Apparently the news of AOL stifling reporting on Playboy’s “Hate-F***” article was merely the first of a doubleheader. GE is getting in on the act as well, Nikke Finke writes, in a post picked up by Matt Drudge that Finke says is an exclusive:
It’s a very dangerous situation when any huge multinational corporation wages war against media companies. Especially when that huge multinational corporation is General Electric, which itself owns a media company, NBC Universal, and it’s using all its power and influence and money to try to harm another media company, Nielsen, and Nielsen Business Media, and its trade publication The Hollywood Reporter. This certainly sounds like a situation which the FCC, and the FTC, and the U.S. Justice Department should be investigating. Just one problem: the controversy stems from GE/NBCU’s coverage of President Obama. Here’s what happened:
According to my sources inside and outside Nielsen Business Media, The Hollywood Reporter trade publication ran a story dated April 22nd and updated on April 24th covering the “drama” at the most recent GE shareholders meeting in Orlando. THR’s West Coast Business Editor Paul Bond wasn’t sent to the meeting, but he interviewed about half a dozen people who’d been inside the shareholders meeting and told him what transpired (see below). Bond’s THR story focused on the attempts by stockholders and Fox News Channel and other media to find out whether or not GE Chairman/CEO Jeffrey Immelt ordered his news operations to be less critical of President Obama and his policies.
Bond’s story was immediately picked up by The Drudge Report under the headline “GE shareholders outraged over MSNBC bias; Microphone cut off.” It became a widely posted news story on conservative and liberal and media websites everywhere. That’s when, sources inside and outside Nielsen Business Media tell me, GE Chairman Jeff Immelt ordered a GE company-wide ban on all of THR’s parent company: advertising, editorial, the works. After a few days, the ban was reduced to GE’s NBC Universal against Nielsen Business Media’s The Hollywood Reporter and lasted six weeks. (My NBC Universal sources believe the ban was lifted yesterday.) [See also Peter Bart and Variety -- Ed]
My reporting is the first about the ban or what led to it. “People need to know that GE is using its media arm to stifle coverage about its company, and this is coming from Immelt and Zucker,” a Nielsen Business Media insider said. I’d attempted multiple times over several weeks to speak with NBCU about this story but the company won’t discuss it.
Meanwhile, a prominent GE spokesman cautions us that dissent is no longer patriotic.
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23 Comments
1. Daniel:Dissent no longer patriotic?
No way, not no how. Can’t stop me.
Jun 6, 2009 - 7:44 am 2. Micha Elyi:One word, “Berlusconi.”
Oh, and remind me again, how much TARP loot did GE and its loss-making subsidiaries suck in?
Jun 6, 2009 - 8:38 am 3. Patrick Carroll:The network has recognized GE as a network outage, and routed around it.
Jun 6, 2009 - 9:24 am 4. SamIam:The FCC either wont get involved, or if it does will do so only for show and take no action. GE/NBC is now a Federally Favored Corporation.
Jun 6, 2009 - 9:32 am 5. Valjean:“This certainly sounds like a situation which the FCC, and the FTC, and the U.S. Justice Department should be investigating.”
Nuts. Don’t go crying to the feds. GE/Universal, of course, has every right to cut off THR/Nielsen; they’ll simply stay in their own echo chamber and reap what they sow (see subsequent post on Newsweek as a guide).
Do we really expect anything different from the people that spawned MSNBC?
Jun 6, 2009 - 10:06 am 6. Glenn:Your story made me smile about my decision a year ago to sell my GE holdings after Mr. Immelt had allowed a series of blatant lies and partisan reports by some of the Brian Williams and MSNBC reporters critical of the Bush administration and our soldiers to go unpunished.
Of course I was only a small little investor but as I reminded MR. Immelt when I contacted him (via email – of course he didn’t respond) if your are going to play this game we can boycott too. Turned out to be good decision too as the stock tanked and has stayed there. Might other investors be thinking the same? They should.
The irony is that I bet Mr. Immelt would be screaming if we started to boycott his advertisers and told them it was because of his politics!
Jun 6, 2009 - 10:57 am 7. Peg C.:The most amusing thing with Finke’s piece is the predictable lefty wailing about BUSH. Jeez, are these people pu$$ies or what?? Does the statute of limitations for blaming Bush for everything run out sometime in this century? Or are these idiots whiny babies until the day they die?
As for this Thug administration and it’s gov. owned media, I suspect we ain’t seen nothin’ yet. We think we’re appalled now?
