Before he was assassinated, Robert F. Kennedy declared that “hand in hand with freedom of speech goes the power to be heard.” That does not appear to be the view of ABC News, which censored his son who is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination. ABC objected to Kennedy’s views on COVID-19 vaccines, so it simply announced that it was preventing viewers from hearing those views to protect them from dangerous ideas.
ABC’s Linsey Davis began the interview by introducing Kennedy as “one of the biggest voices pushing anti-vaccine rhetoric, regularly distributing misinformation and disinformation about vaccines, which scientific and medical experts overwhelmingly say are safe and effective based on rigorous scientific studies.”
That apparently was not enough. After telling viewers that this is one of his most famous stances (and its own disagreement), it then censored those views.
After airing the interview, Davis announced “[w]e should note that during our conversation, Kennedy made false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines. We’ve used our editorial judgment in not including extended portions of that exchange in our interview.”
Kennedy tweeted that “47 USC 315 makes it illegal for TV networks to censor Presidential candidates but Thursday, ABC showed its contempt for the law, democracy, and its audience by cutting most of the content of my interview with host Linsey Davis leaving only cherry-picked snippets and a defamatory disclaimer.”
The provision is designed to guarantee equal time for presidential candidates and does add “such licensee shall have no power of censorship over the material broadcast.” However, that does not mean that a candidate is given carte blanche and cannot be edited. In this case, however, ABC is affirmatively stating that it censored his remarks because it disagreed with them.
Putting aside the federal law, this is wrong. ABC can challenge such views, but it is actively seeking to prevent voters from hearing a presidential candidate on an issue of great public interest and debate.
It is particularly troubling after prior media censorship has been shown to have been wrong in silencing dissenting scientific views.
We have seen various journalistic and scientific figures banned for expressing skepticism over pandemic claims from the origins of the virus to the efficacy of certain treatments. For example, when many people raised the possibility that the virus may have been released from the nearby Chinese virology lab (rather than the “wet market” theory), they were denounced as virtually a lunatic fringe. Even objections to the bias of authors of a report dismissing the lab theory were ridiculed. The New York Times reporter covering the area called it “racist” and implausible. Now, even W.H.O. admits that the lab theory is possible and Biden officials are admitting that it is indeed plausible.
The same is true with the debate over the efficacy of masks. For over a year, some argued that the commonly used masks are ineffective to protect against the virus. Now, the CDC is warning that the masks do not appear to block these variants and even CNN’s experts are calling the cloth masks “little more than facial decorations.”
Yet, the W.H.O. head is now embracing censorship as a means of combating the “infodemic.” There are also calls, including from the White House, for Spotify to ban or curtail Joe Rogan’s show for allowing dissenting views to be aired on Covid or its treatment.
If there had not been such extensive censorship of dissenting viewpoints, there might have been more discussion on the costs and science behind the lockdowns. Instead, there was a chilling effect on such dissenting voices and those expressing doubts were labeled extremists or conspiracy theorists. Recently, for example, scientists have come forward to admit that they also suspected the Wuhan lab was the origin of virus but were silenced by the backlash at the CDC and universities.
It is also not clear where ABC draws the line. Joe Biden has made so many false statements that the Washington Post gave him a “bottomless Pinocchio.” Likewise, many view contested claims over climate change and transgender issues to be dangerous. Will ABC now be censoring these other candidates or positions?
As noted by ABC, the overwhelming weight of scientific opinion still disagrees with Kennedy. That is fair to note. However, ABC is now claiming the right to censor presidential candidates to protect the public from harmful thoughts or disinformation, including major issues behind a campaign. It is wrong for both the country and for journalism.
We do not have to be protected from dangerous thoughts by the media. A far greater danger lurks in the indoctrination and orthodoxy that comes from censorship.
“The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.”
— George Orwell
“Science can flourish only in an atmosphere of free speech”. Albert Einstein.
Why you can no longer believe scientific/medical journals and why free speech must be protected.
https://philharper.substack.com/p/its-no-longer-possible-to-believe
Excellent referral, Young. Thank you
Young, excellent. I think what Harper advocates will be fought by big money interests and the government with the usual false excuse, ‘in our interest’.
I believe this because the FDA could have accomplished a part of what this does in their approval process decades ago.
