Free Republic

FCC chairman agrees to strike Fairness Doctrine from rule books By Gautham Nagesh - 06/08/11 12:12 PM ET Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said his agency will remove the Fairness Doctrine from the rule books in response to a recent request from House Republicans. "I fully support deleting the Fairness Doctrine and related provisions from the Code of Federal Regulations, so that there can be no mistake that what has been a dead letter is truly dead," Genachowski wrote in a letter Monday to House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.). "I look forward to effectuating this change...

Free Speech: President Obama, while addressing college graduates, condemns our access to new media as a subversion of democracy. Is the iPad a threat to democracy or exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind? At Hampton University in Virginia on Sunday, the president lamented that in an age of text messaging, the Internet and the iPad, information and its unfettered exchange had become a diversion that was putting a strain on democracy. We are not making this up. The "24/7 media environment," he told the students, "bombards us with all kinds of comments and exposes us to all kinds of...

During the past several days, the Federal Communications Commission and Verizon Wireless' CEO Ivan Seidenberg have argued extensively over the agency's plan to reclaim spectrum from broadcasters. ... Seidenberg's views are not 100 percent clear to everybody, however, given the fact that the wireless carrier isn't involved in any way with any broadcaster. He also questioned why the FCC wanted to reclaim spectrum from broadcasters instead of cable companies.

The war on conservative speech has moved from the White House to your neighborhood pews. Left-wing church leaders want the Federal Communications Commission to crack down on "hate speech" over cable TV and right-leaning talk-radio airwaves. President Obama's speech-stifling bureaucrats seem all too happy to oblige. Over the last week, an outfit called "So We Might See" has conducted a nationwide fast to protest "media violence" -- specifically, "anti-immigrant hate speech, which employs flawed arguments to appeal to fears rather than facts." Their ire is currently aimed at Fox News and conservative talk-show giants. But how long before they target...

First Amendment: Diversity czar Mark Lloyd's FCC votes Thursday on the issue of net neutrality. Advertised as providing access to all, it will do to the information superhighway what Lloyd proposed for talk radio. Not much was said when $7.2 billion was included in the stimulus bill "to accelerate broadband deployment in unserved and underserved areas and to strategic institutions that are likely to create jobs or provide significant public benefits." The administration has big plans for the Internet — like controlling it. Susan Crawford, the so-called Internet czar, told the Wall Street Journal in April that the broadband billions...

1st Amendment: Mark Lloyd, a disciple of Saul Alinsky and fan of Hugo Chavez, wants to destroy talk radio and says free speech is a distraction. The new FCC diversity "czar" says Venezuela is an example we should follow.When Mark Lloyd was appointed July 29 as the chief diversity officer at the Federal Communications Commission, a nation focused on ObamaCare and a deteriorating economy took little notice. But as angry constituents flood town hall meetings and call in to talk radio, a man dedicated to silencing them sits at the right hand of the president. They share a common hero...

Inspired by Saul Alinsky, FCC 'Diversity' Chief Calls for ‘Confrontational Movement’ to Give Public Broadcasting Dominant Role in Communications Wednesday, August 26, 2009 By Matt Cover (CNSNews.com) – 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...

As each day passes and President Barack Obama's health care proposal faces more and more opposition, some of the talking heads that appear on the cable news networks are looking for a "boogeyman" to blame for allegedly ginning up backlash. And that "boogeyman" has been conservative talk radio. However, if recent history is any indication, there could be an effort to take silence conservative talk radio. Some of the circumstances surrounding the current debate on "reforming" health care are eerily familiar to the 2007 bipartisan effort to "reform" immigration. In fact, the last big policy issue that was defeated when...

We knew this was coming. We told you it would happen as far back as last year during the campaign. It is now official. Barack Obama has launched a full, frontal attack on conservative talk radio, and he is doing it without re-implementing 'the Fairness Doctrine.' But first, a bit of background.

Mark Lloyd, newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer of the Federal Communications Commission, has called for making private broadcasting companies pay licensing fees equal to their total operating costs to allow public broadcasting outlets to spend the same on their operations as the private companies do. Lloyd presented the idea in his 2006 book, Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America, published by the University of Illinois Press. Lloyd’s hope is to dramatically upgrade and revamp the Corporation for Public Broadcasting through new funding drawn from private broadcasters. The CPB is a non-profit entity that was created by Congress...

