Free Speech? You Can't Even Buy It

Television networks have been living off the twin notions that paid advertising is free speech, and that in order to speak freely, you have to pay. All those millions corrupting the US political process, all those officeseekers and office holders who are wholly owned by big money interests and their "lobbyists" who not only dictate laws but write them, they all wind up in the pockets of the media, mostly television.

Is it free speech if everyone doesn't have equal access? Apparently not.

What's even worse however, is that not everyone has equal access even if they show them the money.For years, TV networks in Canada and the US refused to air anti-consumption and pro-environment ads sponsored by adbusters magazine. Nobody noticed.

But two new instances are attracting a bit more attention.One is the Gold Star Mothers For Peace who tried to buy time for a powerful 15 second statement by Cindy Sheehan. Several TV stations refused, one of them, a CBS affiliate in Boise, because the ad was not "factually accurate" questioning the assertion that President Bush lied to the American people. This sets a standard of truth that few of its commercials could meet, not to mention the Swift Boat ads lying about John Kerry.

But even with that standard, the burden of proof for Bush's lies isn't hard to meet.The ad is being shown on CNN, and is available for viewing at various sites on the Internet, including truthout.

Another troubling case is the networks refusing to air ads critical of the networks' lack of coverage of the Sudan and other African human crises. The Sheehan ad instance is craven, pandering to the rich and powerful who will buy more ads than the Gold Star Mothers for Peace ever will. But this instance is sheer cowardice. If the fact of the networks almost totally ignoring genocide and starvation in favor of celebrity gossip isn't evidence enough, their censoring of ads because they tell the truth about their failure completes the picture of their corruption.