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Plus, I don't know which newscasts you've been watching recently, but the First Amendment is losing its luster lately. Some networks are even censoring their scripted dramas. -- Alan Shore (played by James Spader) on the television show Boston Legal, in the 2005-03-13 episode, which itself was rewritten on orders from ABC, the network on which it airs.
(Also reported at Disinformation. Discussion and copies of other articles at the James Spader Meeting Place and, of course, Daily Kos, where various possible explanations for ABC's actions are presented. PDFs of both versions of the script are linked from Media is a Plural.)
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it may be how people talk to each other (and thus, accurately reflects reality), BUT it sucks in network-to-network relations. Its a guarenteed lawsuit for slander (because companies sue even for opinions these days, no matter how hypothetically or "fictionally" expressed). To make matters worse, the fact that the production company is 20th Century Fox means that Fox's own lawyers would be caught in a major conflict of interest issue.
it really was too big a thing, cost and time wise, to handle and at the same time actually get a show on the air. these things do have time limits.
really, this was not censorship from the government, nor censorship by the network to protect channels of government support (in either direction). This was a wise move to avoid legal issues that could cost so much in time and money that it would destroy the series and seriously hurt the network.