Susan Crawford sees hints of Comcast in Olbermann suspension

[The Backlash Cometh]

Susan Crawford, a former special assistant to President Obama for technology policy, sees a potential culprit in MSNBC's decision to suspend anchor Keith Olbermann last week: maybe Comcast had something to do with it. Comcast is in the midst of a merger with NBC Universal, the owner of MSNBC.

Crawford, whose Twitter handle is @scrawford, tweeted on Saturday: "someone should find out whether any comcast connection to olbermann fracas - and remember Quiz Show plot line."

Asked whether she was serious, Crawford confirmed that she was. She has previously raised concern that the merger might give Comcast the ability to tamper with MSNBC, which has a left-leaning reputation, in order to maintain a positive business relationship with Fox, which has a right-leaning reputation.

"What happens to MSNBC post-merger?" she wrote in a blog post last month. "Right now, it’s providing the only response to Fox News. Comcast won’t want to irritate Fox - you can’t be a pay-TV distributor without Fox News, in the same way that you can’t be a pay-TV distributor without ESPN. Fox News is a truck running downhill."

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/128067-susan-crawford-sees-hints-of-comcast-in-olbermann-suspension

[highplainsdem]

1. K&R

[BrklynLiberal]

2. "hints"??????????? ??????????????

Corporate conglomerations are devastating to liberty...and Communication/media corporate conglomerations are fatal.

We may never see another anti-monopoly law in this country again..

Eventually the entire world will be owned by one huge holding company...and every corporation will be merely one of its subsidiaries.

At that point, we REALLY will be living "1984"

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Now that you mention it,

what else does Comcast own that we can boycott?

[BrklynLiberal]

5. Who Owns the Media?

http://www.freepress.net/resources/ownership
links are at site.....

Interactive Charts

These handy charts let you browse individual company holdings. To make it easy, we've divided them up by media sector:
# The "Big Six" companies
# Cable providers - http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/cable
# Television networks & stations
# Print media
# Telecommunications
# Radio

[onenote]

10. Comcast's executives and board include major Democratic donors

So, yeah, let's punish them. That's the ticket.

You can look it up. Check out the contributions by Brian Roberts (Chairman), Ralph Roberts (Chairman Emeritus), Julian Brodsky (Vice Chairman), David Cohen (Exec Vice President) and some of the Board Members like Decker Anstrom, Sheldon Bonovitz, Jeffrey Honickman.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. What does she mean by a Quiz Show plot line?

[pacalo]

6. I wonder, too.

[Paulie]

7. It was faked with Van Doren given answers before air. Scripted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiz_show_scandals

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. Now that's going back a way.

My mother-in-law talked about it.

[TexasObserver]

8. This merger should be stopped for the fears given.

[pacalo]

11. It shows how a conflict of interest gives the impression of impropriety:

Comcast won’t want to irritate Fox - you can’t be a pay-TV distributor without Fox News, in the same way that you can’t be a pay-TV distributor without ESPN.

So, Comcast does what Fox wants it to do. If Fox is behind this, they have no qualms of appearing corrupt.

[SpiralHawk]

9. "You are either with the RepubliCorp media borg..."

"...or you are against the RepubliCorp media borg. Resistance is, of course, futile."

- Informed Observers of the RepubliCorp media borg