Our news outlets more and more consider themselves no different than entertainment outlets, even when reporting news

From today's New York Times:

Maybe Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton can sum up their policy differences in 30 seconds or less on Wednesday night.

They will have to if they are going to get their points across well on networks other than ABC, which is sponsoring the hotly anticipated Democratic debate that evening. According to the usage guidelines circulated by ABC, other news organizations are only allowed to excerpt half a minute from the broadcast.

That means choosing only one 30-second clip to use on television and the Web between 11 p.m. Wednesday and 5 a.m. Thursday.

ABC defends the restrictions as being “very reasonable.” After all, ABC is footing the bill to stage the debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

* * *

[T]he cable news channels may make it their business to skirt ABC’s rules. Fox News, CNN and MSNBC can be expected to use “fair use” justifications to show more clips from the debate, especially if the two candidates have a newsworthy exchange.

Turning an appropriation against its appropriator

K Cera Cera -- origins and first release

10 July, 1993, NME:

The K Foundation Presents

THE RED ARMY CHOIR OF RUSSIA

performing

**  **

** **      CERA

****

** **       CERA

**  **

[war is over if you want it]

This recording will only ever be made commercially available once world peace has been firmly established. The responsibility is yours. Until then it will be heard only at selected state occasions, sporting events, music festivals or mass rallies. There will be no TV, radio or cinema broadcasting. K CERA CERA [war is over if you want it] is the interstellar anthem of the K Foundation.

AVAILABLE NOWHERE NO FORMATS.

13 November, 1993, NME:

THE KLF's Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty released their K Foundation/Red Army Choir collaboration 'K Cera Cera (War Is Over If You Want It)' as a single in Israel last week.

The pair originally vowed only to release the track once "world peace has been achieved" but decided to make a limited issue in celebration of the peace deal between the Israeli government and the PLO.

The 3,000 copy limited release, which has the title in English, Arabic and Hebrew on its cover, was made available by mail order to readers of one Israeli paper and one Palestinian paper through Israeli record label NMC.

Quoted in Israel's leading daily 'Yediot Ahronot', Drummond said, "Only a few days after the production (of the single) was finished, I turned on the TV and saw Itzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat standing next to each other in front of the White House. I was very moved. It was like something you never dream would happen suddenly being realised. I phoned Jimmy and we decided to release the limited edition. For us, it's a sort of tribute."

Explaining the reason for establishing the K Foundation, Drummond said, "Our idea was to create awareness of peace in the world. Because we were worried it would be interpreted by the public as an attempt by The KLF to return to the music world on the back of a humanist gimmick, we decided to hide behind the Foundation."

A lot, of course, has happened since.