FCC looking at new Fairness Doctrine?

Good day all. The FCC recently announced that it wanted to conduct a study to determine how news agencies select the stories they are going to cover. What they got was the proverbial shotgun blast to the back of the head in response.

Everyone who saw this request went ballistic, seeing it as yet another attempt by the FCC to bring back and extend the so called Fairness Doctrine ((The Fairness Doctrine)). The basic idea of the Fairness Doctrine was to have radio and later television stations present all sides of a debate equally. What it ended up doing was suppressing any real debate on any number of issues. It was abolished by the FCC in 1989. It was finally and formally removed from the Federal Register in 2011.

There have been repeated calls to bring the Fairness Doctrine back and to expand it, mostly by members of the Progressive Liberal Democrats. The reason is simple. Although the PLD’s own the newspapers and most of Television, they have failed with Talk Radio. When the Fairness Doctrine was removed, Conservative talk radio, led by Rush Limbaugh exploded and remains popular to this day. PLD attempts at putting their point of view on talk radio have failed miserably, not due to stations refusing to put them on the air, but rather people exercising their right not to listen to their idiocy.

The FCC, especially since the Democrats gained control of it, have been looking at ways to really screw things up gain more control over the various forms of information dissemination. This has now to led their latest stupid idea, the Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs (CIN) ((Research Design for the Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs)) Here are some of the details on the study request from the New American:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will soon launch an initiative — the Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs (CIN) — “in order to assess whether government action is needed to ensure that the information needs of all Americans are being met, including women and minorities.”

When the FCC’s Office of Communications Business Opportunities (OCBO) announced the initiative in a release last November 1, it stated it had selected Columbia, South Carolina, to field-test the Research Design for the CIN. OCBO expects to complete this next phase of its Critical Information Needs Research no later than July 2014.

Citing the FCC, Jason Pye (the editor-in-chief for the United Liberty website and former legislative director for the Libertarian Party of Georgia) wrote that the stated purpose of the CIN is to collect information from television and radio broadcasters about “the process by which stories are selected” and how often stations cover “critical information needs,” as well as to assess “perceived station bias” and “perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.”

And what are some of the questions that this study would ask?

The FCC will also ask reporters: “Have you ever suggested coverage of what you consider a story with critical information for your customers that was rejected by management?”

I’m not a journalist or a reporter, but even I know the answer to that one. Hell YES, of course management will spike stories. There are any number of reasons for them to do so, like a good chance of getting sued for libel, the time and resources to develop it and if it would actually be of any interest to their viewers, listeners or readers.

The FCC attempts to justify the intrusive fact-finding mission by asserting that the results are necessary to complete a report that the FCC “is obligated under § 257 of the Communications Act of 1934 … to review and report to Congress on: (1) regulations prescribed to eliminate market entry barriers in the provision and ownership of telecommunications services and information services, or in the provision of parts or services to providers of telecommunications services and information services by entrepreneurs and other small businesses; and (2) proposals to eliminate statutory barriers to market entry by those entities, consistent with the public interest, convenience, and necessity.”

Apparently, not all of the FCC commissioners are on board with this study.

However, Pye quotes the FCC’s Ajit Pai: “This claim is peculiar. How can the news judgments made by editors and station managers impede small businesses from entering the broadcast industry? And why does the CIN study include newspapers when the FCC has no authority to regulate print media?”

The statement came from an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal for February 10 written by Ajit Pai, who is a commissioner of the FCC. In the article, Pai noted that news editors often disagree about which stories are important enough to be covered and which stories are not. But, stated Pai, “everyone should agree on this: The government has no place pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.”

Then Pai makes an amazing admission, especially since he was nominated to his post by President Obama: “Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission, where I am a commissioner, does not agree.”

Of course not! The first thing any dictatorship MUST due is control the flow of information and tell the serfs people what the actual “Truth” is. To continue:

As part of the process to uncover the information it wants, notes Pai, the FCC selected eight categories of “critical information,” including the “environment” and “economic opportunities,” that it believes the local news media should cover. The FCC will ask station managers, news directors, journalists, television anchors, and on-air reporters to tell the government about their “news philosophy” and how the station will assist the FCC’s quest to (as we noted previously) “ensure that the information needs of all Americans are being met.”

As an indication of the egregious intrusiveness of the CIN study, the FCC’s follow-up questions will ask for “specifics about how editorial discretion is exercised, as well as the reasoning behind the decisions.”

But Pai’s assessment of the FCC’s new program becomes more ominous:

Participation in the Critical Information Needs study is voluntary — in theory. Unlike the opinion surveys that Americans see on a daily basis and either answer or not, as they wish, the FCC’s queries may be hard for the broadcasters to ignore. They would be out of business without an FCC license, which must be renewed every eight years.

DING! DING! DING! There it is. If the radio and television stations and networks circular file the questions, you can bet they will have significant problems renewing their licenses and could be denied renewal all together. As you might imagine, the FCC’s typical overreach is going over like a lead balloon NOT made by the Mythbusters. According to Fox News:

Critics of a proposed Federal Communications Commission study that would send researchers into newsrooms across America say the new chairman’s vow to tweak the plan doesn’t go far enough — with one leading media group calling on the agency to scrap the study entirely.

“Where it really needs to go is onto the trash heap,” Mike Cavender, director of the Radio Television Digital News Association, said in a statement.

GOP lawmakers warned the program essentially would become the “Fairness Doctrine 2.0,” in reference to a long-abandoned policy requiring broadcasters to provide what was deemed balanced coverage of major issues.

So, did the FCC scrap this thing? Not exactly.

After being pressed by Republican lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a Feb. 14 letter that his agency “has no intention of regulating political or other speech of journalists or broadcasters” through this study.

Yeah and I have a bridge in New York I want to sell you. This reeks of Obama and his minions. While they would love to crush Fox, they also are having a few issues with the Obama Steno Pool. Of late, they have not been providing proper obeisance to their lord and master, Barack Hussein Obama. They have actually had the gall to report that there are a few minor glitches in the Obamacare roll out instead of simply saying that “Once Again, President Obama has given America another perfectly managed Entitlement.”

The only way this study can be stopped, along with the inevitable recommendation that the FCC must regulate the content of all media is for the news organizations to stop worshiping Obama, burn these requests and ship the ashes back to the FCC.

Yeah, like that will happen. The FCC has also been caught looking at controlling the content of the Internet, specifically blogs ((Senate Proposes Giving The FCC Authority To Regulate Internet Content… For The Children)). This was years ago, but the outrage from the blogosphere, both right and left, (But mostly on the right since that was who was giving the FCC and the PLD the most pain), was so loud, that the idea was quietly dropped.

Government, especially Big Government as envisioned by the Progressive Liberal Democrats and their good buddies, the Establishment RINO’s, hates to be called to account by The Serfs The People. Every few years we get another one of these “Studies” that claim to be only “Seeking information.” The end game of course, is to impose censorship.

Since the Internet took off in the mid 90’s, the power structure in Washington as well as the rest of the world has been seeking some way to control the free flow of information. From the “Great Firewall of China ((Golden Shield Project))” to actually cutting the internet connections ((Egypt Cuts Off Most Internet and Cell Service)) to government mandates ((Europe Under Internet Censorship Threat)), the people’s right to know is always under attack. Contact your local newspapers, television and radio stations and let them know that they should refuse to answer any of these question in this phony baloney “Study.”

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~

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