wow... his comments were pejorative but I think they are or should be protected under free speech. I don't think they were defamatory any more than the president considering mainstream news as 'fake'. And his show is comedic in nature... that should mean something in his defense.
Is saying this about the president really that bad given the alleged Russian ties to the election and the president's overall ... um polarizing policies?
"The only thing your mouth is good at is being [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s cock holster,"
I think the FCC will respect the first amendment but may object to the potty-mouth sentence you quoted. They went after Howard Stern in a similar situation.
More to the point, Mr. Colbert should be ashamed of himself. Have some decency, Mr. Colbert.
It turns out people with children aren't very open to having their kids exposed to adult material on television. This is not a new thing, either - it's been that way since day 1.
Unlike mobile providers, broadcast companies didn't pay for the spectrum they use. It's a public resource that is licensed to them, and part of that license involves restrictions on language and also depictions of gore and sex.
Public service? Maybe your confusing it with some European models but in the US there is nothing public about it. Broadcasters pay big bucks to companies like Comcast to get their station transmitted.
And if your kid is not old enough to hear to word dick then he should be in bed long before 22:00.
Maybe you don't understand how things work in the US. This has nothing to do with cable. It's about over-the-air broadcast. If it had just been cable there wouldn't be a problem.
What does delivery medium have to do with anything? I guarantee no kid knows the difference. They press channel up and channel down. It makes no sense why one would be upset over that.
While I agree that it should be protected under free speech, I'm not sure haranguing the president who half the country voted for while making offensive remarks with respect to the LGBT community is the best marketing ploy. Seems like if anyone should be upset it should be his employer CBS. However, paradoxically sometimes controversies actually increase ratings so they might be fine with it.
And the highest rated TV show of all time (Super Bowl XLIX) only managed to attract 115/330 million people so what's your point. Are you arguing that somehow TV viewers are far more likely to be Democrat? Is there some reason that the same distribution of voters wouldn't apply to TV as well?
The final election results were
Clinton 65,844,610
Trump 62,979,636
If you call the difference significant (2.2%), then what does that make the gross value of 62 million americans that might be turned off by his rant?
I think the point of the objection was that about 19% of Americans voted for trump, instead of "half the country".
Even if this were a strictly cynical action on Colbert's part (and I don't think it is) you could make the argument that given Trump's unpopularity you might create more value out of bashing him than you lose from his supporters.
Moreover, I suspect that Colbert's target demographics skew richer, younger, and urban/suburban so he probably has less to lose and more to gain by alienating Trump supporters anyway.
Assuming everyone that didn't vote has no political opinion, do you think that they would care about Colbert's rant? I addressed the phenomenon of paradoxical popularity reactions to controversies in my original post, but I still don't see the value of insulting anyone when you are in the business of advertising to as wide of audience as possible. Lets not forget TV is an advertisement driven business. Bill OReilly found out pretty quick that it wasn't his analysis that kept him around, it was the sponsors.
The only comments from the LGBT community that I've seen are that they found it funny and not homophobic. It seems to be the Republicans who are calling it homophobic.
But that isn't what's happening here and you know it. You're a Trump supporter, that's cool, but please drop the concern trolling. You're not offended, you're just being opportunistic.
I'm not offended and never said I was. I was merely pointing out that an article citing a bunch of tweets from offended people was the cover story on yahoo yesterday, in response to a comment saying no one was offended except republicans.
I encourage you to take a look at those "offended" people in the yahoo story.
The first one has a twitter background that reads, "make liberalism ridiculous again" and a long list of very "right" leaning tweets.
The second is full of the same concern trolling towards other media figures with their statements taken out of context - the exact thing you're expressing frustration with in the other thread. Also a republican.
The third's twitter avatar is literally "I <3 TRUMP"
The fourth, to his credit, admits in other tweets that he is a republican, wasn't actually offended, but was just making a point (you know, the thing you're doing now).
