Posted on 11/13/2007 10:44:56 AM PST by bs9021
A Doctrine By Any Other Name
by: Bethany Stotts, November 13, 2007
As reported earlier by Cliff Kincaid, the November 8th Senate Committee Hearing on Localism, Diversity, and Media Ownership likely precedes a concerted effort by Congress to reform digital, radio, and print media. Although not officially designed to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine, the hearings participants betrayed many of the same attitudes which could lead to greater government regulation of content, scalability, ownershipand now even ethnicity.
If Congress follows the advice of this committees carefully selected witnesses, a comprehensive reform agenda could soon sweep all areas of broadcast media. [Congress] must keep all current FCC ownership restrictions and public service mandates in place...craft new FCC mandates to ensure internet freedom... institute a ban on cross-ownership of national print and national broadcast outlets as a companion to the local cross-ownership ban... push for limits on newspaper ownership, urged witness Frank Blethen, the President and CEO of The Seattle Times.
Blethen has been lobbying against media consolidation since at least 2002, when he told a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign audience that if democracy is to survive we must change the course of this terrible trend toward media concentration, and invigorate a diverse and independent press whose primary mission is news and public service. He proposes that Congress show strong, bold leadership to save our free and local press. This is a historical moment. The American citizen needs your leadership, he added.
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
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