CBS Slandering Reagan...
 

What does everyone think about this new show coming out on CBS that is mis-quoting Reagan and his family? Why would these guys put out such a horrible show? I have seen a number of interviews with White House Aids and other Reagan-era politicians (OF BOTH PARTIES) that are calling this series absurd. They had someone on Fox the other night that almost broke into tears over this. I wonder why Fox seems to be the only news channel reporting on the admitted false quotes added by the creators of this show. Hmmmmm.

Re: CBS Slandering Reagan...
 

I'm not aware of what show you're talking about, but do have a question.

Who "admitted" that the quotes are false? Is it someone who is a position to know, and also someone who wouldn't be affected one way or another?

As for FOX, remember that the President, Roger Ailes, made his fortune as a Republican strategist -- particularly as media genious and advisor for Richard Nixon. Thay have been noted to be somewhat less than "ballanced" in their coverage.

Re: Re: CBS Slandering Reagan...
 

That may all be true, but the president of CBS is a notorious FOB (friend of Bill) which, added to the fact that husband of barbra striesand is in this movie would lead me to believe it carries far left leanings.

I'm not going to watch it.

Kitso
KS 361

So, is this a made for TV movie?

And who is the President of CBS this week? That's not being facetious, there have been so many changes at the top in that organization, I've lost track.

Andrew Heyward.

They were talking about this on O'Reilly the other night and one of O'Reilly's guests commented that Heyward's office is full of pictures of him with former President Clinton.

Kitso
KS 361 times it's a made-for-TV movie, and a bad one at that

Oh yeah. I think he was an EP on the Today Show for a while if I've got the right guy.

Sounds like a real bad one. Damn, I hate the November Sweeps!

Admitted by CBS, publically. These quotes were fabricated. You say they have been noted to be less balanced... To that I ask... Noted by whom? The Leftist Media? AL Franken? Regardless of what these Media Lords choose as their political party, they should not base their channel around it... Fox is the only station to actually present both sides of every story... both sides.... don't believe me? Think I am a NEOCON? Turn the station on... check it out... I think you will agree.

I think one contraversial statement has Reagan saying that people that contract AIDS "deserve" to die or something to that effect. It's a statement that even the writers admit they have no evidence of him ever saying or believing that.

Krazy,

I'm probably the most apolitical person on GC. I get frustrated at the baying from all sides of the political spectrum.

However, I have spent over thirty-five years in broadcasting -- from local to network.

And...

I've met Roger Ailes (Fox Newschannel President), who is also a fellow Ohio University graduate. The Manager of Production at FOX is a friend and former NBC employee. I've also met their Manager of Network Operations on a number of occassions. I've spent a little (not a lot) of time in the New York HQ.

I'm sorry, but from a pure journalistic standpoint, FOX is just to the right of Atilla the Hun.

They have a barely hidden Conservative Republican agenda that, in the old days of "The Fairness Doctrine" (Communications Act of 1934 which governed broadcasting up until the late 1990's) had they been an on-air TV station would conceivably have cost them their license. Fortunately for them they're on cable, and networks aren't licensed anyway -- just their owned stations.

You may consider the other networks "left-wing" or "liberal" or whatever, but the fact is that they DO have owned on-air stations and are governed by FCC rules and regulations (with the exception of CNN -- remember that there is a clear distinction between FOX News Channel and the FOX on-air station, as there is between CNN and WTBS in Atlanta) So, ABC, NBC and CBS have a LOT more at stake in terms of fairness.

I suggest that what would appear to me to be your political leanings might color your thoughts on the other media. Almost everyone's do one way or the other.

Remember, too, that if this is a made for TV movie, CBS is probably NOT the producer and probably had little or no input into the content and/or production.

And, if they are admitting things are fabricated, that's probably a good thing. It could save their TV stations' licenses.

An aside:

By the way, Kitso, I'm pretty sure Heyward is the guy I was thinking about. He's the President of the CBS News Division. I used to do a fair amount of on location directing for TODAY in a previous lifetime. I am still trying to figure out who the President of the CBS Network is.

