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FCC Chief: We're Not Going to Police Your Newsroom
The National Journal ^ | Friday, February 21, 2013 | Laura Ryan

Posted on 02/21/2014 8:03:41 AM PST by kristinn

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 station?" and "Who decides which stories are covered?"

The FCC is required by law to conduct such research studies, but the commission's critics say this one was an initial foray into an effort to regulate newsrooms' editorial decisions.

Link to PDF of FCC letter.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationaljournal.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cin; fcc; firstamendment; obama; pressminders; propagandapolice; tomwheeler
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To: null and void

Now explain to me “why” I immediately thought of odumbo telling us we could keep our doctors and health plans?

Just another gubmint lie?


21 posted on 02/21/2014 8:19:07 AM PST by DaveA37
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To: kristinn
The rest of the media is happy to serve as megaphones for the White House and DNC talking points without any pressure. The only one they need to intimidate is Fox News, which is already bending over backwards to try to show that they are even-handed.

Maybe the real goal is the racial one--they want the newscasts to be 50% geared to African-American issues and interests. That wouldn't be a situation that "looks like America," one of their favorite slogans, but it would be more in line with TV commercials. The FCC could presumably take licenses away from stations that fail to meet the right quota of minority content.

22 posted on 02/21/2014 8:19:47 AM PST by Verginius Rufus
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To: Colonel_Flagg

OBAMA’S TOTALITARIAN COMPULSION

Following on the steps of Castro and Maduro, Obama is tightening his grip on the press, not conformed controlling 95% of the media, Obama is pushing towards the control of the whole 100%.

According to the international group “Reporters Without Borders” Index of Press Freedom the U.S. ranked 46, falling 13 places from last year.

Great Britain ranks 33, France 39, and Germany 14. Eastern European countries that were once under Soviet domination do fairly well, as the Czech Republic is ranked 13 and Poland is ranked 19.

The top three countries are Finland, Netherlands and Norway.


23 posted on 02/21/2014 8:20:30 AM PST by Dqban22
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To: kristinn
FCC letter: identify and eliminate "market entry barriers . . . promote . . . diversity"

To the aged 1960s Marxist-Alinsky campus radical, psycho spoiled brats and the ideological issue of same "diversity" means no conservative opinions allowed. Period!

Sounds like czar and fetters to me.

24 posted on 02/21/2014 8:21:09 AM PST by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: kristinn
FCC Chief: We're Not Going to Police Your Newsroom

I can picture Baghdad Bob saying this.

25 posted on 02/21/2014 8:21:21 AM PST by dragonblustar (Psalm 37:7)
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To: kristinn

The FCC is ..required...by Law...to conduct WHICH STUDIES was that?


26 posted on 02/21/2014 8:23:27 AM PST by MeshugeMikey (Where are The Weapons Of Mass Global Climate Change Destruction?)
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To: kristinn
The head of the Federal Communications Commission is trying to douse Republican accusations

No. The furor got going when an FCC commissioner wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. No pointing at amorphous "Republicans" this time.

27 posted on 02/21/2014 8:23:57 AM PST by JennysCool (My hypocrisy goes only so far)
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To: kristinn

Whatever this Fascist Regime denies it will do is Precisely what it intends to do. “If you like your Bill of Rights, you can keep your Bill of Rights”.


28 posted on 02/21/2014 8:29:01 AM PST by 230FMJ (...from my cold, dead, fingers.)
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To: kristinn
The Left realized that bringing back the "Fairness Doctrine" faced too many obstacles. Something else was needed. This has been in the works for awhile..

From a practical standpoint, however, the left realizes that any effort to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine would be extremely controversial and could be challenged as a violation of the First Amendment. Thus many leftists, rather than openly pursue a new Fairness Doctrine, now seek to achieve the same basic outcome by exploiting a vague FCC rule called “localism.” Localism regulations nebulously stipulate that broadcast stations, in order to maintain their licenses, must "serve the interests" of the communities in their respective listening areas. But these regulations do not recognize audience size or listener loyalty as valid barometers of the degree to which such interests are in fact being served. Rather, those interests are defined in terms of "diversity . . . .
here
29 posted on 02/21/2014 8:29:37 AM PST by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: kristinn

How much is it going to cost (talking dollars here and not liberty) to monitor the newsrooms? This sounds like another expensive program.


30 posted on 02/21/2014 8:31:19 AM PST by AD from SpringBay (http://jonah2eight.blogspot.com/)
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To: FReepers

Click The Pic To Donate

Support FR, Donate Monthly If You Can

31 posted on 02/21/2014 8:33:14 AM PST by DJ MacWoW (The Fed Gov is not one ring to rule them all)
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To: kristinn

“Police” is such an unpleasant word.

It’ will be be more like “guidance”.


32 posted on 02/21/2014 8:35:01 AM PST by VanShuyten ("a shadow...draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence.")
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To: Gaffer

The Zampolits wanted ideologically pure units that represented the party’s views regardless of reality.


33 posted on 02/21/2014 8:35:23 AM PST by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: kristinn

Camel. Nose. Tent


34 posted on 02/21/2014 8:36:11 AM PST by Brooklyn Attitude (Things are only going to get worse.)
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To: kristinn
Allow me to translate:


35 posted on 02/21/2014 8:36:28 AM PST by bigbob (The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly. Abraham Lincoln)
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To: kristinn

“The FCC is required by law to conduct such research studies, but the commission’s critics say this one was an initial foray into an effort to regulate newsrooms’ editorial decisions.

So, an anti-Constitutional fedgov commission is ‘required’ to conduct overtly political litmus testing? And, we are supposed to believe that there is no hidden agenda? With Zero in the White Hut? And, Holder the Red at DO(in)J? And, Reid the Feckless with a stranglehold on the Senate?

Nah. I’m not buyin’ it. Scrap the whole damn thing...


36 posted on 02/21/2014 8:38:18 AM PST by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion. 01-20-2016; I pray we make it that long.)
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To: kristinn
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.

That's so the government will know which barriers are effective, so it can erect more of them.

37 posted on 02/21/2014 8:43:24 AM PST by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: kristinn
Background story from 2/10: The FCC Wades Into the Newsroom
38 posted on 02/21/2014 8:45:14 AM PST by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: bigbob

Nice. And, simple.

Thx.


39 posted on 02/21/2014 8:46:26 AM PST by RitaOK ( VIVA CHRISTO REY / Public education is the farm team for more Marxists coming.)
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To: kristinn

It is likely that the WH is using the FCC in a ham handed attempt to stifle talk radio by pressuring local radio stations to have more “balanced” content. The FCC looking at print media is an obvious attack against the First Amendment. I am sure that administration operatives are also looking at ways to muzzle Fox News which as a cable channel is not currently regulated by the FCC and to control free speech on the Internet. The US is rapidly becoming a totalitarian state. I could see that what we are seeing in Ukraine and Venezuela where citizens are taking to the streets to oppose their tyrannical governments could be soon happening here.


40 posted on 02/21/2014 8:47:15 AM PST by The Great RJ
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