet Cong from the local population.</p>
<p>Safer’s images would resonate in American culture. Torching a village or field <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2171404/Zippo-lighters-U-S-troops-fighting-Vietnam-unique-insight-war-life.html">came to be called</a> a “Zippo mission,” while scenes of setting villages on fire appeared in many Vietnam War films.</p>
<p>More dramatic images emerged from the war, many of which remain familiar today. There’s Nick Ut’s <a href="http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150512085932-31-seventies-timeline-0512-restricted-super-169.jpg">photograph of nine-year-old Kim Phoc</a> fleeing her napalmed village; <a href="https://www.worldpressphoto.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_main_image/public/1968001.jpg?itok=afH6hnEE">Eddie Adams’s shot</a> of South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan summarily executing a Viet Cong on a Saigon street; and <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/plain-dealer-library/index.ssf/2009/11/plain_dealer_exclusive_my_lai_massacre_photos_by_ronald_haeberle.html">Ronald Haeberle’s devastating pictures</a> of the 1968 My Lai massacre. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186083/original/file-20170914-8984-5amuqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186083/original/file-20170914-8984-5amuqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186083/original/file-20170914-8984-5amuqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186083/original/file-20170914-8984-5amuqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186083/original/file-20170914-8984-5amuqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186083/original/file-20170914-8984-5amuqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186083/original/file-20170914-8984-5amuqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eddie Adams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM-NYOTK-Vietnam-War-Saigon-Execution/b49e001a13424d62a117e02fb640823f/1/0">Eddie Adams/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They didn’t automatically create public backlash. But viewers couldn’t ignore the chaos that seemed to be emerging from the battlefield. And this had the net effect of debunking the government’s claim that the military was making significant progress in Vietnam. A growing number of critics outside – and, significantly, inside – the administration argued the war could not be won.</p>
<h2>A new media strategy emerges</h2>
<p>On balance it would seem that more skepticism when it comes to judging the need to go to war is a good thing.</p>
<p>Not everyone, however, would agree. In the years after Vietnam, some members of the political and military establishment wanted to be able to use military force without feeling hamstrung by the possibility of public opposition. </p>
<p>To them, public exposure to bloodshed and the resulting aversion to going to war had become a major problem. They even <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2013/01/22/its-called-the-vietnam-syndrome-and-its-back/">had a name for it</a> – the “Vietnam syndrome” – and it required a new media strategy.</p>
<p>One solution involved imposing strict control over the movements of journalists. The government could no longer afford to allow – as it had in Vietnam – enterprising reporters to run around the battlefield, going wherever they wanted and speaking with whomever they pleased.</p>
<p>During Grenada, Panama and the Gulf War, they organized journalists <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03064229108535103?journalCode=ioca">into small “pools”</a> that had tightly controlled access to the battlefield (if at all).</p>
<p>Even with these restrictions in place, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CagFseu-p1wC&lpg=PP1&dq=Live%20from%20the%20Battlefield%3A%20From%20Vietnam%20to%20Baghdad%2C%2035%20Years%20in%20the%20World's%20War%20Zones&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">the Pentagon bristled</a> at CNN’s dramatic broadcasts of the bombing of Baghdad during Operation Desert Storm. It’s not as if the cable network was even criticizing the attacks; it was the very images of U.S. aircraft bombing a major city that defense officials found so unsettling. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NktsxucDvNI">The soundtrack alone</a> – the thump of high-yield explosions, the sirens of emergency vehicles, the staccato of anti-aircraft fire – ran counter to the administration’s preference for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V30vSPFLeoE">their own soundless footage</a> of smart bombs being smoothly guided to their military targets.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4Qq3L6EY3zg?wmode=transparent&start=75" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">CNN broadcast live footage of coalition forces bombing Baghdad in 1991.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Entertain – but don’t inform</h2>
<p>Some journalists started to complain about the pool system and tried to strike out on their own. By the 1990s, the most astute media managers within the Pentagon realized that censorship and other efforts to directly control the media were likely to incite criticism and public backlash.</p>
<p>So other strategies emerged. Instead of denying access to the battlefield, they hoped to shift what journalists would report from the battlefield. The war would become localized through human interest stories, told by “embedded reporters” attached to units. Behind this was a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Are-Americans-Becoming-More-Peaceful/dp/159451299X">communication strategy</a> to make reporters more inclined to describe the daily lives of soldiers, rather than the broader military and political objectives. Quiet heroism would replace loss; hometown celebrations would replace critical reviews of policy and strategy. </p>
<p>At first glance, the Pentagon’s preference for “embedded reporting” evokes the Vietnam-era practice of allowing journalists to work among combat soldiers. But in Afghanistan and Iraq there was a key difference. Vietnam provided an approximate window to the consequences of combat. In Iraq, journalists were close to the fighting but provided a very different type of drama.</p>
<p>Viewers back home were treated to green-hued images from night scopes and the shaky footage from hand-held cameras. The jumpy videos created tension, but didn’t bring the audience any closer to the pain of war. Viewers understood war through powerful but distracting footage, rather than through the visceral images of destruction, chaos and tragedy that the media was able to capture during the Vietnam era.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Embedded Associated Press reporter Chris Tomlinson, right, eats at a temporary camp about 100 miles south of Baghdad in March 2003.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-International-News-Iraq-Advanc-/195a77ebdee6da11af9f0014c2589dfb/177/0">John Moore/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Furthermore, government officials <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20030617.pdf">discovered that they could enjoy more sympathetic reporting</a> from those who became an accepted member of a “band of brothers.” At the same time embedded reporters offered a kind of credibility that government spokespeople didn’t possess. Pictures and stories of troops providing food, medical aid, and other forms of assistance to Iraqi civilians – and even to wounded Iraqi soldiers – emerged easily. </p>
<p>But the pain of the battlefield – the physical and psychological repercussions – remained remote. It wasn’t even possible to see pictures of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/world/americas/27iht-photos.1.20479953.html?mcubz=3">returning body containers</a> until the Obama administration reversed the policy in 2009. </p>
<p>There are exceptions. Some excellent journalists <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/world/asia/afghanistan-doctors-without-borders-hospital-strike.html?mcubz=3">did manage to communicate the costs</a> to America’s military and to the local population. In some cases, revelations emerged from the proliferation of new media outlets.</p>
<p>Today, “the living room war” is now a distant memory. The public no longer receives all of its information from the same three channels. Instead, there are thousands of media outlets all covering the same conflicts, from different perspectives – with some war coverage <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Militainment-Inc-Media-Popular-Culture/dp/0415999782">veering into entertainment</a> and even celebration. </p>
<p>“Let the atrocious images haunt us,” Susan Sontag <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/11/books/books-of-the-times-a-writer-who-begs-to-differ-with-herself.html">once wrote</a>. </p>
<p>It’s an invocation to not turn away from the dramatic images of battle, no matter how painful or disturbing. Going to war is arguably one of the most important decisions a country can make; for this reason, access to the true sacrifices, costs and horrors should not be restricted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83682/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Joseph does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After footage from America’s first ‘living room war’ shocked the public, the government would clamp down on media coverage of future military conflicts.Paul Joseph, Professor of Sociology, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/830952017-08-29T02:45:00Z2017-08-29T02:45:00ZThe impact of CBS’s takeover of Ten is much larger than just one network<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183555/original/file-20170828-27547-wo7wxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">CBS has bought Channel Ten and plans to bring its streaming service to Australia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ten Network is being <a href="http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20170828/pdf/43lsqg1thzbbg6.pdf">acquired</a> by US broadcaster <a href="https://www.cbscorporation.com/2017/08/cbs-corporation-to-acquire-network-ten-in-australia/">CBS Corporation</a>. CBS now controls three TV channels - Ten, Eleven and One - as well as a fledgling streaming service, Tenplay. But this acquisition is only the beginning of the shakeup to the Australian television industry. </p>
<p>CBS is a major supplier of content to all the commercial television networks and streaming services in Australia and has <a href="https://www.cbscorporation.com/2017/08/cbs-corporation-to-acquire-network-ten-in-australia/">announced</a> the launch of its video streaming service in Australia. </p>
