Why Is Kimmel Back? - A Massive Public Backlash!

Robert Reich tells us the real reason Jimmy Kimmel is back on the air:

ABC says “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” will return to the airwaves next Tuesday — less than a week after Trump henchman Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, said on a podcast that Kimmel’s remarks were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people” and that the FCC would have “do this the easy way or the hard way” — suggesting that either ABC and its parent company, Walt Disney, remove Kimmel, or the FCC would revoke ABC’s broadcast license. 

Why Walt Disney Company’s turnaround? It limply explained today:

“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.”

But now, apparently, all is well. 

“We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”

How lovely. How reasonable. How, well, kumbaya. All it took were some “thoughtful conversations with Jimmy” and everything returned to normalcy.

 

Don’t believe it. In the days since ABC’s decision, the blowback against Disney has been hurricane level.

At least five Hollywood unions, collectively representing more than 400,000 workers, have publicly condemned the company.

The screenwriters’ union decried what they called “corporate cowardice” and organized a protest last week outside the main gate at Disney headquarters in Burbank, California.

Celebrities Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep called out “government threats to our freedom of speech.” 

Kimmel was supported by his late-night peers, including Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver, as well as former late-night hosts David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, and Jay Leno — all of whom blasted the decision. 

Damon Lindelof, a creator of ABC’s “Lost,” said that if Kimmel’s program did not return from suspension, he couldn’t “in good conscience work for the company that imposed it.” 

Michael Eisner, a former Disney CEO, issued a rare rebuke.

Even right-wing Republican Senator Ted Cruz expressed concern, likening Carr’s comments to a mob boss and calling his threats to potentially retaliate against media companies “dangerous as hell.”

“We should not be in this business,” Cruz said. “We should denounce it.”

By this morning, Carr himself was busy minimizing his role — denying that he had threatened to pull the licenses of ABC stations (it “did not happen in any way, shape or form”) — and claiming Disney had made a “business decision” in response to feedback from viewers and affiliates. 

“Jimmy Kimmel is in the situation that he’s in because of his ratings, not because of anything that’s happened at the federal government level,” Carr said.

But the most intense pressure came from us — from Disney viewers and customers — who immediately began to cancel subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu and threaten a broader consumer boycott. 

Some stars such as Tatiana Maslany (star of Marvel’s Disney+ series “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law”) and Rosie O’Donnell urged people to cancel their subscriptions. 

But the consumer boycott seems to have begun almost immediately. 

According to Strength in Numbers, searches for “cancel Disney+” were higher than boycott movements from when Disney went “woke” in 2020-2022. According to search interest, the Disney boycott quickly became four times as large as any boycott over the last five years. 

Shortly after Kimmel’s suspension was announced, Disney stock dipped about 3.5 percent and continued to trade lower in subsequent days. 

That loss in market value has amounted to about $4 billion. 

Investors knew consumers were upset. There’s never one single reason for the ups and downs in the value of a particular firm’s shares of stock, but the correlation here has been almost exact. 

The bottom line: We have extraordinary power. We’re the vast majority. Like every other big corporation, Disney relies on us.

Even if we can’t count on our elected politicians to protect our First Amendment rights, we can rely on ourselves. When our outrage translates into withholding our consumer dollars, a big corporation like Disney is forced to listen — and respond. 

Remember this.

Confidence In News Media Is At A Record Low

 

These charts are from Axios.com -- using figures from a recent Gallup Poll. They show that confidence in the news media is at an all-time low -- 16% for newspapers and 11% for television.

GOP Convention Lowest In Viewers Of Last 8 Conventions

The chart above is from Axios.com. It shows the Nielsen figures for the viewership of the last four Democratic and Republican convention.

The number of viewers who watched both conventions this year is significantly lower than in previous years. The Democratic convention had 5.2 million fewer viewers than in 2016. The Republican convention had 8.4 million fewer viewers than in 2016.

On the most important night, the last day when the presidential nominees give their acceptance speech, about 800,000 more people watched Biden's speech than watched Trump's speech.

Finally!!!

MSNBC has finally realized what a treasure they have in Joy Reid.

