Here's the first person story of the guy that started up the "boycott CBS" web site a few days ago to protest the proposed airing of the CBS miniseries, "The Reagans", and got over 75,000 emails of support in a couple of days. As Michael Paranzino says, "people love the Reagans". Except perhaps some of those "tolerant" liberals who wrote Paranzino to wish death upon him and his family, or to mock him for being a stay-at-home dad.
Before the show was dropped by CBS, I commented on this blog that my preference would have been to let it go on as originally written, against the now well publicized backdrop of the complaints of people who object to the Reagans being smeared by Hollywood ideologues, and then to let the public judge the show on its merits. I wanted the network and the sponsors to feel the pinch, if there was to be any, of the boycott by people who object to it on the principle that it isn't factually accurate. The movie's biases would have been on display, and the shows creators would have been outed as the agenda-driven propagandists that they are. That, to me, would have been the ideal result. In other words, let "market forces" work.
Now the whines of "censorship" will invariably begin, even though Moonves, the CBS executive who pulled the plug, is an admitted liberal and said the show was "biased". At first the network said it was being reworked to make it more "fair", but to have aired a heavily edited version would have been to admit that they were perfectly willing to air an "unfair" film, absent the outcry.
Credit Paranzino for his activism, and the greater blogosphere as well, for spreading the word and mobilizing people. Even five years ago this chain of events wouldn't have occurred. The maturing Internet has changed everything. The end result isn't ideal, but it did force a major American media company to step up and admit to the liberal bias of its programming content.
Moonves has shown some guts, because he must know he'll be slammed by both sides. By the right for acting only to avoid a PR disaster, and by the left for caving to the conservative troglodytes. Sending the film to Showtime, where TV programming goes to die, seems like a fitting disposition.
UPDATE 11/4: Here's Terry Teachout's take (I wrote my "five years ago..." line before I read TT...honest!)
And here's AS on TT.
Matt Drudge interview on Joe Scarborough's show.
Posted by dan at November 4, 2003 10:59 PM