<p>As the main competition between broadcasters and streaming services is access to exclusive content, CBS’ entrance will shake up the entire industry. Stan particularly is threatened as it does not have the deep pockets of its rivals to fund a lot of original programming. </p>
<h2>CBS controls a lot of important content</h2>
<p>Even before the Ten Network acquisition, CBS had a large programming footprint in Australia. </p>
<p>CBS programs are currently broadcast by all three Australian commercial television stations and the SBS. Many of these are very popular shows, such as the Big Bang Theory on Nine and the NCIS franchise on Ten.</p>
<p>In addition to these free-to-air broadcasts, CBS has deals with Foxtel and a <a href="https://www.cbscorporation.com/2016/01/cbs-corporation-and-stan-announce-long-term-exclusive-licensing-agreement-for-showtime-brand-and-programming-in-australia/">multi-year contract</a> with streaming service Stan, which includes major shows like Billions and Twin Peaks. </p>
<p>Netflix also has the international broadcast rights for several CBS programs, <a href="https://media.netflix.com/en/press-releases/netflix-to-beam-new-cbs-star-trek-television-series-in-188-countries-around-the-world">including</a> the yet to be released Star Trek: Discovery.</p>
<p>Ten is <a href="http://www.oztam.com.au/documents/2017/OzTAM-20170806-A1MetTTVShrCons.pdf">currently trailing</a> its rivals Nine and Seven in television ratings. On top of this, television’s share of the advertising market in Australia <a href="http://users.tpg.com.au/ceasa/publication.html">is shrinking</a>. With the purchase of Ten, it is now against CBS’s interests to sell its more popular content to its broadcast rivals.</p>
<p>The same issue arises with streaming. Because of the licensing deals that have already been signed, CBS will initially have to follow the approach of Netflix and provide a very different catalogue in Australia than they do in the US. </p>
<p>Over time this will change as contracts expire and new programs are created that can be brought over. CBS All-access also includes a live-streaming service which <a href="https://www.cbscorporation.com/2016/12/nfl-comes-to-cbs-all-access/">features sports</a>, and that will be another point of competition with the other streaming providers and Foxtel.</p>
<p>In particular, Ten will want to hold onto its broadcast rights of the KFC Big Bash League that <a href="https://theconversation.com/chasing-the-audience-is-it-over-and-out-for-cricket-on-free-to-air-tv-76792">expire after the 2017-18 summer</a>. In the United States, CBS already has the broadcast and streaming rights to a number of sports, <a href="https://www.cbscorporation.com/2016/12/nfl-comes-to-cbs-all-access/">including the NFL</a>.</p>
<h2>Video streaming</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/7242-netflix-subscriptions-march-2017-201706080957">Around one in three</a> Australians have Netflix. On top of this are services provided by Amazon, Stan and Foxtel. The imminent launch of CBS’s streaming service, CBS All-access, will <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-fragmented-streaming-video-market-is-good-for-everyone-but-the-consumer-82367">further fragment</a> this market.</p>
<p>But the key differentiator between these services is not price - they all offer services for around A$10 to A$15 a month. Instead, streaming services compete with each other on their offerings, and particularly with exclusive and original programming.</p>
<p>The introduction of CBS All-access will put pressure on local service Stan especially, as many of its headline programmes are <a href="https://www.cbscorporation.com/2016/01/cbs-corporation-and-stan-announce-long-term-exclusive-licensing-agreement-for-showtime-brand-and-programming-in-australia/">currently provided by CBS</a>. </p>
<p>If it were to lose CBS content, Stan does not have the deep pockets of Foxtel, Amazon or Netflix to produce a lot of its own original programming. Amazon and Netflix are reportedly spending <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/amazon-video-budget-in5-billion-2017-4">US$6 billion</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/netflix-spending-6-billion-on-content-in-2017-ceo-reed-hastings.html">US$4.5 billion</a> respectively on original content this year alone.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Ten’s TV audience share has seen <a href="https://images.tenplay.com.au/%7E/media/Corporate%20Site%20Media/Files/Media%20Releases/2017/Network%20Ten%20First%20Half%202017%20Audience%20Report.pdf">significant growth</a> in the first half of this year. And much of this is due to costly local programming, such as the KFC Big Bash, MasterChef and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!. Financial assistance from CBS should allow spending on this kind of programming to continue. </p>
<p>CBS will also be able to assist Ten with its catch-up service TenPlay, where the programming lineup is critical. Streaming views for Madam Secretary and NCIS: Los Angeles, two CBS programs, have grown 16% and 30% respectively year on year. The Young and the Restless, another CBS program, was the third <a href="https://images.tenplay.com.au/%7E/media/Corporate%20Site%20Media/Files/Media%20Releases/2017/Network%20Ten%20First%20Half%202017%20Audience%20Report.pdf">highest viewed program</a> on Tenplay for the first half of 2017.</p>
<h2>Unanswered questions</h2>
<p>There are still a lot of unanswered questions about CBS’s purchase of Ten. The deal also needs to be approved by Ten’s creditors, the Foreign Investment Review Board and given permission to transfer all the shares from shareholders to CBS.</p>
<p>But if approved, CBS and Ten will be in a very powerful position due to CBS’ deep pockets, its large catalogue of content, and its position as a major supplier to many of its new competitors in the Australian market. </p>
<p>With CBS’ help, Ten has the opportunity to regain ground in an industry that is undergoing a major transition due to declining advertising revenues and the rise of streaming. But due to the content deals, the Ten purchase will have far greater impact than rescuing just one television station.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83095/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc C-Scott is a board member of C31 Melbourne (Community Television Station).</span></em></p>CBS is not only the likely new owner of Ten Network but a major supplier of content to every television network and streaming service.Marc C-Scott, Lecturer in Screen Media, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/657312016-09-21T00:01:47Z2016-09-21T00:01:47ZHarvard study: Policy issues nearly absent in presidential campaign coverage<p>Years ago, when I first started teaching and was at Syracuse University, one of my students ran for student body president on the tongue-in-cheek platform “Issues are Tissues, without a T.” </p>
<p>He was dismissing out of hand anything that he, or his opponents, might propose to do in office, noting that student body presidents have so little power as to make their platforms disposable.</p>
<p>Sadly, the news media appears to have taken a similar outlook in their coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign. The stakes in the election are high. Key decisions on foreign and domestic policy will be affected by the election’s outcome, as will a host of other issues, including the appointment of the newest Supreme Court justice. Yet, journalists have paid scant attention to the candidates’ platforms. </p>
<p>That conclusion is based on three reports on the news media’s coverage of the 2016 campaign that I have written for the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where I hold a faculty position. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-national-conventions/">third report</a> was released today and it covers the month-long period from the week before the Republican National Convention to the week after the Democratic National Convention. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://shorensteincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Pre-Primary-News-Coverage-Trump-Sanders-Clinton-2016.pdf">first report</a> analyzed coverage during the whole of the year 2015 – the so-called invisible primary period that precedes the first actual contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://shorensteincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Election-2016-Primary-Media-Coverage.pdf">second report</a> spanned the period of the primaries and caucuses. </p>
<h2>10 major outlets studied</h2>
<p>Each report was based on a detailed content analysis of the presidential election coverage on five television networks (ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC) and in five leading newspapers (Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and USA Today). </p>
<p>The analysis indicates that substantive policy issues have received only a small amount of attention so far in the 2016 election coverage. To be sure, “the wall” has been in and out of the news since Donald Trump vowed to build it. Other issues like ISIS and free trade have popped up here or there as well. But in the overall context of election coverage, issues have played second fiddle. They were at the forefront in the halls of the national conventions but not in the forefront of convention-period news coverage. Not a single policy proposal accounted for even 1 percent of Hillary Clinton’s convention-period coverage and, collectively, her policy stands accounted for a mere 4 percent of it. </p>
<p>Trump’s policies got more attention, but not until after the Democratic convention, when he made headlines several days running for his testy exchange with the parents of a slain Muslim U.S. soldier.</p>
<p>That exchange sparked a “controversy,” which is sure to catch reporters’ attention. We’ve seen that time and again this election year. Past elections were not much different, featuring everything from Jimmy Carter’s <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/frenzy/carter.htm">“lust in my heart”</a> Playboy interview in 1976 to Mitt Romney’s <a href="http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/did-the-47-percent-video-sink-romneys-campaign">“47 percent”</a> statement in 2012. None of these controversies was predictive of anything that happened in the presidency during the subsequent four years, but their coverage during the campaign overshadowed nearly every policy proposal put forth by the candidates.</p>