Years ago, I questioned FDA pharmaceutical approvals based on slanted studies. I suggested that all drugs up for review require a direct comparison to gold standard drugs ( if they existed). Secondarily, I suggested that any paper submitted for approval by the FDA be sent to the FDA IN ADVANCE and completed. This sets in stone those bad results and prevents multiple studies from being started where only the study showing positive results is finished and sent to the FDA.
A third concern was how companies would use researchers that might be fudging things because it was profitable to them and the pharmaceutical company. That problem was exposed by the NYTimes years ago. One physician couldn’t have enough patients for the studies. It also demonstrated complicity by the pharmaceutical companies using those studies.
Many other things can speed up drug approval and prevent pharmaceutical companies from using the physician community to push one drug over another while being compensated.
OT (only slightly)
We have another datum in the story of the harm caused by the COVID lockdowns. Party City is closing 30 of its stores after filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy:
“Party City has announced plans to close more than 30 stores after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Business Insider reports.
The company’s woes are due to the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain issues, the report said. It will close 31 stores in 15 states, including four locations in Michigan.”
http://www.mlive.com/news/2023/05/party-city-to-close-4-michigan-stores-amid-bankruptcy.html
Of course, it is not the pandemic, but the lockdowns, that brought about its demise. But if you had tried to suggest in 2020 that the lockdowns were a stupid idea, you would have been censored by The People Who Know Better, just as RFK Jr. is being censored by these people.
I’ve had 4 shots of these Things – What hell did they inject into me !!!
It wasn’t until Galileo, with his telescope could *see* the 4 biggest moons of Jupiter going around it that heliocentrism began to be accepted. Copernicus was read not for his theory, but for his innovations in calculating epicycles without equants, i.e., his mathematics.
David: “It wasn’t until Galileo, with his telescope could *see* the 4 biggest moons of Jupiter going around it that heliocentrism began to be accepted.”
+++
That was a factor but Galileo wasn’t prosecuted until after that event. Remember that some clerics refused to look through the telescope.
Have you noticed, by the way, that you just admitted that Copernicus’ theory went against the overwhelming weight of scientific opinion until, much later, Galileo trained his telescope on Jupiter?
Galileo pissed off the new Pope, that’s what resulted in his arrest.
There was no *overwhelming weight of scientific opinion*, just those claiming biblical inerrancy.
So you say. I didn’t know the Ptolomaic description of the universe came from the Vatican. What was that, by the way.
Young, ?? What was what?
Ptolomaic description of the heavens. Do try to keep up. You seem to think it came from a pope judging by your argument.
Is that you Dick?
Young, you can look these up as well as I:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest
David,
I had a look at the Wikipedia article you mentioned and found this:
“The prevailing theory during Copernicus’s lifetime was the one that Ptolemy published in his Almagest c. 150 CE; the Earth was the stationary center of the universe”
So it appears that there was a dominant theory of the heavens at the time, contrary to what you claimed.
The same article states that Copernicus dragged his feet on publishing despite the urging of many friends because he feared the ridicule that would be poured on him for going against the overwhelming opinion favoring Ptolemy.
I was going from memory so I erred in saying he delayed publication until after his death out of fear of the reaction. Instead he delayed publication up until late in life because of fear of the reaction, the book allegedly coming out just in time for him to hold a copy on his deathbed.
I also misspelled Ptolemy.
“There was no *overwhelming weight of scientific opinion* . . .”
That is incorrect.
Forget theology. The dominant *scientific* theory of the time was the Ptolemaic system. That is why it is called Copernican *Revolution*. As with other sciences, e.g., medicine and geography, astronomy was in the process of becoming a science — in part by shedding the superstitions and blind allegiances to authorities of the past. In the case of medicine, it was Galen versus Vesalius . In astronomy, Ptolemy versus Copernicus.
“In the second half of the sixteenth century . . . few of his contemporaries took Copernicus seriously, and
most viewed heliocentrism negatively.”
So much so that they wrote poems mocking Copernicus :
“Even so some brain-sicks live there now-a-days
That lose themselves still in contrary ways,
Preposterous wits that cannot row at ease
On the smooth channel of our common seas.
And such are those, in my conceit at least,
Those clerks that think—think how absurd a jest!—
That neither heavens nor stars do turn at all,
Nor dance about this great, round earthly ball,
But th’earth itself, this massy globe of ours,
Turns round about once every twice twelve hours.
