Topic: NewsBusters
A Dec. 14 NewsBusters post by Tim Slagle carries the sinister headline, "FCC vs. Bristol Palin: More Proof Free Speech is the Enemy of the Left." Why, you'd think that a federal agency had declared jihad against ann innocent teenager, right?
Well, not so much. Amid all of Slagle's baseless attacks on censorious liberals, the only substance he serves up of any evil government plot is a Smoking Gun article noting that people had written to the FCC to complain about Palin's presence on "Dancing With the Stars," and the FCC ... did nothing.
That's it. That's all Slagle has. And even then he hides the full story.
Slagle presents all those who wrote to the FCC regarding Palin as "Leftists" who want the agency "to handle their dirty work against Bristol Palin." But the Smoking Gun notes that people complained that Palin was "encouraging and promoting teen pregnancy"-- which sounds more like a complaint from Slagle's side of the aisle.
Slagle also demonstrates a stunning lack of self-awareness about who he's writing for. He states that "For all the talk about the Right Wing being full of fascists, you never really hear the Right trying to censor the Left," even though his blog post was published by a right-wing organization that just did exactly that.
And who is has been responsible for the vast majority of FCC complaints in recent years? None other than the Parents Television Council, founded by -- you guessed it -- Brent Bozell, publisher of NewsBusters. The PTC has a long list of the FCC complaints it has filed, which arguably dwarf any Palin-related activity from "Leftists."
Such an ill-informed and misleading piece makes one wonder if NewsBusters has any real standards about who they let blog there.