<p>“Medialities” is the label political scientist Michael Robinson has given to such controversies. Journalists find them irresistible, as political scientist <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=jGHNDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=%22Lance+Bennett%22+birther+claims+Trump&source=bl&ots=ex-lGyb3gz&sig=JFqBmO6eUHbTL2MsxgG4Eg7B2y0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNxOrk_Z3PAhXL6YMKHRpHDeQQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q=%22Lance%20Bennett%22%20birther%20claims%20Trump&f=false">W. Lance Bennett</a> noted when looking at Trump’s birther claims. When Trump in 2011 questioned whether President Obama was a native-born American, his statement was seized upon by cable outlets and stayed in the headlines and on newscasts for days. </p>
<p>Veteran CNN correspondent Candy Crowley interviewed Trump on this issue, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/us/17trump.html?_r=0">justifying it by saying</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There comes a point where you can’t ignore something, not because it’s entertaining.… The question was, ‘Is he driving the conversation?’ And he was.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In truth, the media were driving the conversation.</p>
<h2>What distracts us</h2>
<p>The leading “mediality” of the 2016 campaign has been Clinton’s emails. That and other news references to Clinton-related “scandals” accounted for 11 percent of her convention-period coverage, following the pattern of earlier stages of the campaign. What Clinton might do in the Middle East or with trade or with the challenge of income equality could reasonably be anyone’s guess, given how little attention her policy statements have received in the news.</p>
<p>At that, controversies rank second to the horse race as a staple of journalists’ diet. No aspect of the campaign meets journalists’ need for novelty more predictably than does the horse race. Each new poll or disruption gives journalists the opportunity to reassess the candidates’ tactics and positions in the race.</p>
<p>Policy issues, on the other hand, lack novelty. A new development may thrust a new issue into the campaign, but policy problems are typically longstanding. If they came and went overnight, they would not be problems. It is for this reason that when a candidate first announces a policy stand, it makes news. Later on, it normally doesn’t.</p>
<p>Granted, election news would be limp without attention to the horse race. The election’s bottom line – who will win in November? – is of undeniable interest. What’s open to debate is the relative importance of the horse race in the middle of the summer. During the convention period, even though questions of policy and leadership were on the agenda within the halls of the national conventions, they were not on journalists’ agenda. Polls, projections, strategy and the like constituted about a fifth of all coverage, whereas issues took up less than 1/12 and the candidates’ qualifications for the presidency accounted for less than 1/13.</p>
<p>As the campaign enters its final stage, one might hope that the press will provide America’s voters with information that can help them better understand the policy choices they face in November. No doubt, the presidential debates will help focus the public’s attention on the differences in the Trump and Clinton platforms. However, press coverage of past campaigns would suggest that news stories will take voters’ minds in a different direction. There’s a distinct possibility that voters will go to the polls in November with “the wall” and “emails” uppermost in their thoughts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65731/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas E. Patterson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How is the Trump-Clinton contest being covered by the country’s major newspapers and broadcasters? We look at the data.Thomas E. Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press, Harvard Kennedy SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/647892016-09-07T02:43:33Z2016-09-07T02:43:33ZHow ‘Star Trek’ almost failed to launch<p>On Sept. 8, 1966, TV viewers were transfixed by the appearance on screen of a green-hued, pointy-eared alien called Spock. But beneath the makeup, actor Leonard Nimoy fretted that this would be the end of his promising career. </p>
<p>“How can I play a character without emotion?” he <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CCN3CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA337&dq=It's+the+ears+or+me+Nimoy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMlMOBkPTOAhWBQiYKHeQUDTAQ6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=How%20do%20I%20play%20a%20character%20with%20no%20emotion%3F&f=false">asked</a> his boss, Gene Roddenberry. “I’m going to be on one note throughout the entire series.” </p>
<p>Nimoy thought he looked silly wearing the prosthetics that turned him into a Vulcan, at one point issuing an <a href="http://startrekdom.blogspot.com/2007/05/leonard-nimoys-lovehate-relationship.html">ultimatum</a>: “It’s me or the ears.” </p>
<p>Nimoy’s misgivings were just one of many problems the writers, producers and cast faced during “Star Trek”‘s troubled journey to the screen. Culled from <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=X2cBAAAACAAJ&dq=Inside+Star+Trek&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMzMm0kvTOAhVEOSYKHTpiA3sQ6AEIHjAA">their</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CCN3CgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+fifty-year+mission&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjD7Yy3zvXOAhXHQiYKHSLJDNsQ6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=The%20fifty-year%20mission&f=false">recollections</a>, this is the story of how “Star Trek”’s mission to explore strange new worlds was almost over before it began. </p>
<h2>Seeds of inspiration</h2>
<p>The ingredients of “Star Trek” had been slow-cooking in creator Gene Roddenberry’s brain for years. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CCN3CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA337&dq=It's+the+ears+or+me+Nimoy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMlMOBkPTOAhWBQiYKHeQUDTAQ6AEIMzAE#v=snippet&q=blimp&f=false">At first he wanted to write a show about a 19th-century blimp</a> that journeyed from place to place, making contact with distant peoples. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136808/original/image-20160906-25249-cejx16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136808/original/image-20160906-25249-cejx16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136808/original/image-20160906-25249-cejx16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136808/original/image-20160906-25249-cejx16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136808/original/image-20160906-25249-cejx16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136808/original/image-20160906-25249-cejx16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136808/original/image-20160906-25249-cejx16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Star Trek’ creator Gene Roddenberry in the early 1960s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/MONY_Gene_Roddenberry.JPG">Mutual of New York (MONY)/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Deciding instead to set the show in the future, Roddenberry drew upon his youthful immersion in science fiction magazines like <a href="http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=astounding">Astounding Stories</a>. Also important was his experience as a World War II bomber pilot, which caused him to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=jJlzRQQrIj4C&dq=Gene+Roddenberry+Yvonne+Fern&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=wasn%27t+just+an+aberration+of+man%27s+nature">ruminate</a> on human nature: Would we ever outgrow our obsession with violence? And from C.S. Forester’s <a href="https://www.loc.gov/nls/bibliographies/minibibs/horatio.html">Horatio Hornblower novels</a>, Roddenberry borrowed the idea of a courageous captain burdened by the duties of command.</p>
<p>With tiny Desilu Studios interested in making the show, Roddenberry pitched “Star Trek” to the networks. CBS passed after Roddenberry botched the pitch. But NBC bit and ordered a pilot episode, which was eventually titled “The Cage.”</p>
<h2>NBC responds to the pilot</h2>
<p>Watching “The Cage” now is a disorientating experience. In the captain’s chair is a sullen man called Pike, played by star Jeff Hunter. There is no sign of future series regulars McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, Checkov. Spock is there, but not quite the inscrutable Spock we would come to know. He shouts and, more than once, breaks into a wide grin. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SYPpgYwE7aY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The opening to ‘The Cage,’ ‘Star Trek’‘s first pilot episode.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The role of chilly logician and second in command is instead taken by “Number One,” a character played by actress Majel Barrett. </p>
<p>“Number One” wouldn’t make it past this trial run. In tests, some men and a surprisingly large number of women <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CCN3CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA337&dq=It's+the+ears+or+me+Nimoy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMlMOBkPTOAhWBQiYKHeQUDTAQ6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=the%20women%20hated%20her&f=false">objected to her stridency</a>, which was out of touch with the gender norms of the time. NBC doubted that Barrett could carry such a prominent role (and even thought Roddenberry had cast her because she was his mistress). </p>
<p>“The Cage” – a complicated story about alien mind-control – was an ambitious pilot. When Roddenberry presented it to NBC, the programming executives were blown away. But the sales and marketing department wasn’t convinced. Not enough action, <a href="https://www.quora.com/I-just-started-Star-Trek-Why-does-it-switch-between-Pike-in-the-first-episode-and-Kirk-in-the-subsequent-episodes">they thought</a>. It would be hard to promote. Pass. </p>
<p>“Star Trek,” it seemed, was dead. </p>
<h2>Striking gold with Shatner</h2>
<p>Roddenberry pleaded with NBC for another chance. He assured them he could make it action-driven, that it didn’t need to be high concept. A television miracle happened when NBC commissioned that rarest of things: a second pilot.</p>
