Hoarded at http://www.scn.org/newspeak Celebrating cutting edge advances in the Doublethink of the '90s Written by Wayne Grytting

Buy Nothing Day

The Media Foundation (best known for Adbusters magazine), out of Vancouver, Canada, has produced a commercial that has failed to meet the high standards of our three major networks. Against the backdrop of a pig, the ad questions overconsumption, calling on consumers to participate in Buy Nothing Day on the day after Thanksgiving. Despite having cash in hand, the ad was rejected by NBC because, in the words of V.P. Richard Gitter, the ad was "inimical to our legitimate business interests." An understandable reply. But CBS went even further in a letter rejecting the commercial, announcing that Buy Nothing Day is "in opposition to the current economic policy in the United States." They did not say if criminal penalties would be invoked against nonconsumers. (WSJ 11/19)

The "I Have a Dream" Dept.

Coca-Cola has clearly found a visionary new leader in their new chief executive, M. Douglas Ivester. In his first public speech, Ivester urged his fellow executives to "expand the horizons of our businesses, and the horizons of our thinking." To demonstrate his point, he told his audience the typical person drinks only four ounces of soft drink out of an average of 64 ounces of liquids per day. "That still leaves our industry, said Ivester, "with 60 ounces to go after. Put another way--we're only tapping four-64ths of the opportunity." Such utter waste. And what a sense of mission. Can't you see thousands of Coke employees dreaming of leading the way to a world where the remaining 60 ounces have been reclaimed from the clutches of milk, fruit juice, water, and lattes? (AP 11/9)

The Muckraking Press

Popular magazines are finding a sure way to produce quality feature stories on Hollywood celebrities. They let them pick their own writers. The Wall Street Journal reports that magazines now routinely let major stars veto questions, topics, and reporters who "look for the bad news," as Good Housekeeping editor Ellen Levine so delicately puts it. Critics claim this results in celebrity puff pieces that are just cogs in the culture industry's marketing plans. But Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has a good retort. He says, "You can only have so many tough things in an issue and I think it's foolish to waste it on an actor." We are still waiting to discover what constitutes a "tough thing" for Vanity Fair. (WSJ 11/18)

Privatizing Censorship

After efforts to censor the internet via the government fell short, private industry has stepped in to fill the breach. Four of the largest search engines have agreed to "self-regulation." "Censorship is being contracted out," says attorney Robert Corn-Revere. Taking the lead is Lycos, which has "thrown down the gauntlet" to other search engines to block sites that provide adult content or who refuse to agree to provide ratings of their contents. The later would be a crime under a bill introduced by Sen. Patty Murray, aptly named the "On-line Cooperative Publishing Act." Under it, sites discussing sexual issues would simply become invisible to search engines whether they "cooperated" or not. Fortunately it's not censorship because it's not the government doing it... (ACLU Press Release 11/5)

Special thanks to the eagle eyes of Jason Kazarian and Doug Honig this week. Newspeak often appears weekly and there may be a mailing list available thru wgrytt@blarg.net to those who can prove you've consumed your share of Coca-Cola.