Category: media

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.”

What does it say about Michigan voters that U.S. Rep. Gary Peters (D-Michigan) is not only in office, but running for the U.S. Senate?

Cain TV explains:

You already know that Democrats are trying to use the Internal Revenue Service to silence their political adversaries. Now Democrats are trying to use the Federal Communications Commission to do the exact same thing.

On Thursday, a law firm representing the Senate campaign of U.S. Rep. Gary Peters (D-Michigan) sent a threatening letter to television stations running an ad paid for by Americans for Prosperity, and critical of Peters for voting for ObamaCare.

Specifically, the letter mentions a “fact check” article by the Washington Post that questions some of the claims made in the ad by Michigan resident Julie Boonstra, who has Leukemia and saw her health insurance thrown into chaos by ObamaCare. Because Washington Post “fact checker” column gave the ad “two Pinocchios” and claims Boonstra’s new ObamaCare insurance is a better deal for her than she says it is, the law firm for the Peters campaign demands that TV stations provide facts to back the AFP’s position in the ad, under threat of losing their broadcast license if they do not.

Here is a PDF image of the letter.

Let’s cut to the chase here. Congressman Peters, who hopes to become Senator Peters, is using his position as a member of Congress to threaten TV stations with the loss of their broadcast licenses if they air ads critical of him. This is an abuse of power every bit as egregious as the use of the IRS to harass Tea Party groups.

I am sure liberals will counter that TV stations are indeed accountable for the content of ads they run, and that’s true. If you knowingly air an ad that is patently false, you could be held in violation of your FCC-issued license.

But to claim this is such a situation is beyond absurd. For one thing, the Washington Post “fact checker” column is not an authoritative arbiter of the truth. It is a political opinion column – nothing more, nothing less. How many political ads have aired, only to be criticized by a political columnist? That is all fair debate and commentary, but the fact that an ad was criticized by a member of the media is not evidence that it is untrue.

Also, you will notice in the letter how the law firm claims public officials have a right to the airwaves that others do not. Gary Peters can apparently say anything he wants! But a group criticizing Gary Peters cannot.

It is also beyond absurd to think that Glenn Kessler, who writes the “fact checker” column for the Post, knows Julie Boonstra’s situation better than Julie Boonstra does. This disagreement is a matter of opinion, and anyone with a brain would give the benefit of the doubt to Ms. Boonstra because we’re talking about her life and her situation.

But that is not stopping Congressman Peters, through the law firm his campaign has hired, from threatening those who seek to hold him accountable for supporting ObamaCare. And he’s not just going after AFP. He’s going after the media outlets who are simply exercising their prerogative as broadcast companies to sell their time to advocacy groups.

Peters’ ability to threaten TV stations’ licenses don’t extend to the Internet, so here’s the ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Kpjyr1x7mC0

Boonstra has leukemia and claims to have a 20 percent chance of survival. Peters, on the other hand, has cancer of the soul, and one hopes it’s terminal to his political future. And present.

On the other hand, it looks as if Peters picked the wrong cancer patient to try to intimidate.

Last week, Federal Communications Commission commissioner Ajit Pai reported:

The American people, for their part, disagree about what they want to watch.

But everyone should agree on this: The government has no place pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.

Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission, where I am a commissioner, does not agree. Last May the FCC proposed an initiative to thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country. With its “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” or CIN, the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run. A field test in Columbia, S.C., is scheduled to begin this spring.

The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about “the process by which stories are selected” and how often stations cover “critical information needs,” along with “perceived station bias” and “perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.”

How does the FCC plan to dig up all that information? First, the agency selected eight categories of “critical information” such as the “environment” and “economic opportunities,” that it believes local newscasters should cover. It plans to ask station managers, news directors, journalists, television anchors and on-air reporters to tell the government about their “news philosophy” and how the station ensures that the community gets critical information.

The FCC also wants to wade into office politics. One question for reporters is: “Have you ever suggested coverage of what you consider a story with critical information for your customers that was rejected by management?” Follow-up questions ask for specifics about how editorial discretion is exercised, as well as the reasoning behind the decisions.

Participation in the Critical Information Needs study is voluntary—in theory. Unlike the opinion surveys that Americans see on a daily basis and either answer or not, as they wish, the FCC’s queries may be hard for the broadcasters to ignore. They would be out of business without an FCC license, which must be renewed every eight years.