<p>Roddenberry wanted Jeff Hunter to return as Captain Pike, and arranged to screen “The Cage” for him, reserving Desilu’s projection room for March 25, 1965. But Hunter was a no-show, sending his wife in his stead. “This is not the kind of show Jeff wants to do,” <a href="http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Christopher_Pike">she told Roddenberry</a>. “Jeff Hunter is a movie star.” Pike relinquished command. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136810/original/image-20160906-25279-17aqmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136810/original/image-20160906-25279-17aqmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136810/original/image-20160906-25279-17aqmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136810/original/image-20160906-25279-17aqmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136810/original/image-20160906-25279-17aqmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136810/original/image-20160906-25279-17aqmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136810/original/image-20160906-25279-17aqmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Shatner as Captain Kirk.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/William_Shatner_Star_Trek.JPG">NBC Television/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ebullient Canadian actor William Shatner was hired to play the ship’s captain, now named James R. (later James T.) Kirk. For Leonard Nimoy, the casting of Shatner, a stage actor accustomed to playing scenes big and loud, was the key to unlocking Spock.</p>
<p>“Jeff [Hunter] was playing Captain Pike as a very thoughtful, kind of worried, kind of angst-ridden nice guy,” Nimoy later <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=iw0TAgAACAAJ&dq=Star+Trek+Memories,+Shatner&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi2rLW8lPTOAhUM4yYKHTXXDFoQ6AEIJzAA">told</a> Shatner, in an interview for Shatner’s book “Star Trek Memories.” “Pike didn’t have the clarity or precision of character against which you could measure yourself.” </p>
<p>Shatner’s clear-cut performance carved out space for Nimoy to shape his saturnine Spock. “For lack of a better metaphor, on a bright sunny day, the shadows get very clear.”</p>
<p>The second pilot, bolstered by the Shatner/Nimoy tandem, was a winner. “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was a rollicking story about crew members irradiated in deep space and acquiring godlike powers. NBC liked it and commissioned a full season of “Star Trek.”</p>
<h2>Righting the ship after a stormy start</h2>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=X2cBAAAACAAJ&dq=Inside+Star+Trek&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMzMm0kvTOAhVEOSYKHTpiA3sQ6AEIHjAA">Triumph quickly turned to panic</a> for Roddenberry and for Desilu studios. Roddenberry needed scripts for the series – fast. He solicited stories from veteran TV writers, from sci-fi magazine and novel authors, and even from his office staff. His secretary Dorothy Fontana went on to become perhaps the most celebrated and prolific writer for the show. </p>
<p>But script problems would dog the young series. Veteran TV writers, unused to sci-fi, struggled to work within the universe Roddenberry had created. Sci-fi luminaries had boundless imaginations but little grasp of the practicalities of writing for television. Their scripts often called for casting and staging that would consume the budget for a feature film, let alone a fledgling TV series.</p>
<p>Roddenberry also wasn’t the best at managing the fragile egos of his writers. He took it upon himself to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CCN3CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA337&dq=It's+the+ears+or+me+Nimoy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMlMOBkPTOAhWBQiYKHeQUDTAQ6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=Roddenberry%20re-wrote&f=false">rewrite every script that made it on-screen</a>, and his pages were often slow to arrive on set. Scripting was a constant source of tension and delay. </p>
<p>For Desilu, the elation of getting “Star Trek” picked up <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=X2cBAAAACAAJ&dq=Inside+Star+Trek&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMzMm0kvTOAhVEOSYKHTpiA3sQ6AEIHjAA">was dampened by the financial reality of producing the show</a>. Network policy was to pay a set amount for each episode, calculated at something like 80 percent of the cost of production. For a small outfit like Desilu, deficit-financing both “Star Trek” and their other new show, “Mission Impossible,” required some accounting wizardry. Both were budgeted at US$200,000 per episode, with NBC kicking in $160,000. Any over-budget costs were born by the studio alone.</p>
<p>Tiny Desilu kept its head above water into the second season of “Star Trek” before finally drowning in debt. Studio owner and “I Love Lucy” star Lucille Ball was forced to sell to Paramount. Had she been able to hold on a few months more, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CCN3CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA337&dq=It's+the+ears+or+me+Nimoy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMlMOBkPTOAhWBQiYKHeQUDTAQ6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=Desilu%20money&f=false">she would have seen “Star Trek” picked up in 60 countries</a>. Had she retained the rights long-term, Desilu would have benefited financially from endless reruns of the show’s 79 episodes. Network-friendly deals also ensured it would be many years before the cast would gain financial security from their iconic roles.</p>
<p>With the premiere date rapidly approaching, NBC chose an episode titled “The Man Trap” to be the first to air. It is, in truth, a run-of-the-mill “Star Trek” episode. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CCN3CgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+fifty+year+mission&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJsJ6Xs_vOAhVEFh4KHV9_AdsQ6AEILTAB#v=snippet&q=monster&f=false">The network liked that it featured a creature</a> – a shape-shifting, salt-guzzling monster – with which the show’s heroes could do battle. </p>
<p>Although NBC’s marketing team had not initially seen the potential of “Star Trek,” by the time “The Man Trap” aired, they were able to trumpet the show in a glossy, multipage <a href="https://theinvisibleagent.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/star-trek-nbc-sales-pilot-sell-sheet-1966/">promotional brochure</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“As the Apollo moon shot moves steadily from the drawing board to the launching pad, STAR TREK takes TV viewers beyond our time and solar system to the unexplored interstellar deeps … the STAR TREK storylines will stimulate the imagination without bypassing the intellect. While speculating in a fascinating way about the future, the series also will have much to say that is meaningful to us today.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A half-century later, we are on the cusp of a <a href="http://www.tor.com/2016/09/03/star-trek-discovery-secrets-revealed-at-missions-nyc/">new CBS series</a> set in the universe Roddenberry created. (CBS acquired the rights to “Star Trek” some years ago following a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lhmw637JRgUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA209#v=onepage&q&f=false">complicated series of corporate maneuverings</a>.) Titled “Star Trek: Discovery” and scheduled for release in January 2017, the new series has no doubt had to contend with its own casting controversies, script problems and budget constraints. </p>
<p>The writers of the new show certainly know enough about Trek’s turbulent beginnings to temper expectations: “If you go in with open minds and open hearts, you may be rewarded,” <a href="http://fandom.wikia.com/articles/star-trek-discovery-writer-lower-expectations">they told a crowd</a> eager for news at the Star Trek: Mission New York convention held over Labor Day weekend. “Whereas if you go with a set of impossible-to-realize expectations, which even you cannot specifically define, then we’re bound to fail.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64789/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Benedict Dyson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With a pilot that was deemed too complex and cerebral, ‘Star Trek’ looked dead in the water. Fifty years later, we look back at the show’s rocky beginnings.Stephen Benedict Dyson, Professor of Political Science, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/561942016-03-14T15:28:09Z2016-03-14T15:28:09ZMarch Madness means money – it’s time to talk about who’s getting paid<p>The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is down to the Sweet Sixteen. And from now until the final on April 4, CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting will bring you every game, focusing on the buzzer beaters, the Cinderella stories, the athletes overcoming the odds.</p>
<p>It’ll all end, as it always does, with confetti guns and net-cutting, and a video montage of highlights played over <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOu6bCDiZm4">“One Shining Moment.”</a></p>
<p>What you won’t see much about is who benefits financially by participating in a tournament that generates hundreds of millions of dollars for the NCAA. Yes, the players earn scholarships, as will athletes in nonrevenue sports, whose schooling is also funded through tournament profits. </p>
<p>But one thing that gets very little attention is the fact that the men who put the basketball players through drills every day stand to go home with substantial bonuses on top of their already handsome salaries.</p>
<p>If the media – including CBS and Turner, but other sports news outlets as well – started to note that routinely, it would add balance to coverage that makes it seem as if the whole tournament is just played for laughs. </p>
<p>Why be the killjoy at the national party that is March Madness? And why accent coaches’ pay in particular?</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kOu6bCDiZm4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Money-making machine</h2>
<p>The answer is that coverage of the tournament focuses on the competition – the games themselves – and the surrounding hoopla so narrowly that the overall image of the three-week event is incomplete to the point of being disingenuous. </p>
<p>It all looks like so much fun and nothing else. But here’s the real deal. The tournament is <a href="http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/finances/revenue">the primary money-maker for the entire NCAA</a>, accounting for the vast majority of the <a href="http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/finances">US$905 million</a>in revenue it reported in its latest financial statement, for the year ended August 31.</p>
<p>Most of this money comes from the lucrative television contracts owing to the very high ratings the games draw. In 2006, for example, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/march-madness-follow-the-money/">CBS and Turner agreed to pay</a> $11 billion to host the tournament for 14 years beginning in 2010 – about $771 million annually. </p>
