Posted on 02/20/2014 5:29:58 PM PST by Kaslin
the only thing the FCC should do is to make certain that several radio stations are not broadcasting on frequencies so close together as to make hearing either one problematic. That doesnt require much staff,,,
I thought by now I’d be getting ready to retire and get the hell out of this country but the economy has not made it possible so I’m stuck here for a few more years.
And like I’ve said before, I’m not leaving my country, my country left me.
It started 20 years or so ago here in California.
Just think, Ronald Reagan was once the Governor of this state and it is now the most liberal state in the union. Our Senators are DiFi and Pelosi.
What the hell happened? Oh, 10 Million Illegals invaded.
Many parts of the state, especially Southern California aren’t even recognizable anymore.
And once the Dems turn TX which they eventually will, it’s over. It might take 20 years but it will happen.
It happened to a state that was Governed by Ronald Reagan so it can happen to TX
I’ll be living in another country, enjoying retirement and a low cost of living and not dealing with leftist idiots.
I’ll lose some freedoms, but I’ll gain many more.
It’ll be a trade-off, but one I’ll gladly take.
I can’t stand to see what’s happening to this once-great country which is one of the reasons I’ll be moving overseas within the next few years for good.
I feel bad for the younger people that missed out on the Reagan years and didn’t have to deal with Political Correctness and all this Homo Bullshit and a media that gets more openly liberal by the day.
At least 20-30 years ago, they made an attempt to give the semblance of fairness. Now, they might as well wear cheerleader outfits with “DNC” across the front while chanting “Obama, Obama, he’s so great, it’s the GOP that we all hate!”
Not to mention, the younger people will be paying outrageous taxes to keep the country from going bankrupt due to Obama and the Dem’s reckless spending.
Thanks, America. It was fun.
It might be time to move news organizations to another country with more freedom of the press. Use globalization against them. Sort of like Pirate Radio.
If some of these people wait too long to stand up - they won't be allowed to...
Whether admitted or not, the newspapers haven’t been reporting the news for a long time. The FCC doesn’t have to “take over” newspapers, too may liberals have BOUGHT the newspapers.
The paper here in Mobile, they leave stuff out all the time and are now going to “revamp” the paper into two sections.
I feel like my heads gonna explode.
The better question is this — why should the FCC care what editors at TV stations and especially newspapers are thinking? More than a week ago, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai blew the whistle on the commission’s proposed study of editorial bias in news rooms, even though the FCC has no jurisdiction on broadcast news content, and no jurisdiction whatsoever on newspapers. Fox News began covering this yesterday:Fox: FCC probe on editorial choice unnerves media
Howard Kurtz writes today that the FCC doesn’t belong in the newsroom anywhere:
I know that television stations are licensed in the public interest. It’s fair for the FCC to examine how much news a station offers, as opposed to lucrative game shows and syndicated reruns. But the content of that news ought to be off-limits.
The Fairness Doctrine, which once required TV and radio stations to offer equal time for opposing points of view, is no more, and good riddance (since it discouraged stations from taking a stand on much of anything). The Obama administration swears it’s not coming back.
How, then, to explain this incursion into the substance of journalism, which seems utterly at odds with the notion of a free and unfettered press?
Now some of the commentary about this is overheated, with talk of an FCC “thought police” and so on. The effort is beginning in a single city. But already there are signs that the commission is backing off.
Adweek reports that “controversial” sections of the study will be “revisited” under new chairman Tom Wheeler. An FCC official told the publication that the agency “has no intention of interfering in the coverage and editorial choices that journalists make. We’re closely reviewing the proposed research design to determine if an alternative approach is merited.”
The FCC should keep its alternative approaches to itself, as even the posing of these questions carries an intimidation factor. The government has no business meddling in how journalism is practiced. And if George W. Bush’s FCC had tried this, it would be a front-page story.
Just how overheated is that kind of talk, though? It’s difficult to determine any other reason for the FCC to take an interest in editorial decisions unless it wants to intervene in that process. It’s not all that outrageous to believe that the only reason a federal agency wants to conduct a study of an area over which it has no authority or jurisdiction is to craft an argument to get that authority and jurisdiction, especially if it can claim a crisis exists. And the only reason why the government would want to control editorial choice is to make sure it benefits government.