This is not the first time the agency has meddled in news coverage. Before Critical Information Needs, there was the FCC’s now-defunct Fairness Doctrine, which began in 1949 and required equal time for contrasting viewpoints on controversial issues. Though the Fairness Doctrine ostensibly aimed to increase the diversity of thought on the airwaves, many stations simply chose to ignore controversial topics altogether, rather than air unwanted content that might cause listeners to change the channel.

The Fairness Doctrine was controversial and led to lawsuits throughout the 1960s and ’70s that argued it infringed upon the freedom of the press. The FCC finally stopped enforcing the policy in 1987, acknowledging that it did not serve the public interest. In 2011 the agency officially took it off the books. But the demise of the Fairness Doctrine has not deterred proponents of newsroom policing, and the CIN study is a first step down the same dangerous path.

The FCC says the study is merely an objective fact-finding mission. The results will inform a report that the FCC must submit to Congress every three years on eliminating barriers to entry for entrepreneurs and small businesses in the communications industry.

This claim is peculiar. How can the news judgments made by editors and station managers impede small businesses from entering the broadcast industry? And why does the CIN study include newspapers when the FCC has no authority to regulate print media?

The conservative media was all over this. The rest of the media was strangely silent, apparently failing to discern that if a left-wing presidential administration could harass the non-left media (and that’s exactly what this is), a conservative presidential administration could similarly harass lefty media. One wonders how, say, the management of The Progressive would feel about someone from the FCC appointed by President Scott Walker rummaging through The Progressive.

How do we know this is a bad idea? (Note the present tense.) Because the FCC on Friday (as you know, Friday is Document Dump Day) sort of changed its mind:

The confirmation was from Shannon Gilson, a spokeswoman for the federal agency. She said the plan was part of the FCC’s overall look at access to the media marketplace.

“Last summer, the proposed study was put out for public comment and one pilot to test the study design in a single marketplace – Columbia, S.C. – was planned. However, in the course of FCC review and public comment, concerns were raised that some of the questions may not have been appropriate. Chairman Wheeler agreed that survey questions in the study directed toward media outlet managers, news directors, and reporters overstepped the bounds of what is required. Last week, Chairman Wheeler informed lawmakers that that commission has no intention of regulating political or other speech of journalists or broadcasters and would be modifying the draft study. Yesterday, the chairman directed that those questions be removed entirely,” she said.

“Any suggestion that the FCC intends to regulate the speech of news media or plans to put monitors in America’s newsrooms is false. The FCC looks forward to fulfilling its obligation to Congress to report on barriers to entry into the communications marketplace, and is currently revising its proposed study to achieve that goal,” Gilson said.

Chairman Tom Wheeler said in an earlier statement that the agency “has no intention of regulating political or other speech of journalists or broadcasters by way of this research design, any resulting study, or through any other means.”

He said the goal of the plan was to help identify “market entry barriers for entrepreneurs and other small businesses in the provision and ownership of telecommunications services…”

I’m not sure I agree with wnd.com‘s headline that the FCC “blinked”:

Whether it is a complete victory, however, remains to be seen. Gilson affirmed that the agency “looks forward to fulfilling its obligation to Congress to report on barriers to entry into the communications marketplace, and is currently revising its proposed study to achieve that goal.”

That caught the attention of Tim Cavanaugh at National Review.

“A revised version of the survey could raise new concerns: that it will trade its now-kiboshed news questions for a demographic survey that might justify new race-based media ownership rulemaking,” he suggested.

The uproar that rattled newsrooms was the idea that FCC representatives would have interrogated newsroom staffers about how they make coverage decisions and select, or not, story ideas.

A pilot program was to have been conducted in Columbia, S.C., but the Review reported that WLTX General Manager Rich O’Dell in Columbia that, “There’s been no official contact by anybody at the FCC or anywhere else.”

Members of Congress, when they discovered that the FCC was working on defining “Critical Information Needs” in connection with the review, had objected. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., and others warned that such moves would chill the freedom of the press.

It was commissioner Ajit Pai who had editorialized about the plan, alerting the public to the strategy being pursued.

After the commission’s change of heart, he told Fox News, “This study would have thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country, somewhere it just doesn’t belong. The commission has now recognized that no study by the federal government, now or in the future, should involve asking questions to media owners, news directors, or reporters about their practices.

“This is an important victory for the First Amendment,” he said. “And it would not have been possible without the American people making their voices heard. I will remain vigilant that any future initiatives not infringe on our constitutional freedoms.”

