Just yesterday Fox Business host Charlie Gasparino reported, citing anonymous sources, that there’s a “90% chance” that Newsmax, will be 'de-platformed' by DirecTV by Tuesday.
https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1617978607120568326
In
most cases, the media is known to use anonymous sources to peddle propaganda.
But
here the claims turned out to be factual, DirecTV stopped carrying Newsmax
when an extension of their carriage agreement expired yesterday at 11:59 p.m.
ET.
https://twitter.com/Commander_Brady/status/1618114284457963521
DirecTV,
claims that it ceased
carrying Newsmax because the conservative news network was seeking a carriage
fee after being available free previously.
Newsmax's
CEO Christopher Ruddy however has a different story.
He wrote
to Congressional Republicans claiming that DirecTV and AT&T's actions were discriminatory
against conservative viewpoints. Citing Nielsen, Ruddy said Newsmax was the
fourth-highest-rated cable news channel and the 16th-highest-rated cable
channel during daytime.
The
following is an excerpt from the letter:
“The
most important fact about this dispute is this: in response to pressure from
Congressional Democrats, AT&T and DirecTV have twice demonetized a
conservative news channel in just one year. Yet they continue to carry and pay
many liberal channels with a fraction of Newsmax’s audience share. This is
prima facie evidence of viewpoint discrimination,”
“The
marketplace has confirmed that Newsmax is a valuable channel deserving a fair
and equitable rate, as our renewals with Dish, Verizon, and NCTC demonstrate.
It is AT&T and DirecTV that are acting in a discriminatory manner,”
Ruddy urged the Republican-majority House to demand DirecTV and all pay TV systems be fair to conservative media and that Congress should hold hearings into how Democrat pressure resulted in Newsmax and One America News being targeted by AT&T and DirecTV.
In
response, Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas and 41 other congressional
Republicans wrote to
DirecTV expressing concern that DirecTV, was stifling conservative voices
and making it more difficult for Republicans to communicate with constituents.
The
following are excerpts from that letter:
“It
has recently been revealed that Congressional Democrats and the White House
coordinated closely with private companies to de-platform, de-monetize, or
otherwise limit the reach of viewpoints they oppose and classify them as
‘misinformation”
“On
February 22, 2021, Democratic members of the Energy and Commerce Committee
wrote to AT&T and DIRECTV encouraging the censorship of conservative
television networks One America News Network (OANN), Fox News, and Newsmax”
“Given
the jurisdiction of the Energy and Commerce Committee over your companies’
business interests, it is reasonable to assume you took this letter seriously
and complied with these demands.”
The
letter noted that DirecTV carried a number of left-leaning networks, including
VICE media, and that VICE received higher fees than Newsmax, and warned of
oversight hearings should AT&T drop Newsmax.
“Taken
together, these two actions lead us to believe that DIRECTV, one of the
nation’s largest Multichannel Video Programming Distributors, is actively
working to limit conservative viewpoints on its system”
Republicans
voiced support for Newsmax
https://twitter.com/michaelgwaltz/status/1617593140072054784
This
isn’t the first time DirecTV has dropped a conservative channel.
DirecTV
dropped One
America News Network (OAN) last April after capitulating to pressure from far-left extremists.
Targeting
right-leaning media isn’t a recent phenomenon, it has been happening since the days
of the Obama Presidency.
Back
in November 2010, Obama reportedly told then-incoming House Speakers John
Boehner “You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done”
Obama
frequently attacked Fox News from his White House podium and continues to do so now.
Obama
staffer Tommy Vietor published an op-ed titled
“Why Joe Biden Must Sideline Fox”
If you
study the myriad of violative actions from the modern left today, you will
discover they have their roots in the Obama presidency. Obama laid the
foundation and the activists on the ground and on social media are taking it to
the next level.
In
this particular case, they are silencing opposing voices by calling the organization
bigoted conspiracy theorists.
This happened all through the Trump presidency.
The crescendo was reached when most of the mainstream media buried and discredited the Hunter Biden laptop story that affected the
Following the Jan. 6th protests at the U.S. Capitol in 2021, Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter to several cable TV providers — including DirecTV’s majority owner, AT&T — asking whether and why the providers would continue giving a platform to outlets that they claimed spread disinformation which caused the Jan. 6th ‘insurrection’
The request
certainly was complied with.
First
OAN was de-platformed and now Newsmax.
Making
a case for censorship on
MSNBC was columnist Ja'han Jones.
He
claimed that “Republicans are trying to establish a new definition of censorship, one that apparently means “not giving us the freedom to spread dangerous lies on independently owned platforms.”
As
always the sanctimonious have a total lack of self-awareness. MSNBC, which is
the vilest among Democrat mouthpieces on TV and the
foremost peddler of propaganda and dangerous falsehoods, calls Newsmax names
without realizing the hypocrisy or the irony.
The
reason behind this lack of awareness is they have convinced themselves that they are on a higher moral pedestal.
Hence they think that everything they do including peddling baseless lies about
Trump colluding with Russia to rig the 2016 elections is for the greater good.
They did not care about the instability it caused and the long-term consequences of eroding trust in the electoral process.
However, when Trump and his supporters asked questions based on genuine concerns they are called conspiracy theorists and it was used to censor them.
What about those who claim that a service provider has a right to de-platform any channel they deem unworthy and D.C. should not interfere in the marketplace by supporting any one player.
To compete in the marketplace, there has to be fairness i.e. each player is given an equal opportunity to prove their worth before they are dismissed as unviable. When any particular business is discriminated against, it ceases to be a free market. The intervention is required to take on an ecosystem where liberals are trying to establish a monopoly.
Anyone confident about their ideas they are proposing would welcome the presence of opposing perspectives, so viewers will consume them and prove them to be inferior.
But the left know that their flawed and unsustainable ideas will be rejected by the public, the only way they can win over potential constuents is to censor their other ideas.
Why
is it so important that the House GOP advocate for Newsmax
Because
information affects elections.
One
of the reasons that the Democrats didn’t receive the emphatic routing they deserved
in the 2022 midterms, apart from the irregularities, is that the media manages to drive the narrative that anachronistic election denying domestic terrorists were
about to take over the country if the public voted for the GOP. It is quite likely that casual consumers
probably believed this narrative and voted for Democrats out of caution.
Newsmax
is essential to combat the Democrat falsehoods.
So
how must the GOP react?
There
must be real action in addition to televised Congressional hearings that is
often political theatre.
But in
addition to holding DirectTV and others accountable, they must make an effort
to bring prominence to Newsmax.
Perhaps
the superstars of the GOP such as President Trump should do exclusive interviews
with Newsmax to give it more prominence.
Also appears on American Thinker
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