Don’t Make Trouble
by digby
Speaking of NPR Nazis and playing the refs, this PBS ombudsman column about the Sarah Palin bits that PBS edited from the Tina Fey Mark twain awards is instructive. (You can read about the controversy at the link and see the whole segment unedited.)
The PBS execs said they cut the bit for time and because it wasn’t funny and were backed up in that by the fact that critics who saw the awards live reported that there was nervous laughter and then silence from the audience. I’m sure there were. It was a Village audience, after all, which either doesn’t care for such “divisive” satire, doesn’t get the joke or are supporters of Sarah Palin’s Know-Nothing agenda. Why should they be used as gauges of what’s funny in America and moreover, why should such biting satire be required to get big guffaws in the first place? Sometimes political humor isn’t belly laugh material. (Remember the dead response to Stephen Colbert’s White House correspondent’s dinner speech?) The fact that they edited her political commentary as she accepted a “Mark Twain Award” is just too perfect.
But what’s more interesting about this column is this part:
The controversy surrounding this particular bit of editing brings to mind some other recent episodes where internal editing decisions eventually led to public controversy and challenges.
One occurred in July when a PBS special broadcast of an earlier White House concert honoring former Beatle Paul McCartney did not include a comment critical of former President George W. Bush that McCartney made after the music stopped and after President Obama had left the room. But it was heard by everyone else in the room and reported widely elsewhere the next day, although not on PBS.
The other incident he mentions was a sort of ethical quandary about using an exact quote. But I think yo can see the similarity between the McCartney edit and the Fey edit right? Let’s just say the right wingers are very successful at working the refs — and nobody does it better than Roger Ailes.
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