In the TV industry, a series that is permanently going away is said to be “canceled.” A series that is being taken off the schedule for some amount of time — possibly to return, possibly not — is said to be “on hiatus.”

The latter apparently is the status of the Federal Communications Commission’s Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs, the FCC’s attempt to interfere with the news decision-making process under the guise of studying the news decision-making process.

Newsmax interviewed Dr. Ajit Pai, the commissioner who blew the whistle on the study:

The Federal Communications Commission declared last week that it had shelved a controversial survey on how newsrooms cover various news stories, which was derided by critics as a threat to the First Amendment right of press freedom.

But in explaining the decision, FCC spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said that “the pilot will not be undertaken until a new study design is final,” suggesting the program could be brought back at a later date.

“It’s suspended, and the way I like to think about it is [how] you would think about a baseball game being suspended,” Pai told “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV. “It’s not being canceled, it could come back,” he said Monday.

“The good thing is that the FCC has said that any study along these lines will not involve government researchers going into newsrooms and asking questions about a perceived station bias or how they decide to cover certain stories, not others, whether they’re covering the critical information needs that people need to know.

“But nonetheless, we need to remain vigilant to make sure that any future study doesn’t intrude on that core constitutional freedom of the press. The devil’s going to be in the details, and if they decide to go ahead with this study, you can rest assured that I’ll be watching to make sure that nothing like this is attempted again.”

Pai had revealed earlier this month to The Wall Street Journal that the FCC planned to infiltrate newsrooms with the potential that media organizations would eventually be pressured into covering certain stories.

But he told Newsmax that the agency, as part of its apparent plan to intrude on media coverage, had twisted a provision of the law that requires the FCC to report to Congress every three years on barriers that businesses face when they’re trying to get into the communications industry and the broadcasting business.

“As I looked over the study design, it seemed to me that some of the questions and some of the purposes had nothing to do with that report. I mean, they’re trying to figure out what a station’s perceived bias is or whether reporters have been told by management not to cover certain stories,” Pai said.

“I mean, that has nothing to do with barriers to entry, and that’s one of the reasons why I got a little bit concerned, especially because this was an initiative that none of us voted on. This wasn’t decided by a vote of all the commissioners, and it was important to bring public awareness to this issue.”

There is, by the way, a Wisconsin connection to this blatant violation of the First Amendment. It is UW School of Journalism Prof. Lewis Friedland, reports Media Trackers:

Lewis A. Friedland is a professor at the UW’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He is also the founder and director of the Center on Communication and Democracy and campaign finance records show he has contributed exclusively to Democratic candidates.

Friedland worked through his UW-based Center on Communication and Democracy with the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California to conduct a literature review that formed the basis for the FCC’s subsequent development of the Critical Information Needs Study.

“I was one of the authors of that literature review,” Friedland told Media Trackers. According to the University of Wisconsin, the review included 500 articles pertaining to the information needs of local communities. Titled, “Review of the Literature Regarding Critical Information Needs of the American Public,” the final document was submitted to the FCC by the several academic authors. …

Byron York of the Washington Examinerfirst revealed the University of Wisconsin’s involvement with the project days after Pai exposed it.

Asked about his involvement, Friedland told Media Trackers, “I stand behind the report.” He also said he supports what the FCC is trying to do even though he has not been involved with the project since 2012. “I support the study, think it’s a good idea.”

In addition to helping craft the literature review, Friedland attended a meeting hosted by the FCC in 2012 to help lay the groundwork for the project. After that meeting, Friedland briefly went to work for SSI, the D.C.-based consulting firm hired by the federal government to finalize the study. …

In November of 2013, Friedland gave a speech at the University of Southern California entitled, “Solidarity in a Networked Civil Society.”

How do we know the study is a bad idea? Even a Democrat opposes it:

The controversial FCC plan to study how newsrooms report the news and then potentially demand changes is “very, very chilling,” says Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf. ..

“People ought to be allowed to view whatever they want, listen to whatever they want, see whatever they want, hear whatever they want, and the government has absolutely no business determining what is news content under any circumstances and what is fair and balanced,” Sheinkopf told Malzberg.

“The fairness doctrine is a different issue. That’s about getting particular points of view during political campaigns espoused. That’s one thing. But the government going into newsrooms and saying, by the way, guys, do it my way, is very, very chilling, and particularly for those who hold broadcasting licenses, which are very important things to hold onto, this is very, very serious. Very serious.”

During a panel discussion with Malzberg, [Fox News’ Christopher] Hahn backed Sheinkopf up, declaring, “I don’t want the government telling people what we should be listening to in the news either.”

But Hahn acknowledged that TV viewers are no longer getting the news but instead are being told “what they want to hear.”

“So, we have to have a serious conversation in this country about what we’re going to do with our public airwaves. Is there going to be real news, is there going to be a public benefit in the news, because right now I don’t think that’s what’s going on,” Hahn said.

“There used to be a time in America where newsrooms actually reported on the news that people should be hearing . . . and it’s getting less and less, and something’s got to be done. I don’t know if the government can do anything to stop that. We as a people need to figure something out because I just don’t think we’re getting news anymore.”