<p>Where do these millions of dollars go?</p>
<p>Not to the cities, whose taxpayers bear some of the costs of hosting the games. <a href="http://www.nku.edu/%7Elipping/PHE385/ncaa.pdf">Research shows</a> the host cities don’t get much indirect economic benefit to show for it either. </p>
<p>In fact, much of what the NCAA makes goes back to athletic conferences – college sports leagues, for the uninitiated – and schools. </p>
<p>As the sports governing body puts it on its <a href="http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/finances/revenue">website</a>: “All but 4 percent of NCAA revenue is either returned directly to member conferences and institutions or used to support championships and programs that benefit student-athletes.”</p>
<p>In other words, a healthy chunk of the whole college sports scene is paid for by March Madness, the single biggest moment in the college sports calendar.</p>
<p>Of course, the athletes themselves don’t get compensated beyond their scholarships, despite <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fancy-stats/wp/2014/08/11/the-average-ncaa-basketball-player-is-worth-212080/">how much money</a> they bring in. They are playing for pride, for the chance to be champions and for the attention that brings. </p>
<p>However, a lot of other people – in addition to working for all those things – do get compensated. And at the top of this list are the guys on the bench with the players – their coaches.</p>
<h2>A right to know</h2>
<p>See, while tournament money doesn’t go directly from the NCAA to coaches, it does go to schools, who pay the salaries of coaches, who often receive bonuses for various performance metrics, including their teams making and advancing in the NCAA tournament.</p>
<p>Many of the 68 schools that will play in the 2016 tournament are public universities and colleges, which means two things. </p>
<p>One, those coaching salaries, <a href="http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/mens-basketball/coach">many in the millions</a>, are the people’s money, and the public has a right to know how its cash is being spent. It’s arguable that the media – particularly independent news organizations reporting on the tournament – even have an obligation to remind the world of coaches’ contracts at this time of year. </p>
<p>Two, in most cases, the salaries and bonuses of those coaches are a matter of public record. It’s not hard to request the contracts of basketball coaches or find them online, so the media’s task would not be onerous. </p>
<p>Often, journalists may be so caught up in game coverage they don’t think to check – that’s my excuse for why I didn’t look up the coaches’ contracts when I covered the Final Four in 2012 with the Associated Press. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, it’s not hard to find the contract details for most coaches at public universities. </p>
<p>One of the most high-profile games in the Sweet Sixteen this year, for example, will pit Indiana (head coach Tom Crean) against North Carolina (coached by Roy Williams). </p>
<p>While their players will get nothing for winning that game, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1344009-tom-crean-contract.html">Crean stands to earn a bonus of $50,000</a> for a victory, and <a href="http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/college/mens-basketball/article24971146.html">Williams would get a bump of $200,000</a> if the Tar Heels advance.</p>
<p>Worth mentioning on TV?</p>
<p><em>USA Today</em> has a notable tradition of creating a database of <a href="http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/mens-basketball/coach/">tournament coaches’ salaries</a> that includes a “maximum bonus” column, and it isn’t the only paper that has shone a light on the hundreds of millions of dollars generated by the NCAA tournament and the people it benefits. Yet those stories tend to be one-offs that fade away quickly at a time when Americans fill out <a href="http://espn.go.com/chalk/story/_/id/12465741/estimated-70-million-brackets-9-million-bets-ncaa-tournament">40 million tournament brackets</a> and typically wager about $9 billion - more than double during the Super Bowl - most of it illegally.</p>
<p>Once the ball is tipped, fans care mostly about winning.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114906/original/image-20160314-11302-kgut3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114906/original/image-20160314-11302-kgut3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114906/original/image-20160314-11302-kgut3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114906/original/image-20160314-11302-kgut3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114906/original/image-20160314-11302-kgut3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114906/original/image-20160314-11302-kgut3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114906/original/image-20160314-11302-kgut3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fans are expected to wager $9 billion during the tournament, more than double bets on the Super Bowl.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NCAA brackets via www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why we should do it</h2>
<p>But the purpose of the bonus exercise wouldn’t actually be reform – it would be about creating well-rounded sports coverage and informing the public.</p>
<p>It’s the difference between a single story, or series of stories, as in the case of recent reporting on college sports finances by <em><a href="http://www.poynter.org/2016/how-2-washington-post-reporters-blew-open-excess-spending-in-college-sports/392532/">The Washington Post</a>,</em> and a steady reminder that could change the nature of how the media frames the sports landscape.</p>
<p>If CBS/Turner made the first move toward that by flashing an infographic on the screen early in each of the NCAA tournament’s 65 game with the coaches’ salaries and potential bonuses at stake, then discussed it for 30 seconds, it would help the American public understand at deeper level the business side of March Madness.</p>
<p>It also would send a message that the media is willing to be transparent about financial implications of the events it covers. That’s nothing more or less than good reporting.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to include the latest revenue figures from the NCAA’s financial statement, remove a reference to the start of the tournament and add a fresh example of coach bonuses.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56194/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Affleck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is a huge money-maker, but you wouldn’t know it from the coverage on TV.John Affleck, Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/524222015-12-23T11:14:13Z2015-12-23T11:14:13ZWhy 2015 was the year that changed TV forever<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106917/original/image-20151222-27851-1n1x5cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will TV's future flicker into focus?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-1572798/stock-photo-untuned-picture-on-a-television.html?src=csl_recent_image-2">'Screen' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“The end of television” is a headline that’s been liberally thrown around for the past 15 years.</p>
<p>Indeed, the past year saw audiences becoming more and more amenable to adopting new ways to watch TV shows, with live audiences for broadcast and cable programs <a href="http://variety.com/2015/tv/features/broadcast-nets-move-closer-to-developing-ratings-that-consider-auds-delayed-viewing-habits-1201430321/">declining sharply</a>.</p>
<p>Even entities like ESPN – which many thought immune to these changes in audience behavior – acknowledged subscriber losses this year. In response, Wall Street engaged in a <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/05/media/disney-stock-down-espn/">mass sell-off</a> of media stocks. Most rebounded by year’s end, but the volatility is indicative of the uncertainty in a sector that finds its core business model being disrupted.</p>
<p>But viewers are actually watching more TV than ever before. They’re simply shifting to on-demand options from cable operators and broadband services.</p>
<p>Over the last five years, an influx of new broadband-delivered offerings has driven changes in audience behavior that challenge the businesses of traditional broadcast and cable television channels. Likewise, cable providers find themselves scrambling to adapt to new competition from leaner channel packages that offer flexible pricing options.</p>
<p>Contrary to what the headlines often suggest, the internet – or rather, broadband distribution – hasn’t come to kill television. Instead, it’s radically improving it. </p>
<h2>A tenuous peace</h2>
<p>In the 1990s, many assumed the ascendance of what was dubbed “new media” (anything digital or delivered via the internet) would bring about the demise of “old media” including television. </p>
<p>But media don’t die. Rather, their distribution technologies are frequently replaced. So while new media assassins still haven’t killed – or even maimed – television, a revolutionary transition did begin for the medium in 2015.</p>
<p>The most disruptive form of “new media” for television is broadband distribution (what most casually think of as internet streaming). Companies that deliver video over broadband – Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, YouTube – use a new (and in many ways, better) technology for delivering traditional television shows.</p>
<p>Since 2010, broadband-delivered video services and “legacy television” (a more generous name for broadcast and cable TV than “old media”) actually enjoyed an unexpected symbiosis. Rather than battle to the death, the two quietly became neighboring options for viewers, and to some extent, partners. </p>
<p>Broadband television distributors (Netflix, in particular) provided a much-needed new revenue stream to traditional networks by paying them high fees to use their shows. In exchange, Netflix was able to disseminate the high-quality television content needed to woo viewers. As a result, Netflix slowly reacculturated expectations of how television should be experienced: that it needn’t be watched at a specific time, with a week between episodes, and interrupted every 10 minutes with commercials. </p>
<p>But this past year, the tenuous détente fell apart when some of the biggest players in the legacy television industry decided to launch their <em>own</em> broadband-distributed services.</p>
