Word: cbs
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...BIASED FOR CBS, WHY IS IT O.K. FOR SHOWTIME...
...OVERALL NETWORK AUDIENCE IS DOWN 9% SO FAR THIS SEASON. BUT CBS'S RATINGS ARE PRETTY GOOD. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BRAG...
...there were a dog bites man channel (Slogan: "News of the obvious, 24 hours a day!"), its top stories last week would have been HOLLYWOOD ACCUSED OF LIBERALISM and TV EXECUTIVES CRAVENLY BUCKLE UNDER PRESSURE. CBS canceled The Reagans, a four-hour mini-series, after conservative activists and pundits said it made Ronald Reagan out to be a ninny and a bigot. If one is to judge from selective quotes that made the press, the critics seemed to have a point. (The series reportedly had the President say about gay AIDS victims, "They that live in sin shall...
...able to judge The Reagans fairly--as if anyone really wants to--until it airs next year on Showtime, CBS's pay-cable corporate sibling. But we don't generally look to made-for-TV mini-series for ungilded truth. Remember, if not for scurrilous, insensitive, sensationalized TV movies about the (liberal, Democrat) Kennedys, we would have to clone five Michael Jacksons to fill the holes in the sweeps-stunt calendar. If Americans were going to depend on The Reagans as a history lesson--rather than as a campy Washington version of I Love the 80s--the Republic is doomed...
Does this make CBS innocent of liberal bias? No. CBS executives, after all, approved the script and oversaw production without thinking it would cause a fuss. They had wanted a love story about Nancy and Ronnie and--until news of conservative objections broke in the New York Times--they apparently thought that was more or less what they got. The irony is, they were trying to pander to Reagan's fans; they just proved spectacularly bad at it. But if CBS's executives were not floating in the warm, like-minded liberal womb of Hollywood, it might have occurred...