The fifth has an avatar of Pepe the Frog, and a background of Trump stylized like Duke Nukem, holding a gun in front of the American Flag, and a pinned tweet about the "alt-left being pedophiles".
I'll summarize the rest: I checked, and every single one of them are very outspoken republicans. I think I have you dead to rights here. If there is a non-republican somewhere in this country who was offended, you definitely didn't link to a yahoo article referencing any of them. The only thing you did was validate my point.
Anyway, I know what you're doing. Your point is that the other side is constantly doing this same type of thing to Trump. I agree, and I think it's out of control. The Washington Post has become as bad as Fox News. I used to see this from the lunatic-right and wonder how certain headlines alone were not setting off their skepticism alarms. Now I'm being flooded by the same type of thing from the lunatic-left. It does not leave much room for optimism.
What is wrong with you? I am
Not yahoo.com. I did not write the article. I never endorsed any part of the article. Yahoo is a left leaning publication and they published that article, on their front page. Thus to claim right wing conspiracy doesnt make any sense because its not coming from breitbart. I seriously cant believe you spent your friday night writing an 8 paragraph response to nothing. I wasn't trying to argue anything other than a fact that there were articles on top media websites claiming outrage. Good grief.
> I was merely pointing out that an article citing a bunch of tweets from offended people was the cover story on yahoo yesterday, in response to a comment saying no one was offended except republicans.
In other areas, people get labeled as having "internalized the patriarchy" or such if they claim to find something that could've offended them unoffensive... it's always about the messenger more than the message.
The thing about this is that people aren't stupid, in the same way that a lot of people were willing to ignore Trump's misogyny. Asking "why would I care that the media is telling me it's terrible that Trump says things like this, when mainstream movies, TV, and music lyrics are full of stuff at least as bad?" is a legitimate question that nobody was even bothering to try to give them an answer to.
Exactly. People can be unbelievably obtuse when it comes to remarks the opposition makes while simultaneously showing remarkable skill in finding exculpatory facts for their own side. The media is especially guilty of sensationalizing what would otherwise be mundane statements into controversy. An example of this would be taking the phrase "you people" out of context and turning into a racial/etc issue when the intent was never there to begin with.
So if a manager says to the office, "Some of you people need to improve your performance" and one person takes that as meaning only people of color need improvement and reports the manager, you would side with the employee?
There are many common cases where someone refers to a group of people with the intention of meaning everyone while someone in the group interprets it as referring to a subset of the group. It stems from the ambiguity of the word people and the impact of tone and body language in conveying its ultimate meaning.
It seems like every late night comedian doubles as a political commentator these days. Perhaps my memory is hazy but I didn't recall previous late night hosts having to resort to as many partisan jokes for laughs. IMO it's lazy humor that lacks originality and plays on people's hate. Its like making fun of the outcast at school because it's vogue. If we want harmony in this world, we can't go around calling everyone we disagree with a moron.
Maybe I don't understand what that means in this context. Why is making crude jokes more useful/effective/beneficial than reporting on issues and having mature discussions about those issues?
So bullying is ok as long as you are on the 'right' side?
Also as an aside, you are aware that a moron would view a genius as a moron right? A moron wouldn't understand the genius and thus dismiss him as a moron. A moron would only find other morons to be geniuses.
What, satire and jokes about corrupt power structures are "bullying"? So what would you call what Trump says from his Twitter account on a daily basis?
If possible could you tell me if i have been moderated? I lost 13 karma overnight and I am curious if my comments in the past 24 hours were in violation of forum policy. It feels as if ive been vindictively downvoted which as a relative newcomer is discouraging
Looking at the comments you've posted recently, a couple of them have been flagged, and a couple others have been downvoted (based on seeing that they're various shades of gray).