You know what, kiddo? It goes both ways. "The Leftist Media" has a counterpart in the "Right-Wing Media." Fox, Rush Limbaught, etc. If you think Fox is both sides of the story, that's your perogative, but you're going to find a lot of people who don't agree with you.

Personally, I find FOX hilarious, their news is so funny! They're such a second-tier station in Milwaukee that I watch their news when I want comic relief. Look at what DeltAlum said if you want the facts on Fox.

All I know is Reagan is the last great American.

-Rudey
--He did some great things even if he can't remember them.

They might present both sides of some stories, but certainly not every, not by a long shot. I have turned it on and I have checked it out and I disagree with you as strongly as I can. Fox has you, that is all.

LOL @ Fox being fair and balanced.

He is great, but not the last...

And... LOL at the networks not having a liberal agenda.

Once again Rudey you put something in that is inane!

Last Great President was Harry Truman. The rest were Also Rans or Crooks, oh forgot about Sexually going for it! So who cares. Most did! Power is Good. Use it!

Reagen was a Grade B Actor who became Gov. of Ca. So what else is new in the land of Fruits and Nuts? Well if it wasnt for Nancy, hell, he could not find his boxer shorts in the morning. He played a Role.

In todays Society, The Poloticins are in a Vocation and want power, do that ring a bell?


Pardon oui Rudey, I need to Go to The Rudey and Take a Rudey!
:p

Yu a great greekchat membrain.

Oh, back to Ronnie.

How about watching the movie, then rush to judement

Body Chek, Boy Yu int got the stones, you woosy!:rolleyes:

Cliff Notes? SparkNotes? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Ronald or Nancy? Just kidding. I think I voted for him.

All I'm going to say about this is....hey...at least he's a Teke. :D

The fact is, every news service is going to have some sort of agenda - just as CNN has been a liberal news service since Ted Turner ran it, Fox News is overtly conservative. You're never going to get completely unbiased unless you watch proceedings on C-Span or something similar; even then, what is left out and kept in can be interpreted as bias.

As long as stations compete for ratings, this trend will continue.

Second Tier but leading the ratings.....

According to rating, Fox New's highest rated show got beat by:

http://sportsmed.starwave.com/media/...pongebob_i.jpg

NIC SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS 2.7
FOX O'REILLY 1.9

according to YOUR rankings, so did CNN's highest ranked show. Which was beat, i believe, by a whole point by Fox's highest rated show.

damn revisionist liberals.

Kitso
KS 361 times moe.ron needs to just go boink a hyena

Yes Sir... You are correct. O'Reilly beat Larry King by a good margin, who was closely followed by Hannity & Colmes, and Greta. Second Tier?? I think not...

Speaking of Spongebob, I hear he is taking Princell Hair's place at the helm of CNN. Hair's week is up. Maybe he will help their ratings.

In correct honorable sir. O'Reilly beat Larry King by .3. O'Reilly received 1.9 and Larry King 1.6. Both are beaten very badly by John Stewart's "Daily Show" which receive 4.0 But if we compare them to network news, both loose very very badly.

but to get this in true reflection, O'Reilly was beaten by Warner Brother's Charmed who received 2.0. Charmed is the 81st most watch show. The #1 cable show is WWE Raw at 3.1. As for other news show, here is what they received:

NBC NIGHTLY NEWS 6.8
ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT 6.3
CBS EVENING NEWS 5.3

On another note, have you checked out Al Schnier's solo album "one"? It is good.

I wish I can. I'm down in South Africa and they don't even know who moe. is. I've ordered wormwood through amazon and hopefully it'll come soon.

I was referring to the Milwaukee Fox affiliate, who is by no means "leading the ratings." In fact, I'm not sure their anchors know that there ARE ratings.

Oh... Well I am talking about the cable news channel "Fox News" who are leading the Cable news ratings on a national level, so I guess we are talking about different things. But anyway, they do great job.

moe.ron... you should go online and order the Schnier disc if you can, it is electronic music, but really impressive. There is a hint of moe. in there. S.Africa... beautiful place.

CBS Moves Regan Drama to Cable...
 