<p>The biggest developments were HBO’s launch of HBO Now and CBS’s debut of CBS All Access. Like Netflix, both services require a subscription payment (though All Access has ads too) that allows customers to access a deep library of content they can watch according to their own schedules. </p>
<p>Several other services also launched, including Nickelodeon’s Noggin, which has hundreds of episodes geared toward preschoolers. And NBC and Disney jumped in with the comedy portal SeeSo and DisneyLife, respectively. </p>
<h2>It’s broadcast technology that’s in peril</h2>
<p>Traditional broadcast technologies allowed for the transmission of only a single stream of programming at a time. This gave rise to almost all of the TV conventions that viewers have come to know: a schedule, channels, fixed program lengths and intermittent advertising. </p>
<p>If you think about it, these aren’t conventions specific to the television medium. Rather, they’re responses to broadcasting’s technological limitations. </p>
<p>Sometimes the arrival of new distribution technologies introduces only moderate change, like when the music industry shifted from records to cassettes. Other times, new distribution technologies require a radical reconfiguration of business models and completely change the user experience of a medium. </p>
<p>This is what’s now happening for television.</p>
<p>And just as streaming makes for a very different viewing experience, it is also changing the nature of the shows that are made. Streaming services produce content targeted to <a href="https://theconversation.com/fresh-off-the-boat-and-the-rise-of-niche-tv-37451">narrower niches</a> and sensibilities. They’ve also allowed for much greater experimentation and diversity <a href="http://nyti.ms/1RAm8xb">in the ways stories are told and structured</a>.</p>
<h2>A post-network era</h2>
<p>These recent developments illustrate how profoundly norms of making and watching television will continue to shift in coming years.</p>
<p>When announcing the new version of Apple TV in September, <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/personal-technology/2015/09/09/apples-tim-cook-we-believe-the-future-of-tv-is-apps/">Apple CEO Tim Cook said</a> that the “future of TV is apps.” That’s one way to characterize the new services. They also could be thought of as the “channels” of the post-network era of broadband distribution. At their core, they’re portals to content; most require a monthly fee, but many are also ad-free and can be easily viewed on a number of devices, from smartphones to traditional television sets.</p>
<p>As portals have introduced new ways to view content, traditional cable bundles also appear to be at a crossroads. The cable bundle is the package of over 100 channels required in even the “basic” digital package. Since most viewers watch fewer than 20 channels, many feel that they’re overpaying for content. </p>
<p>Dubbed “skinny bundles,” Sling TV, Sony Vue and Verizon’s Fios Custom TV all began offering packages of channels that can be experienced as a typical channel with scheduled programming, in addition to some on-demand content. Like the portals, these skinny bundles are delivered via broadband and add to the competition by providing a cheaper alternative (though also far fewer channel options) for consumers who want to reduce their cable bill.</p>
<p>Despite the added competition, cable providers still find themselves in an enviable position. The portals and the skinny bundles both require high-speed internet service, which most receive from those very same cable companies. And in 2015, <a href="http://recode.net/2015/05/04/this-is-the-quarter-comcast-becomes-an-internet-company/">internet subscribers surpassed cable subscribers</a> at Comcast, the nation’s largest “cable” company. </p>
<p>In response to the growing reliance on high-speed internet, several broadband providers are moving forward with <a href="https://medium.com/backchannel/big-cable-s-sledgehammer-is-coming-down-2c6854e8bea9#.3yn0zhtni">plans to shift to usage-based billing</a>, similar to data-use pricing from mobile phone companies. </p>
<p>History suggests that fewer than half of the portals or broadband distributed bundles announced this year will exist once business models catch up with technology and the experimenting of the past year gives way to consolidation. It’s not clear who will eventually dominate the post-network era of broadband distribution. But based on the scope of new broadband delivered entries, it’s obvious that legacy companies have been preparing to pivot to broadband distribution. The embrace of broadband technology makes clear that television’s future innovation won’t be confined to a linear schedule. </p>
<p>Whether the portals are the chicken or the egg, a vision for the future of television is flickering into focus.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52422/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Lotz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A post-network era looms. What does this mean for the way we watch – and pay for – television shows?Amanda Lotz, Fellow, Peabody Media Center; Professor of Media Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/469122015-09-09T14:33:59Z2015-09-09T14:33:59ZStephen Colbert’s Late Show feasts on political fare<p>Stephen Colbert’s hopes and prayers have come true. </p>
<p>Last month, Colbert – the new host, executive producer and writer of CBS’ The Late Show – <a href="http://nypost.com/2015/08/11/colbert-im-just-dry-trumping-until-im-back-on-the-air/">told the New York Post</a>, “Every night I light a candle that [Donald Trump] stays in the race until September 8.” </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, during Colbert’s debut, the Republican <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_republican_presidential_nomination-3823.html">front-runner</a> was the butt of the host’s barbs. </p>
<p>“Just like the rest of the media, I will be covering all the candidates who are Donald Trump,” Colbert gleefully said. </p>
<p>After playing a clip of Trump saying he was swearing off of Oreos because Nabisco was closing a plant in Chicago and opening one in Mexico, Colbert gorged himself on Oreos while riffing about everything from Trump’s stance on immigration (“He’s the only candidate brave enough to deport the Keebler elves”), to his hair. </p>
<p>It’s no coincidence Colbert chose to begin hosting the show the day after Labor Day, the traditional start of the political campaign season. In a USA Today article published earlier this week, Colbert <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2015/09/07/colbert-gets-tips-letterman/71658618/">was quoted</a> as saying he is “uniquely positioned” to discuss politics on his show. </p>
<p>Colbert did praise his predecessor, David Letterman, effusively. But if the first episode is any indication, Colbert will attempt to craft the show in his own image – with politics playing a bigger role on The Late Show than it has in the past. </p>
<h2>Will Bush get a Colbert bump?</h2>
<p>Indeed, Colbert firmly established himself as a political satirist while hosting Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. And while actor George Clooney made an appearance on The Late Show – as did musical legends Mavis Staples and Buddy Guy – politics were front and center Tuesday night, with Republican presidential candidate and former Florida governor Jeb Bush the featured guest.</p>
<p>Colbert introduced Bush as, “with one exception aside – which we’ll get to later – the front runner for the Republican nomination.” (Actually, Colbert was being generous; Bush has been polling in the single digits, trailing political outsiders Trump and Ben Carson.) </p>
<p>It’s not clear whether Bush will get the “Colbert bump” – a term Colbert coined on his previous show suggesting that an appearance will boost a guest’s popularity. </p>
<p>Researchers have actually <a href="http://www.jstor.org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/stable/pdf/20452245.pdf?acceptTC=true">analyzed</a> the “Colbert bump.” Their results don’t bode well for Bush’s flagging campaign. </p>
<p>The study found no difference in votes for candidates who appeared on the show. And while Democratic candidates did see a significant bump in campaign contributions, donations remained flat – and even dropped in some cases – after Republican candidates came on the show. </p>
<h2>The ‘new’ Colbert</h2>
<p>Colbert’s emphasis on politics was true to form, though his personality was clearly his own – not the iconic conservative pundit caricature he formulated for his previous show. </p>
<p>As Colbert told Bush, “I used to play a narcissistic conservative pundit; now I’m just a narcissist.” And in the show’s opening monologue, Colbert told the audience, “With this show I begin the search for the real Stephen Colbert. I only hope I don’t find him on Ashley Madison.” </p>
<p>Prior to last night’s show, Colbert made clear he would be himself on The Late Show, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2015/08/10/colbert-dry-trumping-until-new-show/31438453/">saying</a> he wanted to drop the character so he could have honest conversations with his guests. </p>
<p>On last night’s show, the ‘real’ Stephen Colbert was considerably less inane. But he was every bit as political – and considerably more straightforward – than his Colbert Report meme. </p>
<p>He asked Bush how he differed from his brother on policy and whether he thought he could bring people together, noting that governing had become “a game of blood sport.” </p>
<p>Speaking specifically about presidential politics, Colbert observed that “for seven years on the Republican side, the emotional needle has been nailed – bang – in one spot: ‘Obama Bad’… And the Democrats have to argue, ‘He’s the best’ just to counter that emotional narrative that the Republicans have. Do you think you could change that sort of [narrative that] the other side is the devil?” </p>
<p>But Colbert brought the funny to the interview, too. When Bush discussed improvements in school performance while he was governor of Florida, Colbert noted that schools are a local issue. He then asked, “What can you, as president, do for the schools other than have your picture up in the classrooms?” </p>
<p>Viewers should expect a similar focus on politics in the coming weeks: Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and Vice President Joe Biden are both set to appear as guests. </p>
<p>And it’s clear that – as I’ve <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/stewartcolbert-effect-essays-on-the-real-impacts-of-fake-news/oclc/728658498">previously argued</a> – Colbert continues to play the role of jester, speaking truth to political power with humor. </p>
