UPDATE: FCC Acting Chairman To Act Boldly On Media Diversity

Wall Street Journal ^ | APRIL 8, 2009 | Fawn Johnson

[Delacon]

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Federal Communications Commission Acting Chairman Michael Copps said Wednesday he intends to act boldly to help improve the diversity of broadcasters in the U.S.

"Today we commit to getting independent and credible information to gird what I intend to be meaningful action to right the injustice" of the lack minority- and women-owned broadcasters in the U.S., Copps said at an FCC meeting.

The FCC approved a proposal to improve data collection about broadcasting entities owned by women and minorities. The FCC voted to expand the number of broadcast entities that must file data to the commission about the ethnicity of their owners.

The Internet advocacy group Free Press said the FCC's 2007 data collection process missed over half of the radio stations owned by women and minorities and over two-thirds of the television stations. Still, Free Press says women and minorities own less than 10% of the full-power radio and TV stations in the country.

Media diversity has been a priority Copps, who is serving as interim FCC Chairman until President Barack Obama's pick for the job, Julius Genachowski, is installed. Genachowski has yet to be confirmed.

Copps announced Wednesday that he will appoint new members to a diversity advisory committee that will advise the FCC on how to expand media diversity. Among other things, the committee will examine whether the FCC should analyze broadcast license applications more broadly to help bolster the proportion of women and media owners.

Copps said the committee will be asked to recommend changes the FCC can put forth now to correct the "benign neglect" the commission has given the media diversity issue in recent years.

"It requires some clear signals that we're moving now, and we're trying to convey that signal today, that this commission is deadly serious about

[Delacon]

From wiki(yeh I know):

 

In 1986, Judges Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the Fairness Doctrine did apply to teletext but that the FCC was not required to apply it.

This left the door wide open for the FCC to rescind the "Fairness Doctrine" during the Reagan Aministration. But Scalia only said that the FCC wasn't required to apply it, not that they were constitutionally prevented from applying it. I'm more than a bit worried on how Scalia will land on this.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Justice Scalia raised the possibility that Rush Limbaugh’s 20 million fans, as well as the listeners to 2,000 other radio talk shows, have constitutional rights, too. In particular, they have a right to choose what they want to listen to, or to watch, without government interference

The other way of looking at it is that Obama himself has identified Rush as an opponent - and that no matter what fig leaf you try to cover it with, knocking Rush off of the air anywhere would be a naked case of censoring the government's political opposition.

But I think that Scalia's formulation is exactly the sort of logic that should prevail before SCOTUS (not that I'm a lawyer . . .). The Federalists who framed and promoted the ratification of the Constitution argued against a bill of rights on grounds that it would not be possible to articulate all the rights of the people in any such bill, and that any bill of rights could be used by opponents of liberty as a ceiling rather than a floor on our rights. Therefore it is settled doctrine that the rights articulated in the Bill of Rights are mere examples, rather than an exhaustive list, of the rights of the people. The people would have the natural right to listen to any sort of political argumentation, whether the First Amendment existed or not. But if you insist on discussing it from the First Amendment POV, your right to freedom of speech would be moot if no one were free to listen to you.

IMHO the "framing timbers" of censorship are going up in plain sight, and there is not a moment to lose in getting a case in front of SCOTUS. I also think that such a case must be crafted to simultaneously knock "campaign finance reform" completely off the books and utterly eliminate the FEC. As if it needed proving, the Obama campaign demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that the FEC is a paper tiger against actual abuse and against huge campaign budgets. Not just McCain-Feingold but the entire post-1968 edifice of so-called "reform" of campaign finance. Root and branch.

The FCC defined radio bands were intentionally designed to make stations scarce enough to be valuable. If there is any sincere argument for diversity, that is an argument not an argument that any existing ones be censored but that the number of radio bands must be increased.

[Shhhh They are watching Us]

Please pray for our country this Easter/Holy Week. I hope to the Good Lord this does not pass... I love Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham and Rush.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

FCC Acting Chairman to Act Boldly

There is no emergency requiring "bold" action.

The existence of organization to this, or any, incumbent administration can never be an "emergency."

[linbiao123]

All that precious spectrum wasted on broadcast television. Simply wasteful. It should be eliminated and replaced with LTE. HDTV programs can then be streamed, much like at&t’s U-verse, allowing for an unlimited number of channels.

[Old Professer]

In diversity is unity and in darkness inner-light reigns above all; while sleep and peace pace the floor with no walls — and the only door open leads to hollow, echoing circular halls.

[Jeff Gordon]

From each according to his ability, to each according to his race, gender or sexual preference.

[Jeff Gordon]

is the government going to seize broadcast outlets from certain owner/operators

Not exactly. Each broadcaster has a license. These licenses have terms. The licenses must be renewed once they expire. The FCC decides the parameters for a new or renewed license. Diversity can made a parameter. The old licensee may not become he new licensee based upon these new parameters.

No seizure is required.

[Jeff Gordon]

Justice Scalia raised the possibility that Rush Limbaugh’s 20 million fans, as well as the listeners to 2,000 other radio talk shows, have constitutional rights, too.

The horrible beauty behind our sneaky little bitch President using diversity is that government rulings about content is require. Diversity gives the station licenses to different owners. The new owners decide the programing. The new owners are not motivated by profit but by ideology. The new owners decide that Rush will not be in the new line up.

Voila! The sneaky little bitch as dumped Rush without a fuss.

[MaxMax]

I understand that Obama and the RATs know they're doing a horrible job
and their popularity is failing. Bidan was booed at a baseball game,
and Obama declined to throw the ball to begin the Nationals
because he didn't want that to happen to him.

Bottom line is they think the Constitution is just a baseline and
means nothing. I expect it will get worse, and I also denied that it would
get worse, at first.

It appears that Eminent Domain applies to the RATs every whim.

[freekitty]

They need to go. I just watched a little of a liberal channel congratulating itself on helping to find a little girl that was kidnapped.

Let’s face it Obama and Co. are sick, sick and sick.

[Biggirl]

We enough music already. It is iTunes.

[Biggirl]

It is called iTunes.

[Biggirl]

Good news. Pushback has BEGUN, starting Wednesday at the tea parties.

[Biggirl]

Pushback has begun and will get going come Wednesday.

[Biggirl]

Look for a court fight to take place.

[freekitty]

And we will PUSHBACK

[meyer]

A very large number will cheer it.

And they should be photographed, and put in a database for future reference. They are the enemy of a free country.

[ronnyquest]

What happens when these woman- and minority-owned businesses fold because no one wants to listen? That's a rhetorical question; we know the answer. Where is the constitutional authority for this move? It's not there! This is nothing but a thinly-veiled attempt to regulate free speech. "Regulatory" agencies do not exist to further the ends of our constitutional republic; they're in place to stifle freedom. It must be stopped and now!

[St. Louis Conservative]

So, they can go out and find a conservative African-American or conservative woman and then reapply? Problem solved.

If they are still denied, then the government would have some explaining to do.