“The apparent absurdity in claiming that the earth was not, in fact, immobile meant that the
Copernican doctrine was slow to spread and slower still to gain acceptance.”
(https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1701/1701.02930.pdf)
P.S. To you both: Thank you for an intellectually invigorating discussion!
https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/20-million-children-missed-out-lifesaving-measles-diphtheria-and-tetanus-vaccines
SO ???
Vaccines are a *good idea*.
So? RFK agrees. He just criticized this particular experimental vaccine and the authoritarian mandates that people accept an injection of it into their bodies or lose their jobs.
Kansas Elder, except the the Covid-19 vaccines are no longer experimental. I gave as link to one study below, somewhere.
As for the requirement, this has always been true in public health matters. For example, measles, ditheria, rubella jab required of public school children.
It was experimental at the time of the mandates. It has done great harm and cost many lives. It never helped prevent the spread of Covid. People who criticized the vaccine and the mandates were uniformly censored by the big tech-media-government complex.
The appeal to schoolchildren strikes me as odd. First, they don’t have jobs so they can’t be threatened with being fired if they don’t take a drug. Second, they are under the care of their parents. Third, do you really want to argue the appropriateness of forcing people against their will to inject a drug into their bodies by appealing to anything that has been done to schoolchildren?
I’m not anti-vax, I’ve taken every vaccine that’s been available. I had the initial dose of the Moderna vaccine (actually 2 doses separated by 4 weeks), but then I stopped once some of information on the drug got through the censorship filters. But big Pharma made billions of dollars by lying about their experimental poison, and governments big and small became authoritarian dictatorships by forcing people to inject that poison into their system. Can you address that please? I’m getting the impression you’re on big Pharma’s payroll and you’re their equivalent of Karine Jean-Pierre.
Yes, the whole scam-demic, lockdowns, and masks stunk as a planned fascist operation, but the mandates and censorship under the guise of safety were the clear, bright red line, thrashing the constitution by emergency decree, just like the NAZIs. These people need to be removed from participation and in government and in finance, full stop. If we don’t figure that out and clean house, Russia and China are going to fumigate in ways that will make most of our future an ash heap. It’s really that simple, these people at the top have no soul or empathy, so we need an exorcism pronto before they lead us to war.
Except the Covid ‘vaccine is not actually a vaccine in the usual sense.
Speaking of, was the Swine Flu vaccine a good idea given the harm it caused?
What about the HIV ‘vaccines’ that injured people?
Apart from the deaths and injuries that appear to have been caused by the Covid shots, one of the greatest harms has been the loss of trust in the FDA and CDC.
Young – . . . one of the greatest harms has been the loss of trust in the FDA and CDC.
Damn straight. These last few years have destroyed trust in virtually every longstanding and revered institution in American life. Would you ever trust the FBI again, in your lifetime, or your kids’ lifetimes? How about the national media, big tech, big Pharma, the AMA, the warmongering Uniparty, academia, and on and on. Every one corrupt. The Left has stated their intent to “burn it all down” and figuratively speaking that’s what they’ve done. Only SCOTUS remains standing, which is why it’s being so ruthlessly attacked.
Oldman,
Nope, I don’t trust any of them. They aren’t even embarrassed to be caught in lies anymore.
I got annual flu shots for the last 40 years but skipped this year because I don’t trust them. I know others who decided the same.
We all need to be asking ourselves WHY. Why would ABC, and so many other media operations, agree to censor or flame as insane all content that contradicted the official government position? ABC and others operated as if they not only had a vested interest in this vaccine push operation and its outcome, but were quite literally the propaganda arm of the Federal government. Private enterprise would not simply agree to destroy their hard earned reputations for free. Was there quid pro quo? If so, what was it? Who was running it? How were the days talking points disseminated, etc etc. Then we need to ask how were so many journalists, who are allegedly well educated in history, so ready, willing and able to ignore centuries of journalistic ethics and simply agree to follow instructions, push the government narrative, and destroy anyone who would dare dissent?
ABC and most Legacy media are of like-minds with the Democratic Party. In fact, it’s quite possible we’re witnessing a wag-the-dog scenario where Legacy media is actually the “unofficial” political Party with Donkey’s taking orders and/or mimicking their agenda and talking points via their strictly, members-only, circle-jerk. No additional quid-pro-quo required.
Major media accepted money to promote the vaccines to all sectors of the public including pregnant women. This defies statistics and testing. There is potential culpability here.