<p>Only now he does so from behind the desk of a real late night talk show rather than a fake news show, with the potential to reach a considerably larger audience on a major broadcast network.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Fox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In shedding the caricature of a conservative pundit, Colbert can have more substantive conversations with his guests, while still employing his unique brand of satire.Julia Fox, Associate Professor in the Media School , Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/378742015-02-25T10:56:49Z2015-02-25T10:56:49ZThe origins of the all-powerful news anchor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72938/original/image-20150224-25702-1mvg30e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">NBC newscaster John Cameron Swayze was television's first "anchor man" – though not for presenting the news. The term referred to his status as permanent panelist of the quiz show Who Said That?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/John_Cameron_Swayze_News_Caravan_1955.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Amidst the media tumult over NBC anchor Brian Williams’ apparent journalistic crimes, a little history on the role of the news anchor can help with some big questions. How did we get here: a place where news organizations put so much power in one person, a place where that person is allowed – even encouraged – to frequent entertainment and “fake news” shows?</p>
<p>Contrary to popular belief, the anchor has not always dominated American television news (a topic I’ve recently <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08821127.2015.967149#.VOSXh0Lxpq4">written about for American Journalism</a>). The title wasn’t even affixed to the nightly newscaster until the mid-1960s. </p>
<p>But over time, the position’s prominence has grown, influencing the economics and control structure within news organizations. And as we’ve seen, the rise of the star anchor can hamper the news gathering ability and journalistic integrity of major media networks. </p>
<h2>Anchoring the…quiz show?</h2>
<p>When television gained a large audience in the late 1940s, the main newscaster was hardly the most important element of the broadcast. As late as 1948, NBC’s main offering, The Camel Newsreel Theater, was controlled by the advertiser and a newsreel company. The narrator was never even seen by viewers. </p>
<p>CBS spent the 1940s creating the newscast format we know today, with a newscaster guiding the viewer through the news. But over the course of a few years, CBS used more than a dozen newscasters, considering the role less important than the visualized stories.</p>
<p>In 1948, CBS executives settled on Douglas Edwards for its nightly newscast, mainly because none of the famous <a href="http://dca.lib.tufts.edu/features/murrow/exhibit/boys.html">Murrow Boys</a> of CBS Radio wanted the job. The next year, NBC switched to the newscast format and the sponsor wanted John Cameron Swayze to be the face of the renamed Camel News Caravan.</p>
<p>Swayze was television’s first “anchor man,” but not for his newscasting. In addition to news, he was also a permanent panelist on the quiz show Who Said That? Since the other celebrity panelists came and went each week, Swayze was called the “anchor man” of the quiz show, because he was the one permanent personality. NBC and media writers clearly distinguished between his role as “anchor man” on the quiz show and his position as newscaster on the nightly news. The designation of “anchor man” then spread to other quiz shows in the late 1940s and early 1950s.</p>
<p>The term transitioned from quiz shows to formal news in 1952, when Walter Cronkite was chosen to lead the political convention coverage. In a CBS press release, his role was described as “anchor man.” Cronkite became a hit with viewers so CBS continued using the anchorman descriptor. From the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s, the term became synonymous with political convention and election night coverage. </p>
<p>Even when Walter Cronkite replaced Douglas Edwards on the CBS Evening News in 1962, he was considered an anchor only during political conventions and a newscaster on the nightly news. Meanwhile, the anchorman designation faded from quiz show use after Swayze left <a href="http://youtu.be/2CYoMqSbh5I">Who Said That</a>?</p>
<h2>Prominence equates to power – and control</h2>
<p>While Cronkite is usually celebrated as television’s first and most iconic anchorman, another aspect of his 1962 promotion can be viewed as the start of the slippery slope that has led to today’s problem at NBC. Cronkite not only became the main newscaster for CBS, but he also insisted on the title of managing editor – which gave him overall control of the newscast. </p>
<p>As Cronkite became the most famous face at CBS, he also had final say over the network’s signature broadcast. With Cronkite’s long and celebrated journalism career, few questioned his credentials for the managing editor title. Staff members did learn Cronkite expected to be on camera for at least six minutes during the newscast. They started referring to his on-camera time as <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Evening-Stars-Making-Network/dp/0395339685">“the magic.”</a> </p>
<p>“Anchor” started to replace the term “newscaster” in television news in the mid-to-late 1960s, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Viewers-Watch-Reappraisal-Televisions/dp/0803940777">after television news surpassed newspapers as the most popular news medium in the United States</a>. The rise of television news coincided with a period political scientist and media scholar Daniel Hallin calls the “high modernism” era of journalism – when journalists promoted the idea that they were objective and uniquely qualified to publish and present the news of the day. It was a time when Walter Cronkite could confidently look in the camera and finish each broadcast with “And that’s the way it is.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72936/original/image-20150224-25664-mlu4vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72936/original/image-20150224-25664-mlu4vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72936/original/image-20150224-25664-mlu4vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72936/original/image-20150224-25664-mlu4vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72936/original/image-20150224-25664-mlu4vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72936/original/image-20150224-25664-mlu4vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72936/original/image-20150224-25664-mlu4vq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">And that’s the way it is: Walter Cronkite’s rise to fame established the power and influence of the network news anchor – many of whom maintained editorial control of the newscast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walter_Cronkite_on_television_1976.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this period, more than 9 out of every 10 homes had at least one television set, but viewers had few channel choices (and had to watch programs live), leading to communal dinner hour news viewing. Local stations had also begun to invest more heavily in news, so the “anchor” term easily transitioned to newscasters across the country. In a 1967 New York City <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Deciding-Whats-News-Newsweek-American/dp/0810122375">survey</a>, sociologist Herbert Gans found that 40% of viewers said they chose their newscast because of the anchor, while only 10% watched because of the quality of the program.</p>
<p>The instances of newscasters doubling as hosts of entertainment shows, or making cross-promotion appearances (as Brian Williams was keen to do) are as old as the job itself. Like Swayze, ABC newscaster John Daly worked on a quiz show (What’s My Line?). Also in the 1950s, Edward R. Murrow often interviewed celebrities on his Person to Person program, while Walter Cronkite hosted You Are There, a weekly reenactment of an historical event. After he became a famous anchor, Cronkite made an appearance on his network’s Mary Tyler Moore Show, alongside the quintessential lampoon of the news anchor, Ted Baxter. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A memorable 1970 debate on the Dick Cavett Show about the merits of television news, featuring Janis Joplin, Raquel Welch and NBC’s Chet Huntley. For decades, news anchors have been making appearances on entertainment shows.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Putting all their eggs in one anchor</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, ABC considered the anchor as the easiest path to higher ratings. First ABC raided NBC for Barbara Walters, paying her one million dollars to co-anchor the news. When that approach did not bring in enough viewers, ABC offered the anchor job to both CBS’s Dan Rather and NBC’s Tom Brokaw. Both men leveraged ABC’s offers into main anchor jobs at the their respective networks, forcing both Cronkite and NBC’s John Chancellor into premature abdications of their anchor chairs.</p>
<p>With each successive negotiation, the main anchor amassed both more money and more power over the network newscast. But those newscasts had reached their peak. In the 1980s, government broadcast deregulation meant less pressure to fund and broadcast news programs, as viewers accumulated more viewing options through cable and satellite programming. New corporate owners of the three major networks started <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=9780943875583">slashing</a> news budgets, especially as viewers started drifting away from the broadcast networks’ nightly newscast.</p>
<p>Even as bureaus were shut down and employees were fired, the salaries and power of the main anchors kept increasing, revealing the growing divide between the anchor and the rest of the news organization. An anchor’s perceived ability to bring viewers to the newscast trumped even the authority of the network news presidents, so the main anchor not only controlled the newscast, but also had heavy influence over the network news operation. As CBS News endured deep budget cuts in the mid-1980s, CBS’s Dan Rather briefly ended his newscast with the word, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Anchors-Brokaw-Jennings-Rather-Evening/dp/1559720190">“courage.”</a> Critics whispered he could show real courage by cutting his salary to save some jobs. Twenty years later, CBS tried to revive its news ratings by poaching Katie Couric from NBC, with disappointing <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/18/entertainment/la-et-onthemedia-20110518">results.</a> </p>
