Ajit Pai: FCC Wades into Newsrooms

[boutons_deux]

Corporations OWN the newsrooms, they exist by selling ads to other corporations that dictate what news will/won't be reported, esp investigative journalism that won't be done, but right-wingers like it that way.

[EVAY]

This is the kind of stuff that goes at the core of the concern I mentioned earlier: the politicization of the FCC. Now you have commissioners writing OPeds with political undertones instead of working within the commission, and the commission having to compromise their studies to be PC...

But I guess it's a natural extension of putting crappy, politically-laden leadership in the FCC, something both parties have a hand on.

I used to have a job that included educating members of the FCC staff about certain content. They have ALWAYS been political, imo. They have all sorts of rules about not being able to accept lunches, etc. from corporation staffs, etc., but that doesn't change the fact that the Commissioners are appointed by the administration in power at the time, that the commissioners hire their staffs that reflect their own beliefs, and that the staffs bring whatever those biases are to whatever they are deciding at the time.

[ElNono]

hard to see how regulation could ever be value neutral or without political implications. regulators are appointed by politicians and the work they do is intractably political: licensing, rule-making and enforcement.

I'm not saying it should be apolitical entirely, but when politics grow enough to get in the way of "licensing, rule-making and enforcement", then you get a dysfunctional unit. Perhaps 'partisan' is a better description instead of 'political'?

nor do I see anything intrinsically dishonorable about regulators writing op-eds if they think the public is being poorly served by the boards on which they sit.

They're free to express whatever they think in whatever medium they find suitable, but personally, it strikes me as sour grapes. I'm not sold the public is well-served by op'eds either. This isn't a whistleblower case, as far as I can tell.

[Spurminator]

Do you all love the totalitarianism Obama is trying to accomplish?

Obama's proposed new flag:

[Wild Cobra]

I'm glad you like it. I made it as a joke.

[boutons_deux]

Apparently, this absolutely insane frontal assault on everything we hold dear in the god-damned universe was little more than a survey trying to ferret out how to best help disadvantaged, poor citizens (especially those for whom English may not be a first language) get the information they need. FCC Mignon Clyburn, who previously owned an African-American newspaper in South Carolina, has long held minority media ownership as a core policy focus.

It's a fairly routine and entirely voluntary field survey designed to gather data. Nothing more. There's not really any actual policy even attached to it. There was certainly nothing included that could drive any sane or reasonable individual to the conclusion that newsrooms would soon be under the iron fist of a new FCC-crafted information-control and propaganda gestapo. Many of the complaints against the "Critical Information Needs' (CIN) survey seemed focused specifically on how volatile and provocative the questions asked were, though I can't find any questions (page 25, pdf) that are even remotely controversial (perhaps I missed them or I'm not squinting my eyes or tilting me head just right).

What you wouldn't be able to do with the slightest bit of factual support is suggest this was an FCC attempt to stifle free speech and newsroom freedom.

But people did, and the hysteria forced the FCC to issue a statement (pdf) saying that the survey was on hold until they could tone down the not-actually-inflammatory-at-all questions. The FCC noted that the survey was part of their Congressional requirement under section 257 of the Communications Act to study barriers to entry for small business owners and entrepreneurs (with an obvious focus on minority business owners). To try and placate the rioting, reading-challenged hordes, the FCC notes that any revamped study won't ask media owners or reporters what they think:

"To be clear, media owners and journalists will no longer be asked to participate in the Columbia, S.C. pilot study. The pilot will not be undertaken until a new study design is final. Any subsequent market studies conducted by the FCC, if determined necessary, will not seek participation from or include questions for media owners, news directors or reporters. Any suggestion that the FCC intends to regulate the speech of news media or plans to put monitors in America's newsrooms is false."

So in the end, the big "victory" is that a study trying to analyze minority media needs gets gutted and will be less useful. Hooray!

Make no mistake, the furor really wasn't about the study itself, it was part of a long-standing concerted effort to gut any dwindling regulatory oversight the FCC has over the broadcast or broadband industries by demonizing the agency.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...ewsrooms.shtml

WSJ publishing an inflammatory letter from an FCC Repug trying to gut an FCC activity (Repugs: govt IS the PROBLEM)? shocking!

[ElNono]

FCC dumps controversial media study

The Federal Communications Commission is pulling the plug on a controversial survey of TV newsroom activities that sparked a firestorm of criticism from Republicans.

“The FCC will not move forward with the Critical Information Needs study,” an FCC spokesman said Friday. “The Commission will reassess the best way to fulfill its obligation to Congress to identify barriers to entry into the communications marketplace faced by entrepreneurs and other small businesses.”

...

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler earlier agreed to take out the newsroom questions and rework the study. But now the agency is scrapping it entirely.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/0...dy-104103.html

[boutons_deux]

"a firestorm of criticism from Republicans."

... because they know they and their corporate backers own and operate CONSERVATIVE MEDIA CONSPIRACY.