Reid has been hosting a weekend morning show on the network for a while now -- and this talented journalist is not afraid to speak truth to power.

Starting today, she is moving to primetime weekdays on the network. Her new show airs at 7:00 pm (Eastern Time).

Trump's State Of The Union Audience Down By About 21%

(The photo above is from CNN.)

It looks like the American people may be tired of hearing Donald Trump's lies. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the audience for the televised State of the Union speech was about 21% less than it had been for the 2019.

Trump's base was watching, as the audience who watched at Fox News was up. The audience for all other news outlets was down.

Here's how it was reported:

The State of the Union address drew a considerably smaller audience than it did a year ago.

President Trump's address and the Democratic response averaged 33.67 million viewers from 9 to 10:30 p.m. ET on broadcast networks ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC and cable news channels CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. Viewing on PBS, Univision, Telemundo, Fox Business and CNNe raised the total to 37.17 million, according to Nielsen figures. That's down about 21 percent from the total of 46.79 million in 2019.

Fox News drew the largest audience of any single network by a wide margin and was the only outlet among those seven to increase its audience from a year ago. The other networks were all off by a good amount.

Fox News averaged 11.55 million viewers for the address, up about 2.5 percent from 11.27 million last year. NBC topped the broadcast networks with 4.8 million viewers (down from 7.14 million in 2019), followed by CBS with 4.66 million (vs. 6.68 million in 2019), ABC with 4.12 million (vs. 5.91 million) and Fox with 3.51 million (vs. 4.2 million). The combined audience on the four broadcast networks fell by 28.5 percent year to year.

CNN drew 2.79 million viewers, down from 3.47 million a year ago, and MSNBC trailed with 2.24 million viewers, vs. 3.79 million in 2019.

Trump Impeachment Hearing Had An Inauspicious Start

The chart above shows the Nielsen TV rating numbers for the opening day last Wednesday of the Trump impeachment hearings. The numbers, to say the least were very disappointing. According to Nielsen, only about 13.8 million people watched.

Nielsen numbers don't include PBS, C-SPAN, or those who streamed the proceedings live on their phones or computers -- but I doubt the total including those would be much higher. The nearly 14 million viewers would make up only about 10% of the voters in the 2016 election.

Democrats were hoping that the hearings being telecast would convince more voters that Trump should be removed from office after being impeached. They noted that the public only turned on Nixon after viewing his impeachment hearings (by the end of those hearing about 85% of U.S. households had viewed at least some of those hearings). But if that's going to happen, then the viewership must increase substantially.

Will the viewership increase as the hearings continue? or have most voters already made up their minds on whether Trump should be impeached and removed from office? I fear the latter may be the case.

Underground Culture Classic To Be Revived In Animation

One of the most popular underground comics was the "Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers", first carried in Austin's underground newspaper (The Rag) in 1968. It was about Phineas, Fat Freddy (and his cat), and Freewheelin' Franklin as they searched for drugs and dodged the law. It was satire, and it was very funny to those of us in the counter-culture.

The cartoon is being revived in an eight episode animated series. From Forbes.com:

Long-time underground comix stars The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers are about to emerge into the light with an eight-episode animated series, with help from key creative talent behind Rick & Morty, Silicon Valley andWorkaholics, among others.

Gilbert Shelton, the Freak Brothers' creator, will be an executive producer on the animated project. The show will be built around his comic's original story lines, which follow the misadventures of three pharmacologically impaired non-siblings (and their cat) as they try to find more drugs, It is both celebration and satire of alternative culture, and remains a cult favorite. Freak Brothers comics have been translated into 14 languages with more than 40 million copies sold.

The Freak Brothers debuted in 1968 in The Rag, an Austin, Texas, alternative paper. Three years later, the first stand-alone Freak Brothers comics were published, with new issues from Shelton and eventual collaborators David Sheridan and Paul Mavrides arriving through1992, including runs in publications such as High Times and Playboy. Compilations of the work have been in print in one form or another ever since. 

The eight 22-minute episodes of adult-oriented animation are expected to be ready by early next year. The project has not lined up distribution yet, but has enlisted a lengthy list of Hollywood veterans of notable TV and film projects. 