<p>The past thirty years have seen the network nightly news audiences getting smaller and older. Since younger people aren’t watching network news, one strategy has been to get the anchors to appear on programs that are more popular with these viewers. One of Brian Williams’ strengths was the ease at which he could change personas, from serious newscaster to genial talk show guest. Williams appeared on a number of entertainment programs – some more than once – including <a href="http://youtu.be/TGW_guW7KbI">30 Rock</a>,<a href="http://youtu.be/aHmf-rv9obw">Saturday Night Live</a>, <a href="http://youtu.be/D25l1SWOF9M">The Tonight Show</a>, <a href="http://youtu.be/PQ-qvI_10Qg">The Late Show</a> and <a href="http://youtu.be/f_aBkZPhdBI">The Daily Show</a>. His inflated Iraq war story didn’t raise too many eyebrows on entertainment programs, but when he presented that version onto the nightly news, the reaction was swift and harsh.</p>
<p>Even with diminished importance, impact and audiences for the nightly newscast, news executives have made few changes to the overall format and have continued to bestow great power to the face of the nightly news, mainly because it is less expensive – and more likely to positively impact ratings – to pay one person a lot of money, as opposed to gambling on a new approach, or investing in more news gathering capabilities. But as NBC is learning the hard way, the impact on ratings can work both ways.</p>
<p>While many see the Williams suspension as a veiled half-year tryout for Lester Holt, one wonders if NBC – along with the other networks – might use this experience to re-examine the risky tradition of bestowing so much power, and salary, to just one member of a vast, multi-million dollar, legacy news operation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37874/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Conway does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the beginning, newscasters weren’t even visible to TV news viewers. With Walter Cronkite, everything changed.Mike Conway, Associate Professor of Journalism, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/262642014-05-09T13:29:37Z2014-05-09T13:29:37ZUS late-night talk wars: CBS is brave to pitch a political satirist against the two Jimmys<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48168/original/dkhqzsk8-1399634871.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stephen Colbert slicing and dicing them on the Colbert Report</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ultravod/3347917352/in/photolist-8bVNVF-8PWLJQ-8BCb7e-8PWJ7y-EzmiG-8PWLYL-8PTDz6-8PWLDL-5ZYqPK-8PTEnZ-8PMJo8-8PQNzE-wn1ow-k3q1a-66QXbY-e8uV4K-8PTCAH-7HtGDc-7HxD8m-5YLot9-8HFeS7-8Sdqxf-8PTEvx-8PWHWW-8QgedV-8PTEQg-8PTDfV-8PWKYL-8PWKeU-8PWJe5-8PWKL1-8PTFmc-8PTDZe-8PTCTr-8PWMtE-8PWJML-8PWJ4q-8PWMhu-8PWKnC-8PTCQg-8PTDDt-8PTDmB-8PWKMC-8PTEFe-8PTERM-8PWJyf-8PTDLg-8PTCWZ-8PTDBz-8PWMsj">Dan Correla</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The news that Jimmy Kimmel’s contract as host of ABC’s late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! is being extended for two years completes a period of upheaval in this great American genre. </p>
<p>Jimmy Fallon is still settling into his chair as the replacment to Jay Leno on the NBC Tonight Show. Stephen Colbert is taking over from David Letterman on Late Show on CBS at some point next year. Among others he defeated Scots-born Craig Ferguson, who duly announced he was stepping down from his acclaimed Late Late Show that follows Letterman in CBS’s 12.30am slot. </p>
<p>Now that Kimmel, another contender to take over from Letterman, is staying put until at least 2017, the battle lines can now be drawn for the next phase of late-night talk wars between the three networks, each broadcasting on all five weeknights. </p>
<p>Given his remarkable longevity, most eyes have inevitably been trained on Letterman and his succession. Implicit in the passing of one great television icon and the anointing of another is the promise of epochal change, a sense that nothing will ever be the same again. </p>
<p>Indeed, a misty-eyed backward glance through broadcasting history would seem to support that impression. We had the Sullivan era, the Carson era, and now, just coming to an end, the Letterman era. Yet the story of the late-night network talk show in America is as much one of continuity as it is of change. The king is dead. Long live the king.</p>
<h2>The young pretender</h2>
<p>David Letterman has been a constant presence on American television screens since 1982, when he began hosting Late Night With David Letterman for NBC in the equivalent slot to the one that Ferguson currently occupies on CBS. Tent-poled by Johnny Carson’s long-established Tonight Show, Late Night was riskier and less polished, but became essential viewing for younger audiences. Unlike the paternal Sullivan, or the avuncular Carson, Letterman was the smirking kid brother of American television. </p>
<p>Despite having followed Carson’s time-slot for a decade, like Ferguson, Letterman was passed over when his mentor retired. He then made the move to CBS, where The Late Show with David Letterman has run for more than two decades. It has made its once impish host into a broadcasting institution, even as broadcasting continued to change around him. </p>
<p>The continued existence of live network television talk shows is an anomaly at a time when the most urgent and relevant television is increasingly produced by cable or online services. Yet the sense remains that figures like Letterman belong to the nation as a whole. Certainly the announcement of his retirement live on air on April 3 triggered a national response.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show returns to New York after over 40 years.</span></figcaption>
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<p>This was despite the fact that Letterman is far from dominating his slot. Indeed, <a href="http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/05/08/abc-is-the-most-watched-network-in-late-night-for-the-3rd-consecutive-week/261786/">lately he has trailed</a> both Fallon and Kimmel in the ratings. Fallon is an alumnus of NBC’s Saturday Night Live. He is an energetic performer and gifted musical mimic who seems to be taking late-night hosting in a showier direction.</p>
<h2>The market leader</h2>
<p>But the current leader is Kimmel, whose laddish persona is perhaps the closest of the current late-night hosts to Letterman at his peak. His show has been running for more than 11 years, having gradually been moved from a 12.30am starting slot to its current 11.35pm.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Kimmel: The host to beat.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Contrary to the hopes of many, the hosts of the major network late-night talk shows will remain uniformly white, male and straight. (Even the presidency is more broadly representative of the American public than that… just.) </p>
<p>But aside from this awkward issue, CBS’s replacement for Letterman was always going to have to offer something bold and different to his two rivals. Colbert is a very different proposition. He is host of Comedy Central’s satirical news show, The Colbert Report, where he has made his name as a spoof right-wing republican. </p>
<p>Contrast this with Craig Ferguson, whose relaxed and sometimes confessional humour has made him the biggest Scottish cultural export that many people will never have heard of. His Late Late Show was produced by Letterman’s own production company, Worldwide Pants Inc, and was shielded from mediocre ratings by its famous patron. Now with Letterman gone, Ferguson has also lost his seat at the table, though it will be fascinating to see how he reinvents himself.</p>
<h2>Kneel before network television</h2>
<p>Yet if the landscape of late-night network television is still as cut-throat and unrepresentative as ever, in other ways it may be changing for the better. In contrast to the less politically aware comedy of Fallon and Kimmel, CBS’s selection of Colbert is a reminder that, first and foremost, broadcast television is and should be important –- not just in the Ed Sullivan sense of being a bellwether for American popular culture, but in the sense of living up to the responsibility of speaking for and to a nation. </p>
<p>While CBS certainly hopes that Colbert will bring with him some of the youthful audience he has amassed during his time at Comedy Central, they have also given the reins of a live prime-time show to an important comedian who came of age in a time of important comedy.</p>
<p>During the years of the Bush presidency, the decline in the legitimacy of television news, led by Fox News Channel, left a hole at the centre of popular and political culture where intelligent debate and discussion might have thrived. What grew there instead was comedy: the bleak acerbic gallows humour of Bill Maher; the barely-concealed righteous anger of John Stewart; and the so-stupid-it’s-smart satire of Stephen Colbert. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Stephen Colbert’s spoof persona offers Donald Trump $1m for a little lovin’</span></figcaption>
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<p>These comedians answered a keenly felt need on the part of the American public, albeit from niche outlets like Comedy Central and HBO, for a public conversation about the direction of the country. Along with Stewart, Colbert answered that need in more and more direct ways over time: roasting the president at the most uncomfortable White House Correspondents’ dinner to date; testifying in character before a Congressional Subcommittee on Immigration reform; and co-hosting the 2010 Rally to Restore Sanity (and/or Fear) -– a public march on Washington which both politely requested (and satirically mocked) a return to reasoned political dialogue and responsible reporting.</p>
<p>Kimmel’s contract extension is a reminder that CBS has made a brave move with Colbert. Next to the youth-appeal of Fallon and the proven success of Kimmel, the potential extent of Colbert’s appeal is still untested. Yet if David Letterman’s years were the salad days of nihilistic irony, in which everything was fair game for a joke, Stephen Colbert’s time behind the desk may remind us that broadcast television has the power to create shared culture and to host the national conversation –- once again, to be important.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26264/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Zeller-Jacques does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The news that Jimmy Kimmel’s contract as host of ABC’s late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! is being extended for two years completes a period of upheaval in this great American genre. Jimmy Fallon…Martin Zeller-Jacques, Lecturer in Film and Media, Queen Margaret UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.