They're all under this same submission, which is quite politically charged, which increases the likelihood that comments will be downvoted or flagged by HN members. I doubt you were moderated in the sense that the mods ('dang and 'sctb) did anything. I suspect it's all user action. Members downvote for all kinds of reasons (and vindictiveness can unfortunately be one of them).
If you're concerned about downvotes, I recommend steering clear of politics on HN. While HN can be a great place for constructive discussion, some topics can be very difficult to discuss constructively and civilly.
I hope this isn't not too discouraging. When I'm downvoted, I step back and try to determine why, keeping in mind the context and forum. Could I have phrased things better? Was I on-topic? Did I add meaningfully to the discussion? Was I writing from a position of trying to understand and be understood? Was I giving others in the discussion the benefit of the most charitable reading of their comments? If I honestly feel I did everything I could, then I chalk it up to someone downvoting for reasons I couldn't do anything about other than not commenting at all, and let it be.
Very appreciative of you taking the time to look into my situation and help me see the error of my ways. I was just shocked when posts that were at +5 suddenly were at -1. Its just kind of frustrating to have the karma of quality posts on hackernews centric material erased because someone has a different political view on a random political article. Best avoid posting on them altogether I suppose
> Perhaps my memory is hazy but I didn't recall previous late night hosts having to resort to as many partisan jokes for laughs.
Your memory is hazy; late night has gone to politics for comedy pretty heavily, especially when there is low hanging fruit, since Carson pioneered the genre.
> IMO it's lazy humor that lacks originality and plays on people's hate.
Humor that needs to be timely on a nightly basis is always going to be somewhat lazy, or at least opportunistic in picking the low-hanging fruit.
Calling someone a C* holder isn't sophisticated though. Its just a barrage of ad hominems designed to belittle, dismiss, and provoke the other side. I don't see the value colberts monologue brought other than to widen the gap of division in the country. I don't think a single republican heard that speech and suddenly felt remorse. Quite the opposite i suspect.
I think there's a not insignificant part of the citizenry who don't read news or think about their relevance outside of satire. There is some value in that it informs these people that there is reason to suspect Russian agendas at play behind the current US Govt.
You might not like this method of delivering it, but that doesn't mean that it is devoid of value.
Donald Trump is extremely unpopular https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/, with a congress passing unpopular legislation (e.g. the AHCA). So I think there is some statistical justification for the shear amount of "partisan jokes".
NB: I do not think positively, in any way, of this administration: I'm probably (Maybe even provably) biased.
I agree, some of the humour is pretty lazy and I think the well will dry up soon; then we'll be left with stuff like Jon Stewart used to make, John Oliver is now (Large policy based segments, with jokes) and presumably Colbert. I'm surprised that the US doesn't really have a show akin to spitting image (UK): It seems like a ripe time for a relativly personality free satire show (Unless I'm just blind and I've missed something).
My complaint is that Colbert's humor reflects wealthy New York values - and he never makes jokes about the actual problems which caused many to vote for Trump (yes, some Trump supporters are racist - but many have real issues with the wealth transfer to the 1% and the myriad consequences of that transfer.) Where are the jokes about hiding billions offshore and avoiding taxes and undermining community values? Colbert, sadly, is part of the problem. Like Trump and Clinton, Colbert thinks he illuminates while he is really only promoting a different set of class values.
2. It's not as funny as you suggest: The Poor voting for Trump is, depending on your own perspective, either pointless or tragic. I mean, what could be funnier than decades of crippling inequality?
3. "Colbert thinks he illuminates while he is really only promoting a different set of class values". That's rather vague, I think it's reasonable to say that we all do that whenever we talk about anything political.
To go on a slight tangent but one I think very relevant here, considering other comments here about the overt politics of late night talk shows, such as another commenter's remark about not recalling previous late night hosts resorting to so many partisan jokes, it seems most people are neither aware of the former FCC's Fairness Doctrine nor its repeal:
>The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was — in the Commission's view — honest, equitable, and balanced. The FCC, which was believed to have been under pressure from then President Ronald Reagan, eliminated the Doctrine in 1987. The FCC formally removed the language that implemented the Doctrine, in August of 2011.
