Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: No cable conspiracy

Friday, Jan. 11, 2002 | 9:21 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

EXTORTION: n. obtaining of money, a promise, or other commitment, by threats, force, fraud, or illegal use of authority ...

I wanted to make sure I knew the definition because I used the word more than once in commenting to a reporter for the Washington Times a few weeks ago. He wrote his story and the word was nowhere to be found. But the rest of my quote, bastardized as it was, remained. All of that, of course, is no surprise.

I used the word -- in a non-criminal sense -- to refer to an issue that involved a small company with which I am involved, some small people who make a living or reach the limelight by involving themselves -- sometimes where they belong and most times where they don't -- and a small news channel that would like one day to be big. OK, let's fill in some of the names: Cox Communications of Las Vegas; Nevada's junior senator, John Ensign; a local talk show hack named Alan Stock; Fox News Channel and one of the smallest of people I've ever met (not in stature but in every other form of human measurement), Milton Schwartz. How's that lineup for a Friday column?

Most Las Vegans don't know about and could care even less about the move by a few hundred Las Vegans last year to persuade Cox Communications to add the Fox News Channel to the lineup. Unfortunately, I was one of the people who did care -- only because I was dragged into the squabble. Not wanting to miss a good fight, I gladly donned my armor -- we call it truth around here -- and prepared for a fight. Much to my dismay, that fight never came. Nor did a chance for the truth and that's the part that bothers me most.

Instead, the Moonie-driven newspaper from our nation's capital reported last week that "Las Vegas finally gets Fox News" and under that headline published so much crap that someone has to set the record straight, if only for the purpose of not letting the bums get away with it! That, by default, is my job.

First the facts: Fox News Channel promotes itself as the conservative news source for cable television viewers. By definition, that means that CNN, MSNBC and the other news outlets available on the cable system have their own brand of news which, I assume, some call liberal. To a person who has spent most of his life in the news business, these kind of labels make no sense because news is fact and fact is neither conservative nor liberal, Republican nor Democrat. It is just fact. There is, however, a certain way news can be presented and that is where agendas, political and otherwise, can be advanced. And, make no mistake about it, Fox ownership has a very conservative agenda.

Until late last year, Fox News was not carried on the local cable system. At one point it was a matter of channel capacity but, mostly, it was, to put it bluntly, a matter of money. When Fox saw a way to use some local people to advance its financial interests, it jumped. First it got some people who just wanted the channel. They convinced this Stock fellow that his ratings would increase if he took on the fight and, together, they hoodwinked the junior senator into using his high and mighty office to try to pressure Cox into paying tens of millions of dollars of Las Vegas consumers' money to Fox which, presumably, is the Republican senator's political ally. This ain't rocket science.

In the end, though, the decision came down to money. Let's hear it for capitalism. Fox News relented and Cox did what any good business person would do: It made a decision to add content to its channel lineup that would help attract and retain customers. And it did so without forking over untold millions of its customers dollars. Those are the facts.

The Washington Times which, like Fox News, markets itself as the conservative voice of the people, got the story all wrong and did it on purpose. In an effort to make Alan Stock look like a local hero and Sen. Ensign look like the conservative second coming, the newspaper mangled the story to fit a conspiracy theory that only the nuttiest of the far right nuts could concoct. And that is that I was the person who refused to put Fox on Cox. They even dug Schwartz up -- from under what rock one might ask -- to add his two worthless cents.

The story, and the not-so-do-gooders, claimed that Fox was not on Cox because of my relationship with former President Bill Clinton. As much as they may want to think that was the case, it just was not true. Not even one teensy, eensy bit. The only truth was that Fox was trying to make a financial windfall in Las Vegas, and Cox, to its credit, was not going to allow that to happen.

When the price came down the deal was made. Fox News went on the air in Las Vegas and that should have been that. But that just wasn't good enough. There were lots of people looking for credit and nowhere to get it, so they went to the Washington Times, which probably sniffed it out after they received a press release from Ensign's office taking credit for putting undue and irresponsible pressure on Cox. After all, John sits on the Senate committee that controls the cable industry. What looks like a simple request to most people comes through loud and clear to the people who owe their existence to the goodwill of Congress.

What baffles me is why Ensign would take credit for what looks like a bush-league extortion plan. He's supposed to be a lot smarter than that. Did his people not serve him well? Did he just get caught up in the conspiracy theory thing? Or does he really think Fox News was doing the right thing for his constituents by trying to extort millions of dollars from them? I don't know the answer but I hope John does.

So now the record is straight. There is just one more definition to look up. And that would be for the word "stupid" because that is the way Ensign, Stock and the rest of the pack should feel for allowing themselves to be used the way they were.