First, a bit of perspective. There are only a couple of cable shows that beat even the lowest rated shows (of any type) on the on-air networks. On-air network news is still by far the most watched.

Now, just saw this today regarding the Regan Drama:

Updated: 04:42 PM EST
CBS Cancels Miniseries on Reagan
Program May Air on Showtime
By DAVID BAUDER, AP

NEW YORK (Nov. 4) - Capping an extraordinary conservative furor over a movie virtually no one has seen, CBS scrapped plans Tuesday to televise "The Reagans'' and decided to shunt it off to the Showtime cable network instead.

Based on snippets of the script that had leaked out in recent weeks, conservatives, including the son of the former president, accused CBS of distorting the legacy of Ronald Reagan.

While CBS said it was not bowing to political pressure, critics said that was exactly the case, and worried about the effects of such pre-emptive strikes on future work.

CBS believed it had ordered a love story about Ronald and Nancy Reagan with politics as a backdrop, but instead got a film that crossed the line into advocacy, said a network executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The film had been scheduled to air Nov. 16 and 18, in the heart of the November ratings sweeps. CBS attempted to edit the film to remove offending passages, but gave up.

"We believe it does not present a balanced portrayal of the Reagans for CBS and its audience,'' the network said in a statement Tuesday.



AP
James Brolin as Ronald Reagan in "The Reagans"

Neal Gabler, author of "Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality,'' said CBS' decision was unhealthy for democracy.

"CBS, in pulling this film, did incredible harm, much more harm than they could ever have done in making the film,'' Gabler said. "What they've told us now is that a very small group of people have censorship power over the broadcast networks.''

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said CBS' decision "smells of intimidation to me.''

But conservatives said it was a question of accuracy.

The miniseries became a hot topic on talk radio and the TV news networks. The chairman of the Republican National Committee wrote to CBS President Leslie Moonves, asking for historians to review the movie, and the conservative Media Research Center asked advertisers to consider boycotting the film.

"This was a left-wing smear of one of the nation's most beloved presidents and CBS got caught,'' said Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie said putting the movie before a smaller audience on Showtime doesn't address accuracy concerns. Without changes, Showtime should remind viewers every 10 minutes that the movie is fictional, he said.

Showtime and CBS are both owned by Viacom, which is anxiously awaiting federal action on rules to restrict ownership of local TV stations. Failure to enact such changes could cost Viacom millions of dollars, said Jeff Chester, head of the Center for Digital Democracy, a communications lobbying group.

Viacom needs help from Republicans in the White House and Congress who might not like seeing Reagan portrayed negatively, Chester said.

"They made a business decision,'' he said. "In doing so, they clearly caved in to the political pressure.''

Viacom shares fell 82 cents, or 2 percent, to close at $39.01 on the New York Stock Exchange.

It's not likely CBS faced much pressure from advertisers, said Brad Adgate, analyst for Horizon Media, an ad-buying firm. Some advertisers might have been scared by the controversy, but many would have been attracted by the prospect of big ratings, he said.

The movie was made by producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, who also made "Martin and Lewis'' for CBS. James Brolin portrayed Reagan. He is married to the outspoken liberal Barbra Streisand, which drew complaints from some conservatives.

In a portion of the script published in The New York Times last month, Reagan was depicted as uncaring and judgmental toward people with AIDS. "They that live in sin shall die in sin,'' Reagan's character tells his wife as she begs him to help AIDS victims.

Supporters of the former president, who suffers from Alzheimer's Disease, said there's no evidence he said that.

There was also a concern about its depiction of Nancy Reagan. The former president's son, radio talk show host Michael Reagan, said he had seen eight minutes of movie highlights and Nancy Reagan was depicted as basically running the White House.

"I said to Nancy, they don't like dad, but they hate you,'' Reagan said Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America.''

Producers Zadan and Meron noted that CBS had approved their script. Although disappointed that CBS won't air it, "we are excited that Showtime has agreed to broadcast it and the public will have a chance to judge `The Reagans' on its own merits.''