The study design is available online, by the way, and it’s impressive for the depth in which the FCC intends to probe editorial choice. The purpose of the study, according to its authors, is “to identify and understand the critical information needs (CINs) of the American public (with special emphasis on
vulnerable/disadvantaged populations).” This assumes that the American public can’t identify their own “CINs” and find ways to service them in a historically-diverse and dynamic media environment, of course, which is flatly laughable.
The study would involve interviews at all kinds of outlets — newspapers and Internet included, even though they are outside of FCC jurisdiction — in order to determine whether the FCC sees a CIN crisis. What are the purposes of the interviews with media owners, editors, reporters, and others?
The purpose of these interviews is to ascertain the process by which stories are selected, station priorities (for content, production quality, and populations served), perceived station bias, perceived percent of news dedicated to each of the eight CINs, and perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.
The FCC will judge media outlets individually and in groups based on their own perception of critical “CINs” rather than allow consumers to figure that out for themselves. One of these is “employment information”:
The Critical Review of the Literature established a set of necessary thresholds in each of the eight categories, many of which have both an objective and individual component. For example, in a given community, are there channels for emergency communication that can reach the entire population? If not, who is excluded, for what reasons, under what conditions? Is there a sufficiently robust market in employment information, in print, online or other?
Who determined that “employment information” was one of the Big Eight CINs in the first place? What kind of “employment information” interests the FCC? We have want ads, Monster.com, Craigslist, and most employers have websites with hiring needs listings. If companies want to hire, they’ll determine their own CINs, and people who need jobs will find them. Or does the FCC want to go after coverage of employment information — like, say, jobless rates, workforce participation, and the like?
The answers show just how far outside of the FCC’s jurisdiction this goes. Here are the questions for station owners and HR:
• What is the news philosophy of the station?
• Who is your target audience?
• How do you define critical information that the community needs?
• How do you ensure the community gets this critical information?
• How much does community input influence news coverage decisions?
• What are the demographics of the news management staff (HR)?
• What are the demographics of the on air staff (HR)?
• What are the demographics of the news production staff (HR)?
Not one of these questions fall within the aegis of the FCC, except arguably the community reception of information — and that only for broadcasters. The questions get more intrusive for editors and mid-level managers:
• What is the news philosophy of the station?
• Who else in your market provides news?
• Who are your main competitors?
• How much news does your station (stations) air every day?
• Is the news produced in-house or is it provided by an outside source?
• Do you employ news people?
• How many reporters and editors do you employ?
• Do you have any reporters or editors assigned to topic “beats”? If so how many and what
are the beats?
• Who decides which stories are covered?
• How much influence do reporters and anchors have in deciding which stories to cover?
• How much does community input influence news coverage decisions?
• How do you define critical information that the community needs?
• How do you ensure the community gets this critical information?
When one looks at the actual study commissioned by the FCC, it’s difficult to laugh off the “thought police” aspects of it. That’s especially true with the surfeit of demographic questions that belong more to the EEOC’s jurisdiction, and the stated focus of “perceived responsiveness to underserved populations,” in an era of exploding choice and demographic targeting by media. One can see the “crisis” the FCC will want to solve a mile off. It’s pretty obvious what the FCC is thinking.
The Anchoress clarifies matters for Kurtz:
“What are they thinking?” Mr. Kurtz, it’s pretty obvious; they’re thinking no one in the mainstream press has asked them a difficult or challenging question in 7 years, so why would they start now.
- They’re thinking an obsequious press that couldn’t be bothered to sustain outrage over intrusions into its own phone and internet records won’t have a problem with the government parking itself into the newsroom.
- They’re thinking that if the mainstream press could forgive them for considering espionage charges against a member of the press — for doing what reporters are supposed to do — and then re-commence their habitual boot-licking, there is no real risk of media folk suddenly calling out a “red line”, or even being able to identify one.
- They’re figuring that with this president, the mainstream media has no idea what “a bridge too far” might mean. Nor, “abuse of power”; nor “cover-up”; nor “mendacity”,“incompetence”, “ineptitude” or “constitutional illiteracy.”
