Nice Network Ya Got Here
Shame if something happened to it:
Rather than calling ABC, the White House chief of staff phoned Bob Iger, chief executive of parent company Disney. Instead of contacting NBC, Emanuel went to Jeffrey Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric. He also spoke with Les Moonves, the chief executive of CBS Corp., the company spun off from Viacom.
Whether this amounted to undue pressure or plain old Chicago arm-twisting, Emanuel got results: the fourth hour of lucrative network time for his boss in six months. But network executives have been privately complaining to White House officials that they cannot afford to keep airing these sessions in the economic downturn.
The networks “absolutely” feel pressured, says Paul Friedman, CBS’s senior vice president: “It’s an enormous financial cost when the president replaces one of those prime-time hours. The news divisions also have mixed feelings about whether they are being used.”
…
Tensions have been building behind the scenes. Some television executives say the Bush administration informally floated possible news conference dates in advance, while Obama officials basically notify the networks of their plans. Such an approach prompted calls between White House officials and the top executives at each network, and a meeting between Gibbs and the Washington bureau chiefs.
Even Christ stopped at one Sermon on the Mount.
But I have to give Obama and his team for excellent management of expectations on the economy lately. Obama made reference to the GDP decline the day before it was announced, and successfully spun another quarter of recession into a titanic turnaround. (It didn’t hurt that he pinned the blame of the previous quarter solely on Bush.) Now, he’s readying our expectations for more bad unemployment news.
This is masterful. I mean it. If Bush had only spent one-tenth the time and effort explaining to people why we were fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, we wouldn’t be stuck with this socialist pant-load in the White House right now.
The way Brian Williams et al shill for this guy, we’ll be setting off firecrackers and roman candles when unemployment tops 10%.
Bloodthirsty Liberal said,
August 3, 2009 @ 10:26 am
Your last sentence hits home. If Bush even tried this, he wouldn’t have gotten very far. We would have had endless stories about press freedom and White House meddling.
We are reaping what we sowed.
- Aggie
Carol said,
August 3, 2009 @ 2:07 pm
“The news divisions also have mixed feelings about whether they are being used.”
Does this mean the news divisions are sure if they are being used or not? Or that the news divisions know damn well they are being used and can’t figure out whether or not The One will still respect them in the morning. Or that the news divisions know they are being used, know they won’t be respected in the morning (if they aren’t asked to leave in the middle of the night), but can’t decide whether or not to care? I think the news divisions would apologize to Obama’s fist if it collided with their face.
In short, all of the networks are suffering from Battered Woman Syndrome.
Bloodthirsty Liberal said,
August 3, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
I agree.
And, they have all been schooled to believe Liberal=Good, Conservative=Bad. They can’t or won’t think for themselves. Not sure which it is.
- Aggie
Martino said,
August 4, 2009 @ 4:31 pm
They helped elect this joke, so make ‘em air the clown.