NOTE -- Those of us in the counter-culture referred to ourselves as "freaks". "Hippie" was a word invented and used by straight people to describe us (and made popular by the mainstream media).

Trump Holds Record For Being The Most Joked About

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University counted up all the jokes told about politicians each year on late night talk shows. In 2017, the number of jokes told about politicians was 6,337. About half of those were about Donald Trump.

About 3,128 jokes were made about Trump in 2017. That beats the old record of 1,816 -- also held by Trump (in 2016). Until Trump came along, the record had been held by Bill Clinton (1,717 jokes in 1998).

Dan Rather Responds To Sinclair Broadcasting Propaganda

(The local affiliates above are all owned by Sinclair Broadcasting.)

Right-wing (and Trump-loving) Sinclair Broadcasting has recently forced the news people at the stations they own read a corporate-approved message to their viewers. Here is journalist Dan Rather response to Sinclair's atrocious action.

Let's be clear, news anchors looking into camera and reading a script handed down by a corporate overlord, a script meant to obscure the truth not elucidate it, isn't journalism. It's propaganda. It's Orwellian. And it is on a slippery slope towards some of history's most destructive forces. These are the means by which despots wrest power, silence dissent, and oppress the masses. 

To those who say this rhetoric is hyperbolic, I submit that attacking the press as honest brokers of information has been one of the constants of this Administration and all those who normalize it. But this is not normal. This is not how the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution, that beloved First Amendment, is supposed to operate. 

Many of you by now have seen the video mashup of news employees on Sinclair-owned TV stations delivering the same talking points to their viewers. For those who haven't, I have included the link below. And a big tip of the Stetson to Timothy Burke, the video director at Deadspin, who edited the string of video clips into a powerful sequence that puts the dangers of our time into visceral relief. 

The faces of the men and women you see delivering this chilling message are befitting those of a hostage video. Maybe some of these local anchors took to it with gusto, but I believe that number is few. That's not why people are drawn to journalism. And maybe you will say that they should have refused or even resigned in protest, but I know that one can grasp in desperation for rationalizations and compromise when one feels their livelihood is at risk. That is the bet that Sinclair and its allies in media and government are betting on - that they can chip away, with small strikes of the chisel, at the bedrock of American democracy. I suspect that the vast majority of the journalists you see in this video want to be in an environment where they can do their jobs, reporting the news fairly, without favor or bias. They need our support. 

That is why it is incumbent for Americans of all political persuasions to say this is intolerable. Congress should hold hearings and call the executives of Sinclair to account, but one suspects that is highly unlikely in the current political environment. Will this spur citizens to elect representatives who recognize that this is a clear and present danger? Will enough people be outraged to bombard stations, and advertisors, with letters, phone calls, and tweets to suggest this is unacceptable? 

For now, Sinclair is trying to explain away the controversy, and they have a powerful ally in the President. But as we saw with the advertisers bailing en masse from Laura Ingraham's Fox News show after she attacked a Parkland High School student activist in a Tweet, the voice of the people still matters. If enough people speak, they cannot be ignored.

A free and independent press must be part of #WhatUnitesUs

Here is the link to the video.

77% Says Major TV & Newspapers Report Fake News

I found this survey shocking. It is a recent survey from the Monmouth University Poll -- done between March 2nd and 5th of a random national sample of 803 adults, with a margin of error of 3.5 points.

It shows that 77% of the public says our major media outlets (TV and newspapers) report fake news -- with 31% saying they do it regularly and 46% saying they do it occasionally. Only 21% said they do not report fake news.

This was not just Trump's followers saying this. It included 61% of Democrats, 82% of Independents, and 89% of Republicans. In other words, a majority of all three political persuasions believe this.

That's very troubling, because a democracy depends on a free press giving them the information to make decisions. Can a democracy even survive if the people don't trust the press?

The only partially saving grace in this mess is shown in the chart below. It turns out that most people have a very loose definition of what constitutes fake news. Only a tiny minority of 25% say fake news is when the media reports facts that are not correct (including 33% of Democrats, 26% of Independents, and 15% of Republicans).