There used to be a requirement for broadcasting companies to make a good faith effort to present all sides of a topic and to actually accomplish that goal to a reasonable degree. I am not sure of the historical origins of that policy, but I imagine it was put in place in recognition of the ability of media to sway public opinion and therefore to what degree it could be abused by powerful players with an agenda.
I am generally against any governmental regulation of how people communicate, but in this case the regulation was not about content, per se, but about the fairness and integrity of our national information delivery channels. I don't know why this was repealed - I keep meaning to research it - but in any case, the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine is a chief causal factor for the state of American media today.
As much as I appreciate Colbert now, as much as I watched and enjoyed the commentary by Stewart, Colbert, and others as political pundits, it is also very clear to me that part of their success in what they do is due to affirmation of political views they share with their viewers - and that that can be (and, in my opinion, has been) overall very detrimental because it has led people to silo their beliefs and become more close minded to hearing opposing viewpoints. Furthermore, the role of such pundits has become that of trading in-depth analysis for entertainment and laughs.
I generally agree with what seem to be Colbert's views and often think he is very sharp and insightful. However, in the context of what I said above and considering how much influence he has, I think that the complaints and investigation discussed in TFA are well-founded.
Eh, I submit that the networks were more than eager to support the fairness doctrine (Fox News: Fair and Balanced). The fairness doctrine was a fig leaf that allowed producers to pursue the appearance of controversy where there was none, effectively inhibiting debate at all. Frankly, now that the gloves are off, at least it's easier to see who's who in the zoo.
The Russians often admired US media's effectiveness. At least in the USSR, they knew everything was propaganda. In the US, it was hard to know, so it could slip into your thinking less detected.
The conceptual problem I have with the Fairness Doctrine - never having known a world in which it existed - is that it could force broadcasters to give equal time to ideas that do not have equal merit. If we had anti-vaxxers in 1986, would they have to get equal time on every news channel? What about Obama birthers? Abstinence-only sex ed?
Or, what about the fact that the current administration has no interest in doing anything beneficial to non-wealthy Americans? I consider that a demonstrable fact; must my hypothetical network give time to seriously considering the possibility that the GOP has rural America's best interests at heart, just because someone in politics claims that that's the case?
I'm skeptical that good intentions can be legislated. TV today is partisian because entertainment makes more money than journalism.
I'm sure Fox as well as NBC can find a way to satisfy "balance" without sacrificing on their core principal of make money. Fairness is too squishy.
Basically, I don't think there is any top down shortcut we can use to fix our culture. The networks are just giving the people what they want. Change will need to be bottom up. If we create a populace that values journalism and discourse, fair reporting will recover.
It's amazing how strongly HN pushes for free speech for Nazis, and racists, and any other unpleasant people. But for a late night talk show host criticizing a terrible president? All I see is "won't anybody think of the children?!"
Over-The-Air (OTA) TV to me is something left far, far behind, somewhere in the mid-aughts. A wasteland of advertising and inferior content compared with what is available online or even on cable.
Kids especially, the ones who are 'protected' by regulations covering OTA TV, aren't interested in OTA TV. That's why OTA TV is programmed for demographics that are approaching or past retirement, and it's why TV companies are talking deals with Snapchat.
79 comments
[ 6.6 ms ] story [ 275 ms ] threadIs saying this about the president really that bad given the alleged Russian ties to the election and the president's overall ... um polarizing policies?
"The only thing your mouth is good at is being [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s cock holster,"
More to the point, Mr. Colbert should be ashamed of himself. Have some decency, Mr. Colbert.
Unlike mobile providers, broadcast companies didn't pay for the spectrum they use. It's a public resource that is licensed to them, and part of that license involves restrictions on language and also depictions of gore and sex.
