Why major US TV networks didn’t show Obama’s immigration address
On Thursday evening, President Obama took to the airwaves to present his plan for immigration reform to the American people. Unfortunately, many of the American people were not able to find him.
At 8pm, instead of seeing the president outlining his long-awaited overhaul of one of the country’s most hotly debated issues, ABC viewers were treated to an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Those tuning in to CBS were presented with an episode of The Big Bang Theory; Fox network viewers saw Bones; and viewers tuning to NBC were be able to enjoy The Biggest Loser: Glory Days.
We all knew it would happen, didn’t we. Obama did, for sure.
Thursdays are big nights for the networks, and Grey’s Anatomy, The Big Bang Theory, Bones and even The Biggest Loser are ratings heavyweights. A speech by the president is bad for ratings – and anything bad for ratings is loathed by advertisers.
Alternatives to the speech
The White House can make a formal request to networks for airtime. Such requests are pretty much always granted. But as CNN’s Brian Stelter reported on Wednesday, after the administration put out feelers to the networks and determined that they were reluctant to hand over such airtime, it did not make a formal request.
The Spanish-language network Univision carried the address – in fact, it interrupted its coverage of the Latin Grammys, a huge ratings night, for the president. Univision confirmed to the Guardian that unlike ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox, it had received an official request from the White House to carry Obama’s speech.
Just to focus more finely in on this development for a moment…the “networks” essentially blacked out the President of the United States making a speech regarding the continuation of the one thing that has separated this country from all other countries throughout the history of human civilization, an immigration policy that has provided it with an influx of the best and brightest…although not necessarily the richest…people of every country in the world. Why is America “exceptional?” It is exceptional for this reason and this reason alone. It is the most successful country in the history of the world in terms of assimilating different cultures into a mainstream consensus. That cobbled-together culture built this country from the ground up over several centuries.
Was it a perfect effort?
No.
Of course not.
Murder and mayhem of all kinds accompanied the effort.
But it worked, and apparently Obama…himself a product of that system, a mixed-race American…sees the value of continuing that system into this century. The opposition…also apparently, because there are always levels behind levels behind other levels in a political dispute of this sort…does not want to do that.
Now that Obama is officially the lamest of ducks, he can do and say what he pleases.
Or alternatively…now that he is the lamest of ducks, he can continue the planned dismantling…non-personing, you might say… of the American left.
I do not know for sure which option is closer to the truth. Maybe both. He’s a complicated man. All I can say is this. The more South/Caribbean/Central Americans, the better. I have lived in the neigborhoods and I have lived in the culture as a musician. It is a labor of joy, this culture, and it works.
I hope…for perhaps the first time…Obama is taking off his neolib mask and exposing the true heart that he has hidden behind that mask in a quest for power.
We shall see, soon enough.
Won’t we.
Let us pray.
Elsewhere on the web it is suggested that this move is a gamble to save the coalition that elected him in the first place, to save the Democratic Party itself from total destruction.
Let us pray harder.
Pray for a true multicultural party to arise.
Let us pray.
AG
Replacing a major Presidential speech with three insipid situation comedies!!!???
Unbelievable!!!
He’s getting the Howard Dean/Ross Perot/Ron Paul treatment.
Imagine what would have happened if they had tried that with a political infighter like JBJ!!!
But NOOOOOoooooo…
Unbelievable.
AG
Is that why the Dutch shipped $7bn in gold bullion out of the country?
DNB was following the German central bank in repatriating gold (for the ones that are under the assumption Germany has ceased its repatriation program, please read this).
○ In Gold We Trust
PS The face mask fell off the Statue of Liberty in 1968, the US has fallen deeper ever since.
I actually think that such actions are a bet against possible national riots if the Ferguson verdict comes out a whitewash. It’s a piece of luck that extremely cold weather has come down on so much of the country. Had this verdict been scheduled for August? Bad news. Nationally. Bet on it.
AG
P.S. Not that I believe either side of the Ferguson situation. All I believe is my own eyes, and after seeing the surveillance camera footage of the bad act that Michael Brown was running in a convenience store minutes before he got shot, I fully believe that the cop thought he was about to be attacked. The rest of it? All lies. All political. Both sides.
Yes, I commented on this, too (but not with the distinctive AG treatment, of course). It is simply another scrap of irrefutable evidence demonstrating the deeply unserious nature of our failing country. Did you happen to read the simply hilarious “reasons” why the corporate media thought this non-personing was appropriate?
At this point, the corporate media has itself become the “story”, but who will “cover” it? The circus has already moved on to other acts, and civic outrages like this are water under the bridge, which might as well never have happened.
Obama is certainly looking like a pretty severely lame duck, when the teevee CEOs won’t even cover an action he takes which is described by Repubs as fomenting a constitutional crisis, for God’s sake. If THIS gets “non-person” treatment, what in hell won’t?
Onlky the really important, game-chamnging things get the non-personing treatrment from the mainstream media, euzoius. While he was neo-libbing around they covered him just fine. Now that he’s out of the corral, it’s “Obama who???” Now he’s a threat to the status quo.
AG
Perhaps a US President can only really be his/her own President from years 6-8. And of course, the media (oligarchs) don’t like it when they aren’t setting the narrative.
That’s entirely possible. How to get four effective years instead of only one or two? On Inauguration Day, say that you absolutely, positively will not run for a second term. Then start tearing things up.
Hmmmm…
AG
I detect a little flaw in the nonpersoning method.
Obama’s base is likely less dependent on the lamestream media for its information, using the internet’s various modes for communication, over which the media have little control.
But it’s a good thesis. Won’t it be fun when the teabaggers “discover” that Latino media are bypassing them?
TREASON!!
Well…
#1-The “Latino” media is generally speaking lamer than the lamestream media. It is lamer than the lamestream media was even back into the ’60s.
#2-That’s a good thing, in a manner of speaking. The hypnopower of media depends on its sophistication. The more sophisticated…the subtler…the better as far as putting people into a receptive trance state. Once they are in that trance state they can then be controlled without any awareness whatsoever that they are being controlled. No awareness, no resistance. Perfect.
AG