CNET Parent CBS Blocks Review and Award To Dish Over Legal Dispute 138
Coldeagle writes "It looks as if CNET's parent company, CBS, has laid down the law: 'Just one day after CNet named the Dish "Hopper," a new TV recording system that's drawing rave reviews in the tech press, to an awards shortlist, the site's parent company stepped in and nixed the accolade. Because of a legal battle between CBS and Dish over the Hopper's ad-skipping technology, CBS laid down a ban: CNet won't be allowed to even review Dish products, much less give them awards.' Got to love modern day freedom of the press!"
All the News ... (Score:5, Funny)
All the News we think is fit to print and in our best interests.
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Re:All the News ... (Score:5, Funny)
CBS owned CNET
But apparently CBS never learned to spell Streisand.
eh? CBS/Columbia was her record label (Score:2)
and I hear they got along well in the line at the bank.
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All the News we think is fit to print and in our best interests.
If it costs us revenue, you can't have it.
Freedom of the Press (Score:2)
the guy who owns the press has lots of freedom in how they use it. it has been ever thus.
1st amendment is for the government (Score:4, Informative)
It's to protect your rights from the government
CBS is a private business and has no obligation to review a product of another business
Re:1st amendment is for the government (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody mentioned the amendment. Freedom of the press is a concept that existed long before that, and it's a pretty good one. In the case of a review site, what they're really selling is their reputation.
If your reputation is as a shill site that won't review something because some corporate types are fighting with some other corporate types, that's not good for your brand.
Re:1st amendment is for the government (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a blind interpretation that serves only to conceal the deeply troubling precedent here.
Journalism has ethics of its own, and this compromises them.
And you? You harp on some pedantry about the government.
Re:1st amendment is for the government (Score:5, Insightful)
You had me right up to that part about Journalism having ethics....
Re:1st amendment is for the government (Score:5, Insightful)
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Pedantic? Maybe.
But still correct.
Technically.
The best kind.
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Re:1st amendment is for the government (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me guess, you believe that only governments can censor by definition?
Yes. When an organization decides it does not want to run a story, that's their choice. They are not being censored. Now, there is an argument which can be made that the person trying to submit the story is being censored, but considering they could go to another organization or just print it on their own, no it's not censorship.
Freedom of the Press means the government does not get to decide what can and cannot be printed.
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They object to it being pointed out, but they don't disagree with the conclusion itself. Go on, prove me wrong. Tell me how my "rights" restr
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And you prove you have absolutely no clue beyond a blind disdain for the libertarian movement with zero knowledge of what that actually pertains to.
Like a blind person saying he hates green and likes blue.
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My problem is that I like libertarianism, and consider myself one, but I hate anyone who considers themselves to be a libertarian, because they are all Republicans.
And I note, that you, as a Republican loonitarian didn't offer one reason why my characteriza
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Re:1st amendment is for the government (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom of the press is when the media reports something bad about ANY powerful interest be it government, corporate, or personal.
Altering the perceived scope of a definition is a popular tactic amongst those who wish to do bad things. Such as narrowing your perception of the definition of Freedom of the Press or expanding your perceived definition of theft or piracy.
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Actually it is, since the people directly involved in making an impartial and unbiased selection are being compromised by the corporate heads.
That you will not admit how it violates freedom of the press is not surprising, it's like the old saw about Freedom used to justify restrictive covenants and anti-union clauses in contracts.
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CBS won't be prosecuted. They become a Fox News of selective coverage. Their sense of fairness and ethics is dashed against the rocks of their sense of their business model, which has been perceived as corrupt, and perhaps is.
Journalists that I know that work for CBS and CNet (and other subsidiaries) are completely aghast. It's a WTF moment for them.
Freedom of the press allows CBS to have enormous lattitude, just like it does to the blather and BS of Fox News. CBS's management has allowed themselves to be k
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CBS won't be prosecuted. They become a Fox News of selective coverage.
What would/should they be prosecuted for here? I cannot imagine any reason why they should be prosecuted for this. Any attempt to prosecute them for this would be a violation of freedom of the press.
As to them "becoming a Fox News of selective coverage" they were doing selective coverage of the news before there was a Fox News. Just go back and look at the way they reported on the Vietnam War.
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No one is narrowing anything.
It states in its simplicity: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Congress. Shall make no law. Abridging the freedom...of the press.
Doesn't say jack about private companies that own said "press".
