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A couple of Time Warner shareholders went after CNN CEO Jeff Bewkes Thursday in LA at a Time Warner shareholders meeting [...] David Almasi, the Veep of the National Center for Public Policy Research1, a conservative communications and research foundation, is in LA to question Bewkes. Both Almasi and President David Ridenour are Time Warner shareholders.
[...] “Mr. Bewkes, we have urged you many times to make CNN more objective,” Almasi said in his statement. “You have admitted to us in 2014 the need for more balance. We praised you last year after CNN President Jeffrey Zucker also acknowledged this and acted on the need for more diverse views. But bias is apparently worse than ever. As shareholders, we are concerned about the repetitional risk to our investment in Time Warner as CNN appears to be a key player in the war against the Trump presidency.”
Almasi cited a Media Research Center2 study of CNN programing for 14 hours and 27 minutes of news coverage back on May 12. The report concluded that all but 68 minutes were devoted to Trump with 96 guests out of 123 being negative.
[...] “I’m inquiring about CNN’s bias and our return on investment,” Almasi continued in his statement. “Half of the American public – which includes potential and current CNN viewers – voted for Trump last November and supports his agenda. CNN acts as if it is part of the anti-Trump resistance. Are you willing to lose viewers, possibly forever, because of the bias?”
Almasi even threatened Bewkes, saying that Media Research Center plans to alert advertisers about news programs that “peddle smear, hate and political extremism.”
He asked Bewkes, “Are you concerned about advertisers leaving CNN? Will you continue to ignore our appeals for objectivity at the risk to our investment in Time Warner?”
Source: The Daily Caller
1The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a self-described conservative think tank in the United States. In February 2014, at Apple Inc.'s annual shareholder meeting, NCPPR proposed Apple "disclose the costs of its sustainability programs" was rejected by 97% vote. The NCPPR representative argued that Apple's decision to have all of its power come from greens sources would lower shareholders' profits.
2The Media Research Center (MRC) is a politically conservative content analysis organization based in Reston, Virginia, founded in 1987 by activist L. Brent Bozell III. Its stated mission is to "prove—through sound scientific research—that liberal bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values."
(Score: 2) by idiot_king on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:12PM (12 children)
Well it's a shame that electoral votes can't be reversed for a sexist, racist pig of a president for the same thing!
What a load of crap! Just proves yet again that Drumpfkins are on another friggin planet from the rest of humanity. Ugh.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:23PM (1 child)
When Liberals boycott and have companies pull advertising it is progress and free speech and fighting the fascists.
When Republicans boycott its paramount to terrorism and insanity.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 20 2017, @07:12PM
No, Republicans are free to boycott all they want. It just never amounts to much.
Boycotts are always free speech. If you think you can effect change with one, go right ahead.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:44PM (1 child)
Note, Hillary lost. It was Trump that won.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @04:04PM
That was the worst turn about on this thread yet. Trump wins the gold in both those categories, he basically just sits at the finish line slapping anyone who comes close.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Tuesday June 20 2017, @06:31PM (7 children)
I appreciate your sentiment, but when you speak of them as if you and they are on different planets, you make the problem worse.
I used to think of SoylentNews as a relatively right-leaning place with a few intelligent left-leaning voices. I like the idea of actually understanding the other side. Unfortunately, this place is not immune to the same forces that are tearing the rest of the world apart. Our moderate right-leaning voices seem to have been silenced (isn't that the "PC" that gets them butthurt?) in favor the anti-Trump contingent that is at times too politically ignorant for me to even see them as allies against the Republican agenda.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday June 20 2017, @07:58PM (6 children)
I think far learning people are just very vocal. They support their team and anyone not supporting their team is supporting the other team. Like you said, moderates are quiet. Saying the FBI should be free to investigate anything that looks suspicious will suddenly turn them into a butthurt Hillary supporter.
Pro-Trump seems like the Troll Party right now. Republicans are just straight ignoring Trump unless it benefits them. Anti-Trump is a mix of Hillary loyalists, Bernie-Bros, and moderates. Democrats are a mix of old money 1-percent'ers and some Bernie supporters. A moderate really has nowhere to call home right now.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Tuesday June 20 2017, @09:19PM (2 children)
Not that long ago, I mentioned that I don't hate Trump. It was like I failed a purity test, or something. A member here got all sorts of butthurt and questioned my status as a person on the left. All I can figure is that I haven't changed enough? I really don't want to be associated with a party of hate - while they decry the hate they see on the other side.
