Love of the Land: Comedy Channeling C-SPAN

Comedy Channeling C-SPAN

MK
CAMERA/Snapshots
14 April '10

Open letter to Jon Stewart, host and executive producer of the Daily Show on Comedy Central (Monday through Thursday, 11:00 PM ET).

Dear Mr. Stewart:

Your popular Daily Show often tackles current news items with clever, caustic humor. In this vein, a March 31, 2010 Daily Show broadcast segment humorously and appropriately lampooned a C-SPAN host‘s feckless handling of a casually racist anti-black caller in a March 29 C-SPAN Washington Journal broadcast. However, this host merely typifies all (or nearly all) of the C-SPAN Journal hosts in their handling of a particular class of bigoted rants by sitting mutely, shuffling papers, and then thanking the callers for their input. These rants, contained in hundreds of calls aired by C-SPAN, are readily available to be mined for humorous fulmination. The documentation is concisely presented on CAMERA’s Website, camera.org, in the following articles (several of the calls documented include video clips): C-SPAN Watch, C-SPAN's Washington Journal a Platform for Anti-Semitism, C-SPAN's Washington Journal Caller Problem, and C-SPAN President's CAMERA Shy Reaction (with video clip) in which C-SPAN’s president, acting as Journal host, is completely tongue-tied reacting to a caller’s news that the historical record shows that Arab anti-Jewish terrorism had preceded Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

These CAMERA articles describe hundreds of Journal calls containing virulent anti-Jewish, anti-Israel rants handled in a feckless or foolish way by the host and (often) the guest.

We trust that you will utilize the Journal broadcast material from CAMERA (or at least make use of the CAMERA material in searching C-SPAN archives) for use in the Daily Showsince you aim (or should aim) to be an equal-opportunity satirist.

Sincerely,

CAMERA

Love of the Land: Comedy Channeling C-SPAN

Love of the Land: C-SPAN Responds! Well, Not Exactly

C-SPAN Responds! Well, Not Exactly

C-SPAN Executives Susan Swain and Brian Lamb

AL
CAMERA/Snapshots
15 January '10

As Jeffrey Goldberg has discovered, communicating with C-SPAN executives about their network having become a platform for anti-Semites to spew hatred isn't easy. Unlike virtually every other media outlet, C-SPAN refuses to return phone calls, letters and emails from dissatisfied viewers. This is the case even though C-SPAN considers itself a public service, devoted to promoting a smooth-functioning and interactive democracy.

Goldberg has persisted, though, and on January 14 reported he'd elicited a written statement from Terry Murphy, the network's VP for Programming, who wrote:

The call-in program has been a fixture of the C-SPAN networks for nearly all of our three decades. Our mission statement commits us to providing the audience with "direct access" to our guests on an "open basis". The live, town-hall format of the program can occasionally give rise to distasteful statements by callers making it to air, and the January 4 call is an example. We air approximately 400 calls per week and this kind of language is not typical of the vast majority. Program hosts, whose role is to facilitate the dialogue between callers and guests, are certainly permitted to step in when a caller makes ad hominem attacks or uses obscenity or obviously racist language. Given that this involves quick judgment during a live television production, it's an imperfect process that didn't work as well as it should have that day.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: C-SPAN Responds! Well, Not Exactly

Love of the Land: C-SPAN's Washington Journal a Platform for Anti-Semitism

C-SPAN's Washington Journal a Platform for Anti-Semitism

Eric Rozenman
CAMERA Media Analysis
08 January '10

Washington Journal, C-SPAN's daily public affairs interview program, has become a megaphone for anti-Jewish, anti-Israel conspiracy theorists. Its January 4th segment with former CIA staffer and anti-Israel obsessive Michael Scheuer, epitomizes the problem. Phone-in portions frequently feature anti-Semitic rants—often from repeat callers in violation of C-SPAN's ostensible 30-days-between-calls rule. Washington Journal's rotating hosts "catatonically," as one critic put it, ignore the vitriol.

CAMERA has documented for more than a year C-SPAN's de facto collaboration in disseminating this social poison in our Web site feature C-SPAN Watch. Scheuer's latest "blame Israel and its supporters" performance, abetted by Washington Journal host Bill Scanlan, seemed to especially incite the network's lunatic fringe.

Except for American Jews, Washington Journal allows no religious or ethnic group to be repeatedly vilified. Except for Israel, it permits no country to be demonized. Only in the case of Jews and Israel do C-SPAN hosts permit such slander.

Perhaps the lowest point of a 45-minute segment filled with low points is the following. The portion includes an obviously anti-Semitic caller, Scheuer's willingness to go where the caller led, and host Bill Scanlan's collaboration:

(This specific clip can also be seen by clicking here at Elder of Zion)

John from Franklin [, New York]: I for one am sick and tired of all these Jews coming on C-SPAN and other stations and pushing us to go to war against our Muslim friends. They're willing to spend the last drop of American blood and treasure to get their way in the world. They have way too much power in this country. People like Wolfowitz and Feith and the other neo-cons -- that jewed us into Iraq -- and now we're going to spend the next 60 years rehabilitating our soldiers -- I'm sick and tired of it.

C-SPAN host Bill Scanlan: John in Franklin, New York. Any comments?

Scheuer: Yeah. I think that American foreign policy is ultimately up to the American people. One of the big things we have not been able to discuss for the past 30 years is the Israelis. Whether we want to be involved in fighting Israel's wars in the future is something that Americans should be able to talk about. They may vote yes. They may want [emphasis in original] to see their kids killed in Iraq or Yemen or somewhere else to defend Israel. But the question is: we need to talk about it. Ultimately Israel is a country that is of no particular worth to the United States.

Scanlan: You mean strategically?

Scheuer: Strategically. They have no resources we need. Their manpower is minimal. Their association with us is a negative for the United States. Now that's a fact. What you want to do about that fact is entirely different. But for anyone to stand up in the United States and say that support for Israel doesn't hurt us in the Muslim world is to just defy reality.

(Read full article)

Related: Michael Scheuer: terrorists should focus on Israel, not the U.S.
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Love of the Land: C-SPAN's Washington Journal a Platform for Anti-Semitism