Don't like it? Then work to get it changed.
I know I
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You have just narrowed the broad concept of 'Freedom of the Press" down to the much more specific "First Amendment". We are NOT talking about the First Amendment here, we are talking about the broader concept.
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Unfortunately, by extension, the government could legally apply pressure to, extort, pressure, or simply pay the press to report the way they want. While there are too many channels to control the entirety of the press this way, the parts of the press that aren't vulnerable to this only reach a small margin of the people. Of course, the lunatic fringe segment of the press would probably reach a larger segment of the population, which would make it easy for people to lump the honest press in with the loonies
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Freedom of the press is when the media reports something bad about the government. It's not about reviewing products
Come again??
The term "Freedom Of The Press" does not come with teeny tiny subtexts.
Freedom of the Press is exactly what it is, the freedom of the media to report what they want to report, and it is not limited to government, or to corporation, or to social movement, or any other subject that you may (or may not) think of.
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Well, the people who actually published the review are certainly being silenced. They've also been put in a position where, if journalistic integrity were actually important to people these days and if the people doing the review were serious journalists, they would have no choice but to either resign or lose all respect as journalists. Instead, it seems that this is just going to pass with a shrug. This is the true face of corruption. It creeps in until no-one can be bothered to care or act because it woul
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Freedom of the press is granted to those who OWN THE PRESS. No news here... please move along.
Re:1st amendment is for the government (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes and when the news and all the media being watched by the mouth breathing public are owned by a shocking few corporations and those corporations act monolithicly to steer society in the direction they choose, to inform or misinform as they choose, to manipulate and promote public opinion in the name of what's good for the plutocracy, we have a wee problem.
Or, perhaps this is the way its always been and a free press is an aberration or illusion. Personally I think its high time we pried the those crypt keeper fingers off of the controls steering society into ever deeper water and we just said screw the banks and screw the corporations. Its time for real free enterprise.
Re:1st amendment is for the government (Score:5, Informative)
The history of freedom of the press goes back nearly 500 years. The term has always referred to a legal concept that restricts the ability of GOVERNMENTS to interfere with publications.
Freedom of the press is not and never has been a concept that applies to private concerns. If it did it would be a big issue because it would interfere with property rights.
Yes perhaps CBS is hurting their reputation by not carrying these advertisements. But this has NOTHING to do with freedom of the press.
Re:is cnet seen publically (Score:4, Insightful)
This decision by CBS prompts me to distrust CBS and to choose not to use CBS or its subsidiaries to get my news. I do not Support the right of CBS to decide what CBS will and will not say because I like and trust CBS, I support the right of CBS to decide what CBS will and will not say because I like having the right to decide what I will and will not say.
Re:is cnet seen publically (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is until this story, I had no idea CNET was own by CBS. I can't imagine I'm alone in that.
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Indeed, these things change quickly and frequently. It's like trying to figure out if a seemingly indie label is RIAA affiliated.
Media consolidation is never a good thing.
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Re:1st amendment is for the government (Score:4, Informative)
You are under no obligation to fund your detractors. This has been upheld many times:
* Malls, AKA private property, do not have to let protesters walk around inside protesting businesses.
* The First Amendment covers the right to say things...and not to say things.
* Parades are, in fact, expressive events w.r.t. the First Amendment, so religious Irish don't have to let gays march in their parade.
Even things like cigarette labeling fall under truth in advertising. When it gets too obnoxious or large, it gets slapped down again.
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The issue is not funding your detractors, but publishing news about your competitor. It's self-censorship, an independent issue from government control.
If CBS is censoring CNET, I know that CNET isn't reliable -- and neither is CBS.
If I'm a reader, I want a magazine to give me the truth as accurately and completely as they can, not self-censor for the publisher's business reasons. If they won't do that, fuck them. I have plenty of other news sources.
Among journalists, this has been a well-known issue for at
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Generally publishers are interested in increasing freedom. This is a moral principle. Not a legal one. It's still freedom of the press.
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you left out THEY key issue: government.
freedom does not need gov to be involved.
freedom OF THE PRESS does need the gov to be part of it.
if its private-to-private, FOTP is not releavnt.
(semantics, but its important to know)
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You're getting your semantics all wrong.
Most journalists will tell you that freedom of the press means to them the freedom to print whatever they know to be the truth. If the government censors them, or their publisher censors them, they don't have freedom of the press.