And if your kid is not old enough to hear to word dick then he should be in bed long before 22:00.
When our government behaves decently, maybe. Right now Trump deserves none.
The final election results were Clinton 65,844,610 Trump 62,979,636 If you call the difference significant (2.2%), then what does that make the gross value of 62 million americans that might be turned off by his rant?
Even if this were a strictly cynical action on Colbert's part (and I don't think it is) you could make the argument that given Trump's unpopularity you might create more value out of bashing him than you lose from his supporters.
Moreover, I suspect that Colbert's target demographics skew richer, younger, and urban/suburban so he probably has less to lose and more to gain by alienating Trump supporters anyway.
In today's age its a bad bet to assume something isn't offensive to anyone.
The first one has a twitter background that reads, "make liberalism ridiculous again" and a long list of very "right" leaning tweets.
The second is full of the same concern trolling towards other media figures with their statements taken out of context - the exact thing you're expressing frustration with in the other thread. Also a republican.
The third's twitter avatar is literally "I <3 TRUMP"
The fourth, to his credit, admits in other tweets that he is a republican, wasn't actually offended, but was just making a point (you know, the thing you're doing now).
The fifth has an avatar of Pepe the Frog, and a background of Trump stylized like Duke Nukem, holding a gun in front of the American Flag, and a pinned tweet about the "alt-left being pedophiles".
I'll summarize the rest: I checked, and every single one of them are very outspoken republicans. I think I have you dead to rights here. If there is a non-republican somewhere in this country who was offended, you definitely didn't link to a yahoo article referencing any of them. The only thing you did was validate my point.
Anyway, I know what you're doing. Your point is that the other side is constantly doing this same type of thing to Trump. I agree, and I think it's out of control. The Washington Post has become as bad as Fox News. I used to see this from the lunatic-right and wonder how certain headlines alone were not setting off their skepticism alarms. Now I'm being flooded by the same type of thing from the lunatic-left. It does not leave much room for optimism.
The thing about this is that people aren't stupid, in the same way that a lot of people were willing to ignore Trump's misogyny. Asking "why would I care that the media is telling me it's terrible that Trump says things like this, when mainstream movies, TV, and music lyrics are full of stuff at least as bad?" is a legitimate question that nobody was even bothering to try to give them an answer to.
There are many common cases where someone refers to a group of people with the intention of meaning everyone while someone in the group interprets it as referring to a subset of the group. It stems from the ambiguity of the word people and the impact of tone and body language in conveying its ultimate meaning.
Also as an aside, you are aware that a moron would view a genius as a moron right? A moron wouldn't understand the genius and thus dismiss him as a moron. A moron would only find other morons to be geniuses.
Go away you partisan hack
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=blackflame7000
They're all under this same submission, which is quite politically charged, which increases the likelihood that comments will be downvoted or flagged by HN members. I doubt you were moderated in the sense that the mods ('dang and 'sctb) did anything. I suspect it's all user action. Members downvote for all kinds of reasons (and vindictiveness can unfortunately be one of them).
If you're concerned about downvotes, I recommend steering clear of politics on HN. While HN can be a great place for constructive discussion, some topics can be very difficult to discuss constructively and civilly.
I hope this isn't not too discouraging. When I'm downvoted, I step back and try to determine why, keeping in mind the context and forum. Could I have phrased things better? Was I on-topic? Did I add meaningfully to the discussion? Was I writing from a position of trying to understand and be understood? Was I giving others in the discussion the benefit of the most charitable reading of their comments? If I honestly feel I did everything I could, then I chalk it up to someone downvoting for reasons I couldn't do anything about other than not commenting at all, and let it be.
Your memory is hazy; late night has gone to politics for comedy pretty heavily, especially when there is low hanging fruit, since Carson pioneered the genre.
> IMO it's lazy humor that lacks originality and plays on people's hate.