But a much larger group of 65% say fake news is not just reporting incorrect facts, but also includes the editorial decisions made on what news to report (even if the facts are correct in that reporting). And that includes 58% of Democrats, 64% of Independents, and 75% of Republicans. That means that these people consider news that they disagree with to be fake news -- even if the reporting is accurate.

It shows just how partisan the divide is in this country right now. People only want to hear the news that they agree with -- and that seems to include those on both the left and the right.

I have to disagree with these people. Fake news is reporting things that are not true. Stories that are factually correct that you happen to disagree with are NOT fake news. Like it or not, media has the right to choose what stories they will report and what stories they will not report, as long as those stories are all factually correct.

I personally don't like Fox News, because they choose to report only stories that make the right look good. They have the right to do that, and while I may think it's basically propaganda, it is not fake news as long as what is reported is true. And the same can be said of the media that leans to the left.

If you don't like the editorial policy of a newspaper or TV channel, then don't read or watch that media outlet. Find some you are more comfortable with. They don't have an obligation to report only the news you like. Their obligation is only to report the truth.

Donald Trump Is Still Finishing Second To Barack Obama

It just kills the narcissist in the White House that he cannot come up to the numbers (or popularity) of President Obama. Although he denies it, Trump had a much smaller crowd attending his inauguration than Obama did -- and that extended to the TV audience watching those inaugurations.

Now we have the numbers for Trump's first speech to a joint session of Congress -- and once again he finished behind President Obama. Trump had a 27.8 overnight share of the TV audience, while Obama had a 33.4 share. That translates into 48 million viewers for Trump and 52.4 million for Obama.

It's just one more hit to Trump's massive ego.

Trump's Inauguration Watched On TV By Over 7 Million Less Than Viewed Obama's First Inauguration

Trump got his feelings hurt by the media reporting the truth about attendance at his inauguration -- than far fewer attended it than attended Barack Obama's first inauguration. He lashed out at the media and lied about attendance (giving "alternate facts"). That's no surprise. It's exactly what we should expect from a narcissist.

Now it turns out that attendance was not only much lower, but the TV viewership was also significantly lower than that of Barack Obama -- about 7.2 million viewers lower (according to initial Nielsen ratings). Obama's first inauguration had 37.8 million viewers, while Trump's had only 30.6 million.

Trump also had fewer viewers than Jimmy Carter (34.1 million) and Ronald Reagan (41.8 million) -- both of which presided over a smaller general population.

I expect we can see another tantrum coming from Trump over this -- and a lot of tweets filled with "alternate facts" (lies).

Presidential Debate Viewership Sets A New Record

I wrote a post a few days ago in which I shared a poll saying the probable debate viewership would be between 64.3 and 106 7 million. I expressed my doubts that there would be that many viewers (even the lower figure of 64.3 million). I wasn't just wrong -- I was spectacularly wrong!

The initial Nielsen rating numbers show that over the 13 networks they count, there were about 84 million viewers -- more than ever before for a presidential debate (the old record being 80.6 million in 1980). And that number doesn't include C-SPAN, online viewers (YouTube had around 2.5 million by itself), or those who watched in groups at parties, bars, restaurants, or work.

The chart above shows the viewers (in millions) on the major broadcast and cable networks.

Nielsen also reported that there was very little drop-off as the debate progressed. Almost all of the viewers that tuned in watched the entire debate. It seems that in spite of what the media has been telling us (that most voters are turned off by the choice being Clinton or Trump), there is a huge interest in this election. I hope that translates into a huge turnout on election day in November.

Is The Media Telling The Truth Or What Will Get Viewers ?

(This caricature of the current Democratic candidates is by DonkeyHotey.)

The Republican race for their presidential nomination has been pretty volatile. There have been several different leaders in the polls. The current flavor of the month is Donald Trump, and he may or may not remain the leader. This is the kind of thing the media loves, because it gets viewers to tune in to see what is happening now in the race.

