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Going Backwards: FCC Kills Off Fairness Doctrine
The FCC gave the coup de grace to the fairness doctrine Monday as the commission axed more than 80 media industry rules.
Earlier this summer FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski agreed to erase the post WWII-era rule, but the action Monday puts the last nail into the coffin for the regulation that sought to ensure discussion over the airwaves of controversial issues did not exclude any particular point of view. A broadcaster that violated the rule risked losing its license.
While the commission voted in 1987 to do away with the rule — a legacy to a time when broadcasting was a much more dominant voice than it is today — the language implementing it was never removed. The move Monday, once published in the federal register, effectively erases the rule.
Monday’s move is part of the commission’s response to a White House executive order directing a “government-wide review of regulations already on the books” designed to eliminate unnecessary regulations.
Also consigned to the regulatory dustbin are the “broadcast flag” digital copy protection rule that was struck down by the courts and the cable programming service tier rate. Altogether, the agency tossed 83 rules and regs.
Genachowski said in a statement that the move was aimed at promoting “a healthy climate for private investment and job creation.” Both the Obama administration and the FCC have come under criticism by business groups over laws and regulations such as health care reform and net neutrality rules.
63 Comments so far
Show AllOn the other hand is it really important? No one wants balanced reporting anyway, we all self select the spin flavor that agrees with what *WE* think. That applies to people here as much as tobacco-chewin, nascar watchin, gun shootin rednecks. Who wants to hear about Global Warming as a hoax or creationism or *rights* of illegal immigrants.
We now have more information that we can eat from a thousand different sources. We all self select what we consume and only consume what we like or like to argue with. There is no public debate on issues or ideas any more. The Fairness Doctrine is from a time past when the body politic had compromise as a trait. That is all gone now.
Let them publish what they want and the messages that succeed are the messages that people want to consume.
People are not interested in debate or ideas. We don't read or listen or watch things that change our minds, we only use what we see to either prove our points or prove the existence of a mammoth conspiracy to sidetrack our side.
You personally are a symptom of this problem and have been for years. You deny every piece of information that violates your world view and accept with rejoicing anything that supports it.... In short, you are human and like everyone else when it comes to this subject.
Your claim that a *fairness doctrine* would change the debate is simply infantile. Give me ONE case of presenting Darwinism to a Creationist that converted the Creationist. There is none. In the rather famous outing of the idiots in Dover, Penn (?) who had creationism added to text books, after all the court cases and REAMS and PILES of facts presented to them and a federal judgement placed against them, they continue to maintain they were right.
Look at the tea party and the budget ceiling. They would not listen to any rational argument. However from their standpoint, the Democrats and the Republicans didn't listen to *their* arguments, hence it was a "stonewall".
Another great example is Progressive101 who, everytime there is an article about Israel, posts his 11 points of Hasbra or whatever so that anyone that disagrees with him or presents any other fact is simply a Hasbarist.
Think about that... any dissenting opinion is part of a plot. Does that remind you of anyone? Seriously? None of us here care about objective fact only subjective fact and we only care about the subjective facts that validate our opinion.
No. A fairness doctrine is silly and would cause people to simply self select to another station or to use the arguments presented to either validate their dismissal of the other side or worse would serve as evidence of a plot.
If you have ideas that sell, then people will buy them (listen to them) if you don't then they won't. Air America vs. Rush Limbaugh. CurrentTV vs. FOX (or any of them).
Fairness doctrine is only a grasp at a straw to get out a Progressive view that no one wants to hear. Of course it would be good for us, but not because it is *fair* as in what people want to see, but because it would artificially insert our message into the market of ideas.
I'm old enough to remember when the situation was reversed, and it was the conservative view that was not wanted by most, and the rightists were the ones who saw sinister "plots" to stifle their views, by "Rockefellers" and "Communists". The conservatives got that reversed, largely because of backlash over the civil rights acts, and the antiwar demonstrations of the 1960's, plus their ability to get their word out using things like Fairness Doctrine to see that their alternative was at least heard. There's your "one case" of changed opinions you asked for.
Once conservatives got things reversed, they attempted to seal the deck to prevent further change. That's neither conservative nor free market (small, independent stations are purchased by huge monopolies). Your defense of that is unconvincing and circular, largely because you believe people don't change, and that they won't ever listen to new views. But they have in the past.
The Fairness doctrine is about having A diversity of thoughts, facts and opinion.... Without A "fairness Doctrine" the moneyed elite can play every Orwellian trick in the book on Americans that are uneducated and incapable of critical thinking..