One of the best examples was tobacco. The tobacco industry was one of the biggest advertisers in newspapers and magazines. They were also the major cause of preventable death in the U.S.. Newspapers and magazines printed articles about every
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Why does it make any difference who is limiting your freedom? Censorship is people with the power to prevent publishing using that power - whether it's a government or a business owner. Freedom of the press is simply about the ability to publish
Are the journalist "free" to publish? CNET journalists can't review dish p
Re:1st amendment is for the government (Score:4, Insightful)
Sad (Score:2)
...
If your reputation is as a shill site that won't review something because some corporate types are fighting with some other corporate types, that's not good for your brand.
Scary how many /.ers seem to believe that the trade press is fair, ballanced, reputable, accurate, responsible, caring, honest, trustworthy, etc.
They make their money from their adverisers. They know not to bite the hand that feeds them. Grow up and move out of your parent's basement. Yellow journalism started with the first paid advertisement.
Cheers,
Daver
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Wide overgeneralization. Having worked in the trade press, I know how fair and balanced they are.
Many of them pander to their advertisers. Many of them don't. Many of them go through a period of independence, then get bought up by a publisher who panders to advertisers again.
Business Week used to pride itself on its independence from advertisers. They had a cover story in which they trounced Westinghouse. Westinghouse pulled all their ads. It happened a lot.
I used to read Automotive News. They published bad
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In Soviet America, smart net television ensure ad-skipping technology review never seen by you.
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Re:1st amendment is for the government (Score:5, Insightful)
It's to protect your rights from the government
CBS is a private business and has no obligation to review a product of another business
When the poster talked about "freedom of the press", I'm pretty sure he meant to talk about editorial independence. [wikipedia.org] A journalistic entity isn't credible without editorial independence from the owners of the publication, because without it you can't be sure if anything you read can from that publication is the truth, or is just what is convenient to the owners. Generally publications want the reputation of being unbiased, which is also why they tend to disclose any possible source of biases (such as when slashdot covers a story related to a company that is owned by the same parent company that owns slashdot, and the editors mention that in the summary).
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That sound you hear? It's their reputation screaming in agony. It's the sound of their doom. Lets let them die the death they so richly deserve. I'm blocking CNET from entering any system I control. How about you?
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It's the uneasy ghost of Walter Cronkite wandering the land.
Re:1st amendment is for the government (Score:4, Insightful)
The 1st amendment is the implementation of freedom of the press that is specific to the government.
The more general category of Freedom of the Press applies everywhere. It is always a good thing and those who oppose it are universally on the wrong side of decency.
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What "public airwaves" does C|NET use exactly?
Thanks CBS! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm considering canceling my Comcast subscription because their new dta scheme means no more local HD on the basic plan. I hadn't even heard of hopper, but now I think I've found my replacement. Barbra Streisand would be so proud.
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Well, if their product reviews are not objective, they can't really be trusted. What use are they?
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Well, if their product reviews are not objective, they can't really be trusted. What use are they?
Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, WSJ OpEd page ... :-) ]
[ Okay, mainly the very first one, but I'm *trying* to be fair and balanced - I mean "objective".
CBS no longer cares (Score:5, Insightful)
There are more anecdotes, suspicions, etc about this same thing going on each and every day ever since there has been a press, but it's extremely rare for this kind of industry self-censorship to be this blatent and in-your-face.
This could just be a moronic decision by idiots at CBS without thinking of the consequences...or maybe, just maybe, THEY NO LONGER *CARE* ABOUT ANY CONSEQUENCES...
Just a hunch...
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CBS's main demographic is old people too lazy to change the channel, mixed with a few young people who want to get out their drool cups and turn off their brains for a while. They have few viewers who even know what a CNET is, and even fewer who would care.
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I don't think they ever did. There was the incident with Dan Rather [wikipedia.org] in 2004, but worse was six decades ago when Walter Cronkite lied on air during coverage of the 1952 Presidential election. [usatoday.com]
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And I find it rather hypocritical that a site like slashdot would bitch about censorship at all, since the moderation system used on here could be viewed as "crowd-sourced censorship".
Maybe, if one doesn't know how to change the viewing threshold.
Got to love modern day freedom of the press! (Score:2)
Got to love modern day freedom of the press!
If you think this is some sort of new phenomenon, you're dreaming. This is the way it's always been, just a lot less subtle than it might have been a few decades ago.