The Democratic race is far different. Hillary Clinton started out with a huge lead, and she has maintained that huge lead over all her competitors (still with double the national support over her nearest competitor, Bernie Sanders). So why is all we seem to hear from the news networks, especially the cable networks, that Clinton is losing support?

The answer is that the truth (that Clinton maintains a huge lead) is not exciting to them. They don't think it will get them viewers. They don't think people will tune in to hear that a race is static -- and that there has been no real change for several months. And they might be right. But does that give them the right to give viewers an impression that is simply not true?

There was a time in this country when networks didn't expect their news shows to be money-makers. They made their money off their entertainment shows, and considered their news shows to be a community service -- happy if they just came fairly close to breaking even. But that time is gone. Now the networks, both cable and broadcast, expect to make money from every minute of air time.

That is the reason we get less real news and more "fluff" pieces, and it is the reason they are willing to give a false impression to their viewers -- because that is what they think will increase their viewership, and more viewers equals more money.

The truth is that the Democratic race has changed very little over the past few months. Clinton still has around 50% support, while her closest competitor has around 25% -- and if that changes by a point or two from poll to poll, that's not real news. But the networks will jump on every little change, whether it is significant or not, because profits is more important than truth to them (and especially to the giant corporations that own them).

That is not a good thing, but it is a sad reality of how low our news networks have fallen.

Media Creates An Unnecessary Fear Of Ebola Virus In U.S.

I thought this Rasmussen Poll (done on August 1st and 2nd of a random national sample of 1,000 adults, with a 3 point margin of error) was interesting in sort of a shocking way. The shocking part was the huge number of people in the United States who now fear an outbreak of Ebola.

A whopping 58% of Americans say they are personally concerned about the disease caused by the Ebola virus -- and 46% (nearly half) thinks the Ebola virus will get loose among the general population in this country.

Let's be realistic. The Ebola virus has been killing Africans off and on now for a few decades, but not a single case of the disease Ebola causes has ever been found in the United States. The disease has no cure yet, but it is not as easy to catch as people seem to think. It is not an airborne virus that can be caught from an infected person sneezing or coughing in the general area (like the flu virus). The infection requires close (and usually extended) contact with an infected person.

That means an outbreak of the Ebola virus in the general population of the U.S. is extremely unlikely (you have a much better chance of being hit by lightening than catching Ebola in this country). And if an infected person was to arrive in this country, they (and those they had been in close contact with) would be quickly quarantined by health officials -- quashing any chance of an outbreak.

Why then, does nearly half of the population fear an outbreak of the Ebola virus in the United States? The reason, to me, is obvious -- because of the massive coverage of this virus by the media (especially the stories about the two Americans infected with Ebola being brought back to this country). The media, especially the TV cable news shows, have been doing segments on this story all day long for several days. Those stories give the impression that the virus is easily caught and spread, and there is a danger of it getting loose.

The stories enhance this false impression by showing the precautions taken in bringing those two Americans back -- including the biohazard suits being used by the doctors treating the victims. The truth, which doesn't come through in most of those stories, is that those suits and precautions are not to prevent an outbreak -- but to protect the medical professionals from getting the disease themselves (because they will be in close and extended contact with those two infected people).

The chance of an Ebola outbreak in the U.S. is extremely small -- almost non-existent. And the mainstream media has done a disservice to the people of this country by the way they have covered this story. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Public Has Little Confidence In The News Media

The chart above is made from information in a recent Gallup Poll (conducted between June 5th and 8th of a random national sample of 1,027 adults, with a 4 point margin of error).

This should bother the news media. In a democracy they have one of the most important jobs -- keeping the people informed so they can make knowledgeable decisions. But people across the political spectrum think the media is failing in their mission. The conservatives give a slight edge to TV news, while liberals, moderates, and the general population gives a slight edge to newspapers.

But the truth is that most Americans think both the TV news and newspapers are doing a poor job, and only about one out of every five Americans has confidence in the news media. I agree with the 80% or so who have little confidence in the media, because I think that media has to a large extent abandoned investigative journalism in favor of presenting corporate propaganda (which is not surprising since most of the mainstream media is owned by a handful of corporations).

