Posted on 08/26/2009 3:22:07 AM PDT by Man50D
Rest of title: to Give Public Broadcasting Dominant Role in Communications
Mark Lloyd, chief diversity officer of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), called for a “confrontational movement” to combat what he claimed was control of the media by international corporations and to re-establish the regulatory power of government through robust public broadcasting and a more powerful FCC.
Lloyd expressed his regulatory call to arms in his 2006 book, “Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America” (University of Illinois Press).
In the book, Lloyd also said that public broadcasting should be funded through new license fees charged to the nation’s private radio and television broadcasters, and that new regulatory fees should be used to fund eight new regional FCC offices.
These offices would be responsible for monitoring political advertising and commentary, children’s educational programs, number of commercials, and content ratings of the programs.
Frequently referencing one of his heroes, left-wing activist Saul Alinsky, Lloyd claims in his book that the history of American communications policy has been one of continued corporate control of every form of communication from the telegraph to the Internet.
“Citizen access to popular information has been undermined by bad political decisions,” Lloyd wrote. “These decisions date back to the Jacksonian Democrats’ refusal to allow the Post Office to continue to operate the telegraph service.”
Lloyd claimed that neither technology nor liberal reforms have been able to overcome the damage caused when government fails to give everyone an equal voice.
Throughout history, Lloyd said, “[t]he most powerful communications tool was deliberately placed in the hands of one faction in our republic: commercial industry.”
“Neither Progressive era reforms nor new communications technologies have been able to correct the problems resulting from government abdication of a responsibility to advance the equal capability of citizen discourse,” Lloyd added.
“Corporate liberty has overwhelmed citizen equality,” he wrote.
Government, Lloyd said in his book, is the “only” institution that can manage the communications of the public, arguing that Washington must “ensure” that everyone has an equal ability to communicate.
“The American republic requires the active deliberation of a diverse citizenry, and this, I argue, can be ensured only by our government,” he says. “Put another way, providing for the equal capability of citizens to participate effectively in democratic deliberation is our collective responsibility.”
The solution
To combat the control of international business and restore government to what he sees as its rightful place in managing public communications, Lloyd calls for a “confrontational movement” to protest the present order and organize a political movement that could force government to rein the businesses in.
“If our republican form of government is perishing because communications – the infrastructure of that republic – is under the yoke of international business how, at last, do we save it?” he asks. “We must build a confrontational movement to reclaim our democracy, a movement committed to active and sustained protest against the present order.”
To do this, Lloyd draws on his experience lobbying the FCC during the Clinton administration, counseling would-be revolutionaries to follow the tactics used by other left-wing movements, such as the followers of radical Saul Alinsky and the people who ran the campaign to block Republican Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.
Drawing heavily from Alinksy’s book Rules for Radicals, Lloyd outlines nine “lessons” that people can draw on when trying to combat international businesses.
“We looked to successful political campaigns and organizers as a guide, especially the civil rights movement, Saul Alinsky, and the campaign to prevent the Supreme Court nomination of the ultra-conservative jurist Robert Bork,” Lloyd revealed his book. “From those sources we drew inspiration and guidance.”
The main theme of this radical campaign is constant political pressure on government, Lloyd says. “Pressure, pressure, pressure,” he says. “Don’t wait for events to unfold on their own.” Alinsky again: “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon their operations.”
Lloyd proposes six initial goals for wresting control of communications from the corporate interests he claims control it. As his book details:
1. “End the federal subsidy of commercial media, particularly cable and broadcast television. Broadcasters should pay for the great privileges of a federally protected license to operate a business by using the publicly owned [radio or television] spectrum.” 2. “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) must be reformed along democratic lines and funded at a substantial level. The CPB board should be elected, [with] eight members representing eight regions of the country (New England, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Midwest, Plains States, Southwest, Mountain States, and the Pacific Coast) and a chairman appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate.”
“Federal and regional broadcast operations and local stations should be funded at levels commensurate with or above those spending levels at which commercial operations are funded,” said Lloyd.
