Free Republic

Last week, Reporters Without Borders dropped America in the World Press Freedom Index 2014 from 33rd to 46th. James Risen of The New York Times rightly explained, “I think 2013 will go down in history as the worst year for press freedom in the United States’ modern history.” And he’s right. The violation of press freedoms has been egregious under this administration, even as the press fetes President Obama as an honest and effective commander-in-chief. Selective Access. President Obama has regularly granted special access to reporters who give him preferential coverage. CBS’ Steve Kroft admitted as much after a...

Somebody needs to tell the FCC: you don't buy a cow when the milk is free. James Carville once shockingly demonstrated the left's disdain for the morals of the poor, saying, "Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find." In truth, you can buy whatever you want much more easily if you drag that bill through a School of Journalism. CNS reports that George Soros has seeded such schools at the University of Southern California and the University of Wisconsin to create shock troops for the now shelved FCC plan to monitor (bully) the...

The FCC may have suspended its invasion into American newsrooms, but the controversial "Critical Information Needs" study also has George Soros' fingerprints all over it. While disturbing, this should come as no surprise since Soros' gave more than $52 million to media organizations from 2000-2010. Two schools were working with FCC on the project, according to Byron York of The Washington Examiner. The University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Communication and Democracy, were tasked by the FCC with coming up with criteria for what information is "critical" for Americans...

The FCC may have suspended its invasion into American newsrooms, but the controversial "Critical Information Needs" study also has George Soros' fingerprints all over it. While disturbing, this should come as no surprise since Soros' gave more than $52 million to media organizations from 2000-2010. Two schools were working with FCC on the project, according to Byron York of The Washington Examiner. The University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Communication and Democracy, were tasked by the FCC with coming up with criteria for what information is "critical" for Americans...

The real mystery behind the FCC's now abandoned "study" to police American newsrooms is why the mainstream media refused to raise holy hell over it. While Obama's lapdogs refused to bark, it was conservative media who fought for newsroom independence and got the FCC to finally back down. Other than the media's natural obedience to Obama, the fact that the fingerprints of left-wing billionaire George Soros have been found on the FCC study might also help to explain the media's silence. ... The media's hands-off policy with Soros is nothing new ... The mainstream media not only shares Soros' hard-left...

The Federal Communications Commission plan to send “researchers” into newsrooms in order to observe how stories are selected and reported has sparked fears of government intimidation and censorship. Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, said “the mere presence of agents of the government may exert a subtle pressure to slant reporting in a way that deters critical coverage of Administration policies.” Ajit Pai, one of the FCC's Commissioners, voiced his concern that “this claimed 'information gathering effort' to ascertain the 'philosophy' behind how those in the news media do their jobs could stifle dissent....

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I want to start today with this story that the Regime is going to put monitors in American news organization newsrooms. I had a fascinating discussion with two or three people here asking what they thought of it, and without fail, without exception, everybody I asked about this said without the slightest hesitation or doubt that the media will rise up in righteous indignation and opposition and will not put up with this. The media, the New York Times, NBC News, CBS, Washington Post, you name it, they will not tolerate it. They will draw a red...

The FCC is launching a new study, taking upon itself the task of deciding what news the public “needs” to hear, versus the news the public wants to hear. The agency will conduct a “General Population Survey” that will “measure community members’ actual and perceived critical information needs.” Got that? What you think (perceive) you need to know is different from what the government says you need to know. Next, the FCC will send monitors to newsrooms across the country who will ask questions regarding the “philosophy” of the newsroom, inquire about possible conflicts between reporters and their bosses, and...

The head of the Federal Communications Commission is trying to douse Republican accusations that his agency is trying to covertly police the editorial decisions of TV news. In a letter to senior House Republicans released Thursday, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said the agency "has no intention of regulating political or other speech of journalists or broadcasters." Republicans have picked at an FCC study introduced last spring on "critical information needs" that is intended to examine barriers of entry into the news media industry for small businesses. The study's inquiry included questions such as: "What is the news philosophy of the...

Obama’s News Police Posted By Matthew Vadum On February 21, 2014 @ 12:56 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage The Obama administration is planning to send what critics characterize as government spies into the newsrooms of the nation’s media outlets. This unprecedented assault on Americans’ First Amendment freedoms is part of the Community Organizer-in-Chief’s political war against the few pockets of media resistance he has encountered at Fox News and in the world of talk radio. Sending federal bureaucrats to meddle in newsroom affairs by conducting an alleged “study” will chill news coverage and make government-licensed broadcast media think twice about airing...