Victory!
The O.J. book AND the TV specials have been cancelled!
I realize some of you don’t see this issue in the same light that I do…hey, that’s okay. It’s a free country. Let me just once more note that this was not a triumph of censorship: O.J. is free to confess to whomever he wants to, and I’m free to oppose it (‘it’ being his attempts to profit from the double murder he committed).
News Corp made the right decision…
UPDATE 3:07 p.m.: More here:
After a firestorm of criticism, News. Corp. said Monday that it has canceled the O.J. Simpson book and television special “If I Did It.”
“I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project,” said Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman. “We are sorry for any pain that his has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.”
A dozen Fox affiliates had already said they would not air the two-part sweeps month special, planned for next week before the Nov. 30 publication of the book by ReganBooks. The publishing house is a HarperCollins imprint owned — like the Fox network — by News Corp.
Well I take it as a huge victory! Excellent.
AJStrata
[...] Excellent news – seems Fox has decided to cancel their insanity. [...]
For the record, I’m glad it won’t be shown, its a disgusting spectical. What my point was earlier, and what I continue to believe, is campaigns to keep networks from airing shows are misguided and wrong. Any documentary has the potential to offend someone, or go against someone’s political, religious, emotional or ethical beliefs. If every time it does, some small (or large) group is successful in blocking a program, as was done with the Reagan bio, and Stolen Honor, before the election, then we are poorer for it. And it will lead to even more trivial and meaningless shows (as if that were possible) on TV. There are few enough as it is. Its come down to the point where every cultural thing that comes out is taken up by either the right or the left and is fought as some kind of mini-proxy battle to see who has the upper hand, from Terri Shiavo to The Passion to the Dixie Chicks to Borat to the 9/11 miniseries to the latest Neil Young album– on and on and on. Its just bullsh**.
So, although I detest OJ and hate the idea of spotlighting him for any reason, in principal I think it an extremely bad idea to target programs and attempt to coerce networks not to show them, through boycotts, email campaigns, whatever. What the result is, you are denying those who do want to see a program their right to see it because you personally (and those in your herd) don’t like it. Its imposing your morality, politics or worldview on others and trying to protect them from their own taste or preference.
It kind of makes you want to say to people who try to block these programs because they know better, “who the f*** do you think you are to decide for me?”
As disgusting as OJ is, there are people who want to watch that program. It would be extremely hypocritical to try to deny them the right to do so if they want to.
Yes, everyone has the right to protest a show or a book or whatever they like. But exercising your right of speech to try to deny rights to others is bad for everyone. The shoe always ends up on the other foot eventually.
Hey my free speech allowed me to contact possible book distributors and FOX who I watch all the time to let them know how unhappy I was with their decision. I cannot begin to express how happy I am to see how a free market economy worked. It is rare, however the buyers of FOX and retailers who would have carried the book spoke and the market demanded they not carry it. Welcome to America baby love it or leave it.
docweasel, I respect your opinion…it’s very rare for me to get involved with something like this (I’m generally not the boycotting type). We can agree to disagree, I hope, on whether boycotts are a permissable expression of free speech (I believe they are, but we’ve been over that ground).
In any event, if O.J. is so concerned about confessing, he can call up Fox News and go on the air and confess to Bill O’Reilly, Geraldo, or the Pope, and I won’t complain…as long as he isn’t paid, confess away!…
What News was providing with this show was entertainment. Their purpose was to generate revenue through ad and book sales. That they responded to broad public displeasure by cancelling the show and book simply demonstrates that they are observant and shrewd businessmen.
Just to put a finer point on it – I understand that you weren’t saying it wasn’t our right to boycott, but that it was a bad idea in general because next time it may be something I want to watch that gets cancelled…I hear ya…all the same, this show, for me, crossed a line, and I’m gratified to see that hundreds of thousands of others didn’t want to see that line crossed, either…
Maybe I’m wrong on this one, but if so, I’m a happy fool…
O.J.’s Book Cancelled
My only comment….. good Riddance! Didn’t we have enough of this with his trials?
Consider this an open trackback for the day.
Exactly, I may have used 2000 words to say what you have distilled in one sentence. And more generally, using your rights to try to deprive others of their rights is a tangled mess in which to get involved, and it handicaps you arguing for libertarian points in later arguments.
I am reflexively against anyone dictating what I can and cannot watch, or in anyone trying to interfere in the dissemination of entertainment or information, and a good deal of my various artistic endeavours are probably quite offensive to many people, so I also have a personal interest in this sort of thing.
I think a lot of people feel the way I do, because most boycotts have had the effect of whipping up more interest in a subject than it otherwise would have gotten had those who disliked it merely ignored it (like The Last Temptation of Christ, etc.)
[...] UPDATE: Others: Scared Monkeys, Ace of Spades HQ, Sister Toldjah, Decision '08, Michelle Malkin, Done With Mirrors, Daimnation!, Tammy Bruce, Electric Venom, [...]
Spiked
I’m assuming that everyone has heard that OJ Simpson had a book coming out, and was going to be interviewed on television about it? Well, Fox cancelled the book/television special.
I watched O.J. on Court TV. I knew he was guilty. I knew he would get off. I haven’t watched a minute of Court TV since. FOX just did a very important thing to insure their financial viability, they dumped O.J. before we dumped FOX
NewsCorp made the right decision in dumping the program and the book, but it doesn’t stop the fact that they were going to run it in the first place. Bad taste rules in Rupert Murdoch’s world. Bad taste and a finger in the wind of public opinion, evidently.
I’m fascinated with Murdoch’s quote. Just how did a sentence that begins, “I and senior management agree…” get through the secretaries, editors etc. who send out press releases? Didn’t everyone learn in 2nd grade that it’s “Senior Management and I”?