It has been proven over and over that when you repeat A lie often enough people begin to believe it the truth..Just look at how Fox News sold us the Afghanistan/Iraqi war predicated on the bullshit Collin Powell presented to the U.N. along with Bush's and Cheney's constant seemingly macho lets go get them terrorist's bullshit...That U.N. weapons Inspector that kept telling us there were no weapons of mass destruction was imprinted into peoples minds as A traitor, along with the Dixie Chicks and anyone else who showed conviction...With A fairness doctrine, we would have been able to hear more of both sides of the argument.
Just watch Democracy Now sometime and compare it to MSM...All there is on the alledged liberal media now is coverage of all of the wacko, bat shit Republicans and how badly they are treating poor little Obama...
I get my News from the Internet mainly but I am without work now and have the time....
There really isn't much "democracy" left in the corrupted American system. Such a system has no right to expect to survive in a just world ...
That was then and it is now also. I had no idea the wording had not been erased. Now we have to or should I say that now the M$M's dumbstream garden has the one viewpoint they are expected to use as a source of information and to take it as 'just the facts, ma'am'.
Since Citizens United, the subliminal, mind altering, produced "Cells of thought" people will be bombarded with will be so upscale, state of the art, deceptive mind control shit you have ever witnessed... Have you ever watched "Orwell Rolls In His Grave" or "Rich Media, Poor Democracy"????
That little fat guy that works for the republicans, the guy that studied televisions effects on people and is some sort of campaign manager gave A demonstration on how they formed thoughts in unsuspecting peoples minds-He used Tide soap as an example, planting words in peoples minds, and it was freaky...Most American voters are not in the same league as those on this CD site- If they were we could get A real Human Being elected....
The Fairness Doctrine being eliminated is HUGE, HUGE,HUGE...That piece of shit Reagan knew this and so did every scumbag President since...This is the near equivalent of Citizens United and the Patriot Act combined when it comes to CONTROL....MIND CONTROL...
I am glad that you are showing the interest in this film, and even though it is A few years old it hits you like A ton of bricks as being so revealing about the insidious agenda of the EVIL ONE"S...I wish every American would watch this and also the sequel: "Rich Media-Poor Democracy"...The people that put it together are true patriots and the best in their field-They all gave up lucrative careers with "prestigous" News Agencys {Corporate MSM} so that they could speak truth to power...I hold them all in high esteem... Another film I watched on LINK was called:
"The Warning" And what Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Naomi Wolf, Robert Kennedy Jr., Joe Conason, and A few others had to say was disturbingly enlightening ar best..Not sure if this one is available yet as A "Free Documentary"...
Good luck doggone!!!!
James L. Martin, chairman of the conservative 60 Plus Association, described Luntz's role as being that of pollster and popularizer of the phrase "death tax". Martin gained an important ally in GOP pollster Frank Luntz, whose polling revealed that "death tax" sparked voter resentment in a way that "inheritance tax" and "estate tax" couldn't match. After all, who wouldn't be opposed to a "tax on death"? Luntz shared his findings with Republicans and included the phrase in the GOP's Contract with America. Luntz went so far as to recommend in a memo to GOP lawmakers that they stage press conferences "at your local mortuary" to dramatize the issue. "I believe this backdrop will clearly resonate with your constituents," he wrote. "Death is something the American people understand." Apparently, he's right. Spurred by Luntz, Republicans have employed the term "death tax" so aggressively that it has entered the popular lexicon. Nonpartisan venues like newspapers and magazines have begun to use it in a neutral context--a coup for abolitionists like Martin.[6] Without the "Fairness Doctrine" who on earth can reach out to the American populace and tell them what A conniving, deceptive ploy this is by the Republicans...
This is the kind of shit that big money will be smearing all over the airwaves in the upcoming elections...Sneaky little word games and half truths to get people to buy into their agenda-and that is what people like Frank Luntz are all about-Smoke and Mirrors deception...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz
At the end of each of your paragraphs hit the "shift" key-then type in the symbol<
{Next to the M on my keyboard} Then with the "shift" key still down press the P
Then while still holding the "shift" key down hit the > symbol {next to the ?}
I KNOW that you as A finicky, perfectionist speller, that this paragraph stuff must bug the sh- - out of you... Try it out, it is easier than you think....Just < then P then > after each paragraph to make A paragraph *** you also must hit the "Enter" key after > as you would anyhow to go to A paragraph.........{Thanx 2BSmarter} < P > {easy!}
Libertarians may as well scream at infants, claiming they should put their money where their mouths are, or stop wailing. 'Cause that's how crude and selfish is the libertarian ideology. They punish and criminalize anyone who lacks the $$$ to purchase a yacht, an island, or their very own lobbyist.
They used to call it fascist propaganda, but that's officially discarded as a term for official control of the public information channels for private gain. Get real, it's “a healthy climate for private investment and job creation.”
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.