Stars Won’t be Censored on Katrina Telethon
By Montag | Related entries in Good Decisions, Hurricane KatrinaThe stars won’t be censored on the Katrina telethon tonight:
The stars lined up for Friday’s live multinetwork primetime telethon will not be censored if they make any politically tinged comments, program organizers said Thursday.
In a conference call with reporters, executive producer Joel Gallen noted that editing would occur only if obscenities accidentally were uttered. The editing would be enabled by a 30-second time delay, standard for many live programs.
“The only precautions we have right now are for language,”
I know people are sick of hearing celebrities talking about politics; especially when the celebrity disagrees with them; and the celebrity is able to reach a wide audience. Heck, I was ticked off when Curt Schilling — after his history making, World Series, bloody sock heroics — came out and endorsed a presidential candidate on a national television morning talk show. I wished he would have just kept his mouth shut; and now, I experience less joy in watching him play. Nonetheless, censorship is a bad idea. Even for celebrities.
I even feel for the celebrities somewhat. They have to be more careful than the rest of us because of the audience they command, and the way they (or their cause) can be affected by public opinion; as suggested by Michael Totten’s ages old post, and illustrated by Curt Schilling’s eventual apology for the setting in which he made his remarks.
Let the celebrities talk. And enjoy watching the ones you dislike self destruct. But let’s hope the telethon (and other Katrina fundraising) is a success, even if our favorite stars choose to bite their tongue. Or not.
“Shelter” will air from 8-9 p.m. ET (tape delayed PT/MT) on all six broadcast networks, dozens of cable networks and in more than 140 international territories. Radio and Internet outlets also will carry the broadcast.
Reuters: Barbs won’t be cut from Katrina telethon
This entry was posted on Friday, September 9th, 2005 and is filed under Good Decisions, Hurricane Katrina. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 9th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
Let the Celebrities speak. They are given that right by the Bill of Rights.
I agree with the statement above “watch them self destruct”. The American are not stupid(contrary to the news media belief). They understand quite plainly what these people are trying to do. Celebrities tonight who get on stage and make political statements only
show themselves up as ignorant and out of touch with the American people. We already know where they will try to place the blame for everything on President Bush. When in fact it was the the states own
homeland security agencies and the Governors who control them for the slow response in most cases. Louisiana in particular.
September 9th, 2005 at 3:20 pm
Kanye may have been way out line to say what he said, but at least his irreverant bluntness got people talking about some of the unspoken issues of Katrina: race and poverty in the cities of America.
September 9th, 2005 at 8:19 pm
Personally, I love it when dimwit celebrities spout off in favor of politics I wish to see fail. Nothing like arrogant eye-candy spiraling into megalomania to drive middle America away from some cause or issue. You’d think the Evil Genius Rove would have figured out a way to get Tom Cruise into Cindy Sheehan’s photo ops.
And, agree with them or not, we all know that just because you have an Oscar on the mantle, doesn’t mean you know more than a plumber does about anything except acting.
Back last summer, American tennis star Andy Roddick gave the perfect response; one that all rock stars/jocks/movie actors ought to take the time to memorize. A reporter from Der Spiegel, the anti-war German magazine (a triple redundancy there) was pestering him to say something against the Iraq invasion.
As for the celebrities who don’t care to take the Roddick route, and who insist on spouting off, I’ll listen to them if they’ve actually been to the place they’re talking about and show they have some first-hand experience of it. That, not their celebrity, will be the basis of their authority.
I never paid much attention to supermodels, but Rebecca Romijn-Stamos actually impressed me when she did an interview after going to Iraq last year. She didn’t say she supported the war or the Bush administration. But she went there and saw real people (unlike, it seems, many of the journalists who pretend to cover Iraq). And though she had her deeply held views about the U.S. military, she adjusted her politics to the reality, not the other way around.