Jun 6, 2009 - 11:17 am 8. Peg C.:Glenn, we already boycott NBC, MSNBC, etc. Every little bit helps, or at least saves our sanity.
Jun 6, 2009 - 11:19 am 9. Ed Driscoll:Peg,
“The most amusing thing with Finke’s piece is the predictable lefty wailing about BUSH. Jeez, are these people pu$$ies or what?? Does the statute of limitations for blaming Bush for everything run out sometime in this century? Or are these idiots whiny babies until the day they die?”
I hadn’t watched David Letterman in ages, but I caught his top ten list last night — seemingly every other joke, including the number one item was about Bush, Cheney or Rush Limbaugh. I’m sure Dave’s rather isolated as an establishment media superstar, but somebody should tell the old boy that President Bush and Vice President Cheney are no longer in office.
Jun 6, 2009 - 11:41 am 10. Anonymous 4 A Reason:Posting as Anon instead of my usual name, as our company has also seen a GE boycott. This behavior is nothing new. I work at a power plant which uses GE turbines. Last year a division of the corporation which manages our plant started offering services which compete with GE maintenance services. In response, all of the plants which are managed by our corp (almost all of which are independent LLCs which use the corp only for staffing services) were blackballed from the GE 7FA Users Group meeting. Note the Users Group is nominally completely independent of GE, but GE supposedly threatened to pull funding if any of the staff from any associated plant was allowed to attend some of the functions.
Jun 6, 2009 - 12:01 pm 11. air disaster » Minneapolis imam speaks of “the hell of living in America”:The point here is a pattern-GE nukes anyone who dares to threaten them in the least.
[...] Ed Driscoll » Finke: GE-NBC-Universal Stifling Media Coverage Of … [...]
Jun 6, 2009 - 1:10 pm 12. John:If I’m not mistaken Immelt and GE got a heck of a sweatheart deal through the stimulus as well.
Also rumors of pressure on CNBC (Santelli, Kernan, Kudlow) for some of their critical commentary.
Jun 6, 2009 - 1:59 pm 13. Steve Adams:GE Sucks!!
Jun 6, 2009 - 3:14 pm 14. Bronco Bomber:I owe my career to GE, NBC, and Imelt. That’s why I can afford to be so generous in return with bailout money. I love NBC, Brian Williams, Ubermann, the whole gang! They can set up a studio here in my ample mansion for all I care.
Jun 6, 2009 - 4:23 pm 15. Pixelkiller:I’m shocked! Shocked!
Jun 6, 2009 - 5:09 pm 16. Hyphenated American:Nothing is new under the son. I’ve predicted this a while ago.
http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-will-try-to-jinx-messiah.html
In reality, if you want to see what Obama is doing, look no further than this historic analogy:
http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/2009/01/game-we-all-can-play-name-that.html
Jun 6, 2009 - 5:13 pm 17. Ed Driscoll:Pixelkiller,
You’ve overshot the runway! The Casablanca references are here, two posts over.
Ed
Jun 6, 2009 - 5:25 pm 18. Don Meaker:Of course people blame Bush. FDR continued to blame Hoover for unemployment in 1939…
And Hoover appointed the first hispanic justice….Benjamin Cardozo, in 1932.
Jun 6, 2009 - 10:22 pm 19. Lenny:SamIam has a great phrase that needs an acronym; Federally Favored Corporation == FFC. We need one of the “big blogs” to pick up on this and make a list of FFC’s. That way we would know who to boycott. Start of list:
GE/NBC/MSNBC/(all the rest of the crap they own)
Jun 7, 2009 - 1:43 am 20. WJ:Government Motors
Obama Motors (Chrysler)
Disney (ABC)
CBS (who owns them?)
Citigroup (soon to be ObamaGroup)
…
I avoid GE products when possible and certainly do not watch MSNBC. I do watch NBC when football is on, but turn it off when that crazy Olberman starts talking.
However, GE nor anybody else should be forced to advertise in a particular paper. If GE wants to pull their advertising that is their right.
If they tried to block access to certain shareholders at a public shareholders meeting that is another story.
Jun 7, 2009 - 7:33 am 21. Lucy:This must have been really hard for Nikke Finke to write. She has my admiration for doing so.
Jun 7, 2009 - 9:51 am 22. aprilnovember811:I know we will never knowingly buy another GE product again. Add that onto the list with GM.
Jun 7, 2009 - 9:59 am 23. Steynian 362 « Free Canuckistan!:[...] JACKBOOT MEDIA– GE/NBC Punished Paper for Running Story on Shareholder Meeting …. [...]
Jun 9, 2009 - 6:16 amSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.