TV news presents an illusion of being fair -- by bringing a Republican and a Democrat on to throw accusations and lies at each other (without doing any fact-checking of what they say). They also ignore the opinions and positions of other parties (such as the Green Party and the Libertarian Party) and Independents -- as though the policies of the Democrats and Republicans are the only ones worth considering. While the media should be informing Americans, they are instead acting as gatekeepers (so only corporate-approved ideas are reported).

It is a shame that there is so much disrespect for the media -- but they have brought it on themselves by refusing to carry out the sacred mission they have been entrusted with.

NOTE -- The public doesn't have much confidence in internet news either (19%).

Public Still Prefers Broadcast News To Cable News

The Pew Research Center has released its yearly look at the State of the News Media. It's a fairly comprehensive look at all different types of news media -- TV, radio, digital, and print media. It's an interesting read, and I recommend you go to their site and read the whole thing if this kind of thing interests you.

One of the things I found most interesting is contained in the above chart -- the primetime numbers for the major national TV news outlets. The cable news outlets would like for people to believe they are making significant inroads into the three broadcast networks, but that is just wishful thinking. The truth is that when it comes to getting news in the nightly primetime, the American public still trusts the broadcast channels over the cable channels (including Fox) -- and the numbers are not even close.

PBS Is The Most Trusted TV News In The United States

Public Policy Polling does a survey every year to determine the most and least trusted TV news organizations in the United States -- and once again the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is the hands down winner. About 57% of the public (13 points higher than the second place organization) trusts PBS, and only 24% of the public (13 points lower than any others) say they distrust PBS. In fact, PBS was the only news organization to be trusted by a majority of Americans.

The Fox News statistics showed the polarizing effect of that network. They were second in both the most trusted (44%) and least trusted (42%). The chart below shows the demographic breakdown of those trusting or distrusting Fox News. The trust/distrust for Fox by the general public is within the margin of error, which means the general public is divided over whether it can be trusted or not.

But there are four groups that trust Fox by more than the margin of error -- men (by 9 points), Whites (by 9 points), Republicans (by 61 points), and those over age 65 (by 24 points). That pretty much describes the average Fox viewer -- an old white Republican man. All other groups distrusted Fox by more than the margin of error (except for the 46 to 65 group, which was split).

MSNBC was the least trusted (34% trusting and 44% distrusting).

The Public Policy Polling survey was done between January 23rd and 26th of a national sample of 845 registered voters, and had a margin of error of 3.4 points.

Too Much Media Is Owned By Too Few

This is why Americans don't get every side of most issues -- just the corporate-approved side of the news. Anyone who wants news not biased to the point of view of the giant corporations just can't depend solely on the mainstream media. This makes it very important to protect the freedom of the internet, which many times is the only place to find the non-corporate side of any story.

Internet Growing As Source For News

Hundreds of years ago, all people depended on word of mouth for their source of want is happening in the world (news). But then the printing press was invented, and soon people were getting most of their news from newspapers. And as new inventions came around, the source of news for most people changed -- first to the radio, then television, and cable TV.

And it does not stop there. With the invention of the internet, a new and growing source of news was created -- and it looks like the internet may now be the most popular source of news today. At least, that's what a new poll (conducted between April 22nd and 28th of 863 registered voters -- with a 3.4 point margin of error) shows. The poll is by Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind.

The poll's respondents were asked what their primary source of news was, and the following numbers were reported:

Internet...............44%
Local TV...............43%
Cable news...............38%
Network TV...............33%
Newspapers...............31%
Talk radio...............21%
Public radio...............18%
Comedy TV...............10%
Other...............5%

The numbers for the leaders are still within the margin of error, so it cannot be definitively be said that the internet is already number one. But if it is not already the number one source of news, it soon will be -- because it is growing very fast. Just a couple of years ago, the internet numbers would not have been nearly this high. And age is a large factor in the growth of the internet as a primary news source -- with younger people relying more on the internet than older people. Here are the numbers by age of those who list the internet as their primary news source:

18 to 29...............83%
30 to 44...............57%
45 to 59...............42%
60 plus...............19%