While You Focus On That, They Are Quietly Doing This

The Olbermann/GE/NY Times/NewsCrop drama that has gotten Glenn Greenwald involved, invited a comment from Jane Hamsher, and has been talked about by a few others has taken attention away from a potentially even bigger story of media criticism:

CNN trying to prevent other cable networks from airing Media Matters rational and sane attack on "Birther Journalism Advocate of the Year" Lou Dobbs.

In a story that reaks of TV corruption of the highest order at least congruent to General Electric motives (well, at a few of their higher ups if not all), Time Warner has grown on a crusade to make sure that the ad not only never sees the light of day on their channel, but their supposed main rivals.

Unbelievable.

I’m told by a CNN source that the network privately pressed cable operators not to run the Media Matters ad attacking Dobbs, which pilloried his footsie with the birthers as CNN’s “Lou Dobbs problem.”

Media Matters had previously booked a week’s worth of ad time on MSNBC, Fox, and CNN — during Dobbs’ show.

The pressure, which came before CNN publicly acknowledged that they were nixing the ad, suggests that the network may have been more rattled by the campaign against Dobbs — and by the prospect of public criticism of Dobbs running on the network — than has been previously known. The network may have hoped to shut down the ad without being publicly associated with that effort.

And get what else was told to Sargent

A CNN spokesperson gets in touch to say that the network publicly stated yesterday: “CNN retains the right to object to any ad run by the cable operator on our network whose purpose is to attack CNN or our employees.”

You have got to love the fact that CNN doesn't give a damn what you or anyone else with a sense of journalistic integrity thinks about them.