I am kinda baffled at how this is all turning out. Then again, I used reason to reach my views and didn't arrive here by emoting. What a strange time to exist.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday June 20 2017, @10:30PM (1 child)
An awful lot of people engaged the 2016 election on an emotional level. I'd say that Trump did an excellent job of controlling the conversation, but it's sort of a perfect storm since Clinton had apparently zero interest in articulating her policy proposals. But even then, Trump had her on certain issues that the Washington elite has never been able to explain, free trade especially.
But there's a reason that Trump didn't want to get into specific proposals, and that reason is that he's thrown his whole pre-election agenda out the window. Apparently we're not going to renegotiate NAFTA or start a trade war with China, we're not going to (successfully) repeal and replace the ACA, we're not going to get a surge of infrastructure spending, we're not going to pay lower taxes (unless we make as much money as Trump), and we're not going to get our military out of unnecessary interventions. We're not even going to "stop terrorists from coming into this country", mainly because Trump doesn't know how to consult a lawyer (or anybody who's going to be doing the actual work) before writing executive orders.
It's one thing to disagree with Trump's proposals. It's another thing to hate Trump for being a total asshole. And it's yet another thing to actually agree with some of Trump's proposals, but know that everything he says is a lie and he will instead sink us into never-seen-before depths of corruption given the chance.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Tuesday June 20 2017, @11:52PM
LOL I voted for a complete fucking lunatic, with no chance at winning. Good thing, too. If Stein had any chance of winning, I'd have not voted for her. Hell no, she's a lunatic.
Anyhow, it was mathematically impossible for us third party voters, in the entire district, to have changed the outcome. I voted for her because we give (some) matching funds to parties who get enough votes in my State. I want to encourage more third party candidates to campaign in my State.
If nothing else, I can say that I voted for something. Oh, no... No, I really didn't want Stein to win. She's batshit crazy and not fit to run a student council.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday June 20 2017, @10:13PM (2 children)
One big problem is that the core left (which is probably about 20% of the population, much like the core right) really believes what Hillary said about Trump's supporters:
When you describe your opponents this way, you make it easy - necessary, even - to dismiss them. We're never going to reach white supremacists with a message of equality, for example. But Trump voters are not 100% white supremacists. They're not even 50%, as Clinton stated to approval to her core left audience.
That's not to say that it isn't abundantly clear who the KKK and neo-nazi groups support. But you can't dismiss the millions of people who voted for Trump for the same reason they voted for Obama: he promised change. The worst thing you can realistically say about the bulk of Trump's supporters is that his "deplorable" tendencies were not a deal breaker.
There always has and always will be party supporters that don't fit such a simplistic narrative. If you don't like the look of either party, your best option is to shift the conversation to the issues instead of the politicians. The advantage of doing this is that it's actually possible to move politicians of either party on individual issues with enough direct action. And if nothing else, you might just find some other moderates to talk to ☺.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday June 21 2017, @12:05AM (1 child)
Except she wasn't wrong, and this is coming from a woman who haaaaaaaaaates Hillary Clinton. Go talk to some Klansmen, some violent racists, some frothing homophobes, and figure out who they voted for.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday June 21 2017, @04:28PM
Like I said, it's abundantly clear who the "deplorables" voted for. I'm just saying that those people are not the majority of Trump's support. There simply aren't enough of them.
Probably the biggest single reason Trump got elected was the Supreme Court. And our congresspeople (including my own senator Chuck Grassley, the tool) knew this would be a deciding issue if they could manufacture enough reasons to base the election on it.
The Supreme Court has been instrumental in most progress happening in the country right now, and everybody knows it. Without the threat of a "liberal" court, the Republicans would have lost the enthusiasm of the religulous right (those that care about abortion more than, I dunno, feeding the poor and saving sinners from themselves), as well as the wealthy establishment (who would rather keep the current campaign finance regime rather than risk overturning decisions like Citizens United).
The hatred that appeals to the "deplorables" in Trump's rhetoric had another impact too. It redirected the conversation and distracted from the issues. We take it for granted that people value civility, but that seems to have changed. Trump capitalized on that. It should have been clear from the primaries that Trump's strategy works; it beat Jeb Bush, it beat Marco Rubio, and it beat Ted Cruz, so there's abundant reason to believe it would beat Hillary Clinton.
Just about the only person it probably wouldn't have beat is Bernie Sanders. Not that I'm bitter about how that turned out.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?