Humor that needs to be timely on a nightly basis is always going to be somewhat lazy, or at least opportunistic in picking the low-hanging fruit.
s/Carson/Steve Allen/
I agree that a lot of it is lazy comedy.
(1) https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/ancient-greeces-legac...
You might not like this method of delivering it, but that doesn't mean that it is devoid of value.
Neither is wearing a huge red leather strap-on (1).
http://www.cornellcollege.edu/classical_studies/lit/CLA364-1...
I agree, some of the humour is pretty lazy and I think the well will dry up soon; then we'll be left with stuff like Jon Stewart used to make, John Oliver is now (Large policy based segments, with jokes) and presumably Colbert. I'm surprised that the US doesn't really have a show akin to spitting image (UK): It seems like a ripe time for a relativly personality free satire show (Unless I'm just blind and I've missed something).
Then why'd they vote for the party of wealth transfer to the 1%?
Or do you mean "have a problem with" in the same sense that an addict is said to "have a problem with" a drug?
Oh? Which party is that? Who do you think unrestricted immigration benefits - blue collar types or wealthy industrialists?
Both of them, but the Democrats make a more convincing pretense of wanting policies to offset it :|
2. It's not as funny as you suggest: The Poor voting for Trump is, depending on your own perspective, either pointless or tragic. I mean, what could be funnier than decades of crippling inequality?
3. "Colbert thinks he illuminates while he is really only promoting a different set of class values". That's rather vague, I think it's reasonable to say that we all do that whenever we talk about anything political.
>The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was — in the Commission's view — honest, equitable, and balanced. The FCC, which was believed to have been under pressure from then President Ronald Reagan, eliminated the Doctrine in 1987. The FCC formally removed the language that implemented the Doctrine, in August of 2011.
Quote taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine
There used to be a requirement for broadcasting companies to make a good faith effort to present all sides of a topic and to actually accomplish that goal to a reasonable degree. I am not sure of the historical origins of that policy, but I imagine it was put in place in recognition of the ability of media to sway public opinion and therefore to what degree it could be abused by powerful players with an agenda.
I am generally against any governmental regulation of how people communicate, but in this case the regulation was not about content, per se, but about the fairness and integrity of our national information delivery channels. I don't know why this was repealed - I keep meaning to research it - but in any case, the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine is a chief causal factor for the state of American media today.
As much as I appreciate Colbert now, as much as I watched and enjoyed the commentary by Stewart, Colbert, and others as political pundits, it is also very clear to me that part of their success in what they do is due to affirmation of political views they share with their viewers - and that that can be (and, in my opinion, has been) overall very detrimental because it has led people to silo their beliefs and become more close minded to hearing opposing viewpoints. Furthermore, the role of such pundits has become that of trading in-depth analysis for entertainment and laughs.
I generally agree with what seem to be Colbert's views and often think he is very sharp and insightful. However, in the context of what I said above and considering how much influence he has, I think that the complaints and investigation discussed in TFA are well-founded.
The Russians often admired US media's effectiveness. At least in the USSR, they knew everything was propaganda. In the US, it was hard to know, so it could slip into your thinking less detected.
Or, what about the fact that the current administration has no interest in doing anything beneficial to non-wealthy Americans? I consider that a demonstrable fact; must my hypothetical network give time to seriously considering the possibility that the GOP has rural America's best interests at heart, just because someone in politics claims that that's the case?
I'm sure Fox as well as NBC can find a way to satisfy "balance" without sacrificing on their core principal of make money. Fairness is too squishy.
Basically, I don't think there is any top down shortcut we can use to fix our culture. The networks are just giving the people what they want. Change will need to be bottom up. If we create a populace that values journalism and discourse, fair reporting will recover.
Kids especially, the ones who are 'protected' by regulations covering OTA TV, aren't interested in OTA TV. That's why OTA TV is programmed for demographics that are approaching or past retirement, and it's why TV companies are talking deals with Snapchat.
Or am I in a bubble?