CBS said its decision to cancel the movie was "based solely on our reaction to seeing the final film, not the controversy that erupted around a draft of the script.''

Ironically, CBS' decision came two days after the network's 75th anniversary special, which included a skit by the Smothers Brothers poking fun at CBS for firing them more than 30 years ago because of their political content.

Another precedent came in 1979, when CBS pulled a comedy series about a black congressman after complaints by some actual black politicians who had seen a screening, said TV historian Tim Brooks.

CBS faced pre-broadcast pressure earlier this year from Jewish groups concerned about its miniseries about Adolf Hitler. After some changes were made to the screenplay, the Hitler miniseries aired in May to middling ratings.

It's a growing trend in entertainment: concerned groups not even waiting until something is released to make it a battleground. Actor Mel Gibson has been skirmishing with Jewish groups over his Biblical epic, "The Passion of Christ.''

The CBS decision "gives new hope to all of the people who don't like what they see on entertainment television,'' said Robert Thompson, head of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. "All of the special interest groups can say, 'Look, we got the Reagan docudrama off the air.' What's next?''


11/04/03 16:22 EST

DeltAlum comment:

Putting politics aside, which many of you can't seem to do, I think that IF, in fact, CBS cancelled this show due to pressure from ANY political party or ideological movement, it is a sad and worrisome development.

If it can happen to this show, it can happen to any, and sooner or later, programming will be so non controversial that there will be less quality programming (not commenting on the quality of this particular program without seeing it) than there is presently.

Which is scary.

Ronnie, a Grade-B Actor with a pushy wife who led him:( :o

Second wife I might add!

CBS the woosies are supposed to have cancelled the program and sold to Showtime to put on air!

He was not A Great President. Period. He Looked good.:confused: Talked well from a script, well traind from his bad acting career!

I dunno, i kinda disagree.

Yeah, if CBS bowed to partisian issues to sell it, i can see how that's bad, but the way i see it, they didn't put up much of a fight for it.

So, either they knew they did a poor job on it and didn't want to go down with a sinking ship, or they felt they did an ok job on it and were too afraid to defend it.

I don't know which is worse, them running to air with a product that they don't believe in enough to fight for, or them being too spineless to defend something they do believe is quality.

Kitso
KS 361 times i wouldn't have watched it either way

As it turns out, I was right earlier in the thread. CBS did not produce the show, but bought it from an outside producer. That's the way it is with a huge majority of what we see on TV.

And the most recent post is priceless. And it's also what worries me about this "censorship by special interest."

Sooner or later, it would be the "liberals" or us old folks who might get a highly favorable show about a "conservative" taken off the air.

It's a bad precedent. The media is supposed to be free from this kind of thing.

I wouldn't have watched it either.

Re: CBS Moves Regan Drama to Cable...
 

I agree completely - no matter what, networks can't be bowing to party pressure to control programming. It just doesn't work in a society such as ours, and it sets a dangerous precedent.

If CBS felt that unsure about the product to begin with, it never should have taken it on. Deciding not to air it because of the conservative response though? Not a good thing.

I'm not making a judgement on the production's quality, just trying to make a point as to the decision.

Colin

I wouldnt have watched it either way. Ronald Reagan is a dying former president, who has a wife that is watching him die each day. For a movie to be made about him in that kind of light when he's dying a horrible death is highly disrespectful to a United States president regardless of his political party or what he did or didnt do in office. That's just a low blow to the Reagan family, and that's all I'm going to comment about that.

Ladies and gentlemen,

the lapdog of Pat Buchanon.

Kitso
KS 361

Politics aside. A very strong argument could be made that the issue here isn't politics pressuring CBS. Sure, Reagan's friends are mostly politicians. They are just concerned with the truth.

It has been demonstrated that in many cases, the authors took liberties with Reagan's views, agenda and words. They took advantage in ways that might malign him.

To put it in perspective, it'd be like making a movie about Ghandi and having him say that Christians and Muslims deserved to be reincarnated as fleas.

You probably didn't mean for that to be funny, but I almost choked on my Pepsi I laughed so hard... HAHAHAHA! Thanks for the laugh!