- They know that half the people in the newsroom are either married or to (or social buddies with) influential members of this government, and that everyone is all comfy and nicely settled in for the revolution.
- They know that the press willfully surrendered its own freedoms some time ago, in the interests of ideology, and so they really won’t mind a little editorial supervision from the masters:
. . .we no longer need wonder why the mainstream media seems unconcerned about possible attacks on our first amendment rights to freedom of religion and the exercise thereof. They have already cheerfully, willfully surrendered the freedom of the press to the altar of the preferred narrative. People willing to dissolve their own freedoms so cheaply have no interest in anyone else’s freedom, either.
- They know that if they like their newsroom, they can keep their newsroom, once it has been correctly updated. A Mad Man might sell the scheme as Prexy-Clean. Journalism “new and improved with powerful cleansing agents!”
I hope that helps, Mr. Kurtz.
They’re thinking that no one’s paying any attention. And so far, for the most part, they’ve been correct.
Update: I fixed a formatting error in The Anchoress’ excerpt. Also, my friend Warner Todd Huston sent up the first signal flare on this issue in November, so be sure to read that post, too.
ExZACTLY.
The Marxists have no fear what so ever of the sniffing FCC snots showing themselves, but would love to see them ice FOX and all conservative competition, which is the sole purpose behind this idea, in the first place.
First you seize health care.
Then guns.
Then the media.
The second stage is to push back by building up your institutions that make your way of life possible.
The third stage is to use those institutions against the enemy. - Greenfield.
We fight back by building up our institutions, churches, synagogue, conservative civic groups etc... If we're not careful we'll all be joining resistance soon...
He and Obama could watch each other touch themselves while they both marveled at how hot Obama is.
Where are/were you planning to go?
Rush really should INVITE one of the Federal fascist news “observers” into his news room, and then harass him/her mercilessly as well as broadcasting a running commentary of the conversations. It would be an awesome gag.
Maybe even better would be to have a running gag of a FAKE Federal newsroom monitor, and then Rush could make up anything he wanted about it, thoroughly ridiculing the whole thing, ridicule which would kill the whole idea quicker than simply protesting it.
BTW, the only big media outfit dealing with this story has been News Corp outlets. It wasn’t until after Megyn Kelly’s broadcast last night that the MSM has bothered to mention it: WaPo just ran their first story on this 29 minutes ago. Some of the lesser outlets mentioned it 12 hours ago. NY Slimes, LA Slimes, NBC/CBS/ABC/CNN/AP/McClatchy/Yahoo/Google? Nothing. Nada. Zip.
bkmk
Newspapers are undergoing a self-clean-up episode currently. If some dimwit bought a paper back in the 1980s and converted it as a cheerleader function for one particular party....they find themselves today with a profitless newspaper. They actually have to find money somewhere in another pocket to pay for the bare minimum in reporters and cover production cost.
NewsWeak and Time are valued at roughly $1 each today. That says a lot about the anchor tied onto them and their ability to ever recover. Whoever owns them....needs massive profits from a second business front....to cover his or her “hobby”.
CNN is reaching the same climax....unable to cover current production costs because of declining profits. Their owner has to be extremely wealthy in other affairs...to cover this sinking ship. MSNBC is not much better.
I’m not sure this monitor business will be seen as practical and helpful to the current players. 2016 isn’t far off....a new regime change....Republican president....suddenly the monitors will be all over MSNBC and CNN.
I should add this...there’s nothing that says Fox News needs to stay with it’s operation in the US. They could easily move into Quebec or run their production studio from some off-shore boat, and just transmit via satellite across the nation. At that point....the FCC game is useless, and they might as well get back to monitoring Jeopardy and Saturday morning cartoons.
A private industry association could handle that. It would be in everyone's interest, since neither station would want the other station's chatter busting up its signal.
I think that since all these extra-Constitutional agencies have reached their (inevitable) point of total corruption at the top, we can't trust them even to do something as simple as signal-traffic-control. The only solution is to start killing them. I'm certain that, as in this case, what seems at first blush to be a necessary function of government will prove to be unnecessary.
there we have it.
self regulation is the hallmark of the healthy individual
and the healthy individual acting in concert with others....
authoritarian nonsense demands “top down” control while offering no benefit to ANYBODY
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