“This funding should come from license fees charged to commercial broadcasters. … Local public broadcasters and regional and national communications operations should be required to encourage and broadcast diverse views and programs. … Spectrum allocations should be established that create clear preferences for public broadcasters ensuring that regional, local, and neighborhood communities are well served,” he added.
3. “The FCC should be fully funded with regulatory fees from broadcast, cable, satellite, and telecommunications companies. The FCC should be staffed at regional offices, matching those CPB regions, at levels sufficient to monitor and enforce communication regulation.
“Clear federal regulations over commercial broadcast and cable programs regarding political advertising and commentary, educational programming for children, the number of commercials, ratings information about programs before they are broadcast, and the accessibility of services to the disabled should be established and widely promoted.”
4. “Universal service support provided by all commercial telecommunications providers (whether they are classified as information services or not) to fund access to advanced telecommunications services should be expanded to all nonprofit organizations, including higher-level academic and vocational schools, community centers, and 501(c) (3) organizations unaffiliated with either business or government.”
5. “Postal subsidies should be fully restored to small independent nonprofits presses. Postal subsidies should be reduced for commercial and business operations. The postal service should be returned to congressional control with the central mission of ensuring that all Americans have access to the post.”
6. “Public secondary schools should be required to include civics and media literacy as part of their core curriculum. Testing on civic, media, and computer literacy should be required and national standards set.”
For those who think any or all of these recommendations might infringe on the free speech rights of broadcasters, Lloyd says his concern is not the “exaggerated” concerns over the First Amendment.
“It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press,” he said. “This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.”
“[T]he purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance,” said Lloyd. “[T]he problem is not only the warp to our public philosophy of free speech, but that the government has abandoned its role of advancing the communications capabilities of real people.”
Oh you forgot the capital “I”.
Hey, he wrote it in Ebonics. ha.
“We must build a confrontational movement to reclaim our democracy,” ?
How about Restoring our CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, you?
PBS Should rebrand as POS. They deserve Not one DIME of public funding to advance their leftist agenda.
A "responsibility" which is dubious at best, and completely imaginary, at worst.
The idea that the government is responsible for insuring that the capability is made equal is completely anathema to me.
Government should be about assuring equality of opportunity, not equality of ability.
Increasing the regulatory power of the government over our media is nothing more than CENSORSHIP. It is completely incompatible with the First Amendment. I guess this is why they aren’t pushing the “Fairness Doctrine” for the time being... With the way Obama is exerting power through the ABC agencies, and his czars and tipping the balance of power in our government WAY out of proportion I don’t think it will be long before they just do away with formality of actual legislation to achieve their COMMUNIST/FASCIST goals...
What "subsidy" is this?
He meant to say “confrontational” only if you’re a leftist. If you’re against socialism, you have to just sit down and shut up, do not dare voice opposition.
Is ebonics even a language?
Somebody 'splain to me why we need more "rules" to promote democratic governance.
Oh, I see.
He means more rules to promote Democratic governance.
Well lefties, get ready to see “confrontation” coming from the right, starting with the tea party express!
Ha! not likely...its slang at its best.
Its always the Things that go on below the radar that really kill you , These Communists now infest our Government amd it is our own Fault.
The American People of their own Free Will voted for this ,so we can Complain all we want But Elections Have Consequences.
If they did not say this guy wrote this I would swear it was Jeremiah Wright and one of his Sunday Sermons
I’m sure gonna miss Fox,Rush,Hannity,Levin et.al
This is how they’re planning to get around the Fairness Doctrine.
....Which could plant the seeds towards an angry backlash of large proportions.
What will simply happen is that the above mentioned will go to satilite/internet/podcasting to do their broadcasting.
“Corporate liberty has overwhelmed citizen equality,” he wrote.
Yes comrade!
/s/
....Yep, the language of tards.
“These offices would be responsible for monitoring political advertising and commentary...”
##########
Enough said!
I hate this administration more and more each passing day. And, I hate that the American people voted this pos into office.
Hope and change indeed! Unfortunately, his dictatorship doesn’t recognize party lines. He only cares about his cronies. So, it sucks to be a liberal who got blind sided and deceived.
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