NBC DEFENDS CENSORSHIP OF KANYE WEST
Monday, September 5 2005
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NBC's decision to edit remarks by rap star Kanye West during the West Coast rebroadcast of a benefit concert for hurricane victims has set off a storm in its own right within the news media. West departed from a prepared script during the telecast, remarking, "I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food. ... George Bush doesn't care about black people." West was referring to captions that appeared on Associated Press photos published nationally last week, one showing a black man carrying supplies and reading, "A young man walks through chest-deep flood water after looting a grocery store;" the other showing a white couple carrying similar supplies and reading, "Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store." Asked on ABC's Good Morning America last Thursday whether he saw any difference between people who were entering stores to take TV sets and those taking food and water, President Bush responded, "I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this." NBC later defended its decision to cut West's remarks about Bush from the West Coast feed, saying "It would be most unfortunate if the efforts of the artists who participated and the millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person's personal opinion." On Sunday, Los Angeles Times music critic Robert Hilburn wrote that NBC's action "violated the most moving and essential moment in an otherwise sterile, self-serving corporate broadcast" and said that West's comments "would have been cheered more than anything else in the program by the black parents and children still trapped in the New Orleans Convention Center and Superdome if they had been able to hear them." Hilburn's comments were echoed today (Monday) by Chicago Sun-Times music critic Jim Derogatis, who said that West, who just a week earlier had made the cover of Time magazine, which described his middle-class upbringing and the strong family-values messages of his music, had seemed to change his tune by aligning himself with Bush's critics. "And while he is being criticized by many on the right -- and will no doubt pay a price with some lost album sales and less radio play in more conservative markets -- he did Americans a service by putting the issue on the table for national debate." However, on the Republican blog redstate.org, writer Darren Milton commented, "As revolting as Hilburn's despicably holier-than-thou attitude is towards NBC, his all-seeing eye somehow seems to miss the sheer offensiveness of an entertainer utilizing the platform of a fundraiser to fire off some salvos at a sitting president."
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