Freedom of the press? Uh, no. (Score:2)
Got to love modern day freedom of the press!
Cnet is free from government abridgment in this affair; their corporate overlords are not subject to the first amendment's constitutional proscription.
Makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)
If they're in court over the device, they sure don't want any of their subsidiaries reviewing or commenting on the devices. That would provide the opposition with ammunition in court, and could even lead to a dismissal of the case because they didn't keep their opinions and comments in the court system instead of in public.
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Sell off News.com domain (Score:1)
C|net should give CBS a handful of baubles and trinkets and GTFO. Do they really need CBS, or is it the other way around?
If CBS doesn't care about journalistic integrity any longer, it should simply change it's initials to mean: Copyright Based Sustenance
Lawsuit? (Score:1)
I think CBS has opened themselves up to a nice lawsuit. If one of the reasons you were there for the conference was to garner the award and use it in advertisements, who is eligible is extremely important. They've cost Dish network some money and they entitled to some compensation. If I ran the trade show, CBS has diminished the value of the entire convention and the owners should seriously consider suing.
RE: "Got to love modern day freedom of the press." (Score:1)
Got to love modern day freedom of the press! (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. CBS gets to decide what they publish. You get to decide what you publish. The government has no say in the matter. That's freedom of the press.
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Or as the old saying goes, "freedom of the press belongs to those who own the presses".
It's not "modern" freedom of the press (Score:2)
Freedom of the press, at least in the USA, is freedom from government censure (as in in the first amendment of the US Constitution).
There has always been a long-standing "tradition" of owners of media (like newspapers) to advance the agenda of the owner and to suppress the opposition.
Re:It's not "modern" freedom of the press (Score:4, Insightful)
I think they were referring to editorial freedom, but like most editors on Slashdot they need to take a journalism class.
Journalistic Integrity no... Responsibilities yes (Score:1)
Fine CNet won't discuss on it's site particular products that happen to have litigation with it's parent company CBS. Fine. You review what you want and have no obligation to take one product over another. I can respect that.
But what I don't respect is that a 'Best Of CES' which was currently being run by CNet, and had been run by others before CNet took it on a few years back, eliminated this product from potentially receiving an award not for anything improper by Dish, but because CNet's parent company
Remember the Slate Firefox catastrophe? (Score:3, Interesting)
I can see why they are doing it (Score:2)
Its not a good thing for a company like CBS to have one part of the business going to court to claim that a key feature of another companies product is killing your main revenue stream and then have another part of the business praising how good the product (and possibly the feature in question) is.
Well then... (Score:1)
And on that news.... (Score:4)
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I wasn't aware that anyone still went to that cancerous site until today.
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yeah, they had a short popularity and then they sucked, if i want to install a crappy ie toolbar they would be the first place to go to, but i don't seem to need that so that's why i stopped going there, slashdot is also teetering
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The Hopper is hilarious (Score:3, Interesting)
I seem to be the only person out of my social circle that remembers Tivo getting neutered back in the early 2000's because of features that were less impressive than this. IIRC Tivo was sued by multiple companies because of the 30-second-skip button on their remotes. They eventually had to disable it (you could always re-enable it if you knew what to do) because advertisers wanted their commercials watched, at least in fast forward.
Now we have the hopper just a few years later. It does the same thing the Tivo did, but it's automatic now, and you don't even see the start of the commercial like you did with the Tivo. Only this time it's being marketed by one of the distribution companies, so they'll grease a few advertiser palms and keep going on their merry way. Hooray for our legal system!
Re:The Hopper is hilarious (Score:4, Informative)
Dish's Auto-hop has to explicitly be enabled; ReplayTV did it automatically. That's the difference that Dish's legal team is assuming they can use to avoid the same fate of ReplayTV. That, and Dish can afford a long legal battle.
The first rule of CBS club.... (Score:2)
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another reason (Score:2)
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I'd just force cnet to display next to their "Award" word that it's a choice of products approved by their corporate masters award.
History repeats (Score:4, Interesting)
yo (Score:2)
Cnet reviewers have been industry (Score:2)
shills for years now. Why would it suprise anyone that they would react this way. They are not in business to review products or advise potential buyers but to MAKE A PROFIT, and advert for their corporate owners.
Old saw (Score:1)
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one" -- A. J. Liebling
--
It was a drunk and stormy night. Four shots called out -- drink me.