Mark Lloyd has recently been appointed “Chief Diversity Officer” at the Federal Communications Commission. Conservative groups believe his installation is merely another way to impose the dangerous principles contained in the Fairness Doctrine. Lloyd is a longtime Democrat activist who has strategized about ways to censor conservative media under the guise of “local accountability.” In 2007, he co-wrote a report that called for, among other things, the restoration of local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations and fines for commercial radio station owners if their stations didn’t air enough “progressive” content. Those fines would go directly...

WASHINGTON, DC-U.S. Congressman Mike Pence released the following statement in response to the news that the Democrat-majority Rules Committee had rejected the 'Broadcaster Freedom Amendment' which would have prevented the Federal Communications Commission from reinstating the so-called 'Fairness Doctrine' and enacting proposed broadcast localism regulations for the next fiscal year. All Democrats present voted against allowing the amendment to the Financial Services Appropriations Bill, which funds the FCC, on a final vote of 7-4.

Some in the liberal media establishment have decried discussion of the Fairness Doctrine, claiming the Obama administration's publicly saying it wouldn't pursue it removed the threat. However, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh theorized that President Obama may have another method to restrict content over the airwaves in mind. In an interview on Sean Hannity's June 4 Fox News Channel program, Limbaugh explained how Obama could do this - by exercising the influence the government has over the banking sector. "I want to say one other thing, even if I go over time here," Limbaugh said. "People ask me...

Behold one of the new "Fairness" Doctrines - "media diversity" - coming soon to a radio station near you. President Barack Obama's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released the names of the thirty-one members of their Advisory Committee On Diversity For Communications In The Digital Age. This May 7 gathering is made up of a laundry list of left-wing grievance groups, with a smattering of radio and television companies included to break up the monotony. Not a single conservative organization is taking part in this Commission - more than a dozen Leftist groups are. A little ironic for a "diversity"...

For the first time, a U.S. Supreme Court justice is offering some legal insight about the so-called Fairness Doctrine, suggesting the off-the-books policy could be declared unconstitutional if it's revived and brought before the bench. In written discussion on yesterday's ruling cracking down on indecent language on television, Justice Clarence Thomas called the policy "problematic" and a "deep intrusion into the First Amendment rights of broadcasters." The doctrine requiring broadcasters to air opposing viewpoints on controversial issues was brought to an end in the 1980s under the direction of President Ronald Reagan's Federal Communications Commission.

Most Americans are sleepwalking right now through the early reign of Obama the Magnificant. He tells them he is cutting spending, cutting taxes, and cutting the deficit, and they believe him. When they find in 2010 and 2011 that he deliberately misled them and has been doing just the opposite, and they are deep in the soup as a result, public opinion will turn decisively against him. Meanwhile, our "mainstream media," which should be called the Party Controlled Press, are quite successfully maintaining the smokescreen in promoting the Obama propaganda line, acting as slavishly as Pravda and Izvestia did towards...

There are those who hang their First Amendment hats on President Barack Obama's statement that he isn't for reinstating the Censorship Doctrine, also mis-known as the "Fairness" Doctrine. These people are ignoring ever mounting examples of the censorious intent of this Administration on all things information. They are playing the Ostrich Defense despite the fact that nearly every Obama appointee to anything that has anything to do with regulating anything is a strident Leftist whose first impulse is to loathe the American people exercising the freedoms the Constitution affords them. Just three days after his November victory, President Obama floated...

Cass Sunstein sees Web as anti-democratic, proposed 24-hour delay on sending e-mail WASHINGTON – Barack Obama's nominee for "regulatory czar" has advocated a "Fairness Doctrine" for the Internet that would require opposing opinions be linked and also has suggested angry e-mails should be prevented from being sent by technology that would require a 24-hour cooling off period. The revelations about Cass Sunstein, Obama's friend from the University of Chicago Law School and nominee to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, come in a new book by Brad O'Leary, "Shut Up, America! The End of Free Speech."...

Congress shall make no law establishing articles of faith, or a mode of worship, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition to the government for the redress of grievances. ~ Proposed Bill of Rights, James Madison 14 Sep 1789 In the mid to late 20th century a great many technological advancements changed American society. None had greater impact than the advent of Radio and Television, and its widespread use. It created the opportunity for a far greater dissemination...

Democrat Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia has introduced two senate bills that may severely regulate traffic on the Internet. The Canadian Free Press explains it this way: The White House will have new powers to access private online data, regulate the cyber security industry and even shut down Internet traffic under the provisions of Senate bills No. 773 and 778, introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V. It’s called the Cybersecurity Act of 2009. You can see a draft of the legislation here. The Center for Democracy and Technology reviews some of the legislation’s possible effects: The Cybersecurity Act of...