Fox reported the Radio and Television News Directors Association was happy, but cautious. …

WND Editor and Founder Joseph Farah put the issue into perspective by noting that the FCC has the power to not renew stations’ licenses. And he noted the FCC wanted to expand its intervention to newspapers.

“Keep in mind, the FCC has never had any regulatory authority or jurisdiction in print journalism. That newspaper publishers and editors would even consider such a diabolical effort by the state to insinuate itself into First Amendment-protected institutions is astonishing to say the least.”

Sekulow’s organization had launched the online petition for people to oppose the idea, and collected tens of thousands of names in just a day or two.

For those understanding the back story, the move wasn’t even really much of a surprise, however.

The intent of the study can perhaps be divined by the writings of Mark Lloyd, who served as FCC’s associate general counsel and chief diversity officer from 2009-2012. Lloyd was also a senior fellow at the heavily influential Center for American Progress, or CAP, and served as a consultant to George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

Lloyd co-authored a 2007 CAP study titled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.” In that study, which was reviewed by WND earlier, it recommended radio station “ownership diversity,” citing data claiming stations “owned by women, minorities, or local owners are statistically less likely to air conservative hosts or shows.”

Lloyd wrote that all radio stations should be required to “provide information on how the station serves the public interest in a variety of areas.”

The CAP report specifically called on the FCC to mandate all radio broadcast licensees “to regularly show that they are operating on behalf of the public interest and provide public documentation and viewing of how they are meeting these obligations.”

Lloyd and co-authors lamented the FCC “renews broadcast licensees with a postcard renewal, and while it once promised random audits of stations it has never conducted a single audit.”

In a follow up to the CAP report, Lloyd penned a 2007 article at CAP’s website titled “Forget the Fairness Doctrine.”

In the piece, Lloyd claimed that Citadel Broadcasting, then the owner of major U.S. radio stations, “refuses” to air the progressive Ed Shultz radio show. Lloyd offered no evidence that Citadel made the decision based on politics rather than Shultz’s low ratings.

Lloyd called for new “ownership rules that we think will create greater local diversity of programming, news, and commentary.”

“And we call for more localism by putting teeth into the licensing rule,” he said.

“Localism” is a reference to the FCC rule that requires radio and TV stations to serve the local community’s interests, one of which, according to the Obama administration, is “diversity of programming.”

In 2009, FoxNews.com reported Lloyd called for “equal opportunity employment practices,” “local engagement” and “license challenges” to rectify what he perceived as an imbalance in talk radio and news coverage.

Lloyd is a follower of socialist guru Saul Alinsky, and has advocated having “white people” step down from positions of power to allow “more people of color, gays” and “other people” to take those positions.

Rush Limbaugh noticed the lack of mainstream media outrage:

When the First Amendment was written there was no radio and TV, obviously.  So it was newspapers, pamphlets, it was the printed word.  There’s literally no federal regulation of newspapers.  And the only reason there is in broadcasting is because of this notion that the airwaves are public and the government issues licenses to broadcasters granting them permission to use those airwaves.  But still, in the news division of those broadcast outlets, the First Amendment applies.  But it doesn’t apply to cable because cable’s not over the air.  The FCC has no authority over what’s on cable, even though they try to assert it, but it’s not over the air.  So there is no public interest there.

Same thing with newspapers.  Newspapers are totally off-limits, and yet the commissioner the FCC says they are “now expanding the bounds of regulatory powers to include newspapers, which it has absolutely no authority over, in its new government monitoring program. The FCC has apparently already selected eight categories of ‘critical information’ that ‘it believes local newscasters should cover.’

“That’s right, the [Regime] has developed a formula of what it believes the free press should cover, and it is going to send government monitors into newsrooms across America to stand over the shoulders of the press as they make editorial decisions. … Every major repressive regime of the modern era has begun with an attempt to control and intimidate the press.” …

But some of you think that there’s no way. “The media’s gonna rise up in indignation, righteous opposition. They’re not gonna put up with this.” I want to give you an alternative way of looking at this — and if you think that something like this isn’t possible, I want to explain and illustrate for you and give you an example of where it is happening. …

The Regime is restricting access.  The media’s upset that they don’t have access. It’s just minor, tiny, irrelevant stuff.  But that’s it.  They’re not upset at anything the Regime’s doing.  They’re not upset at what they were doing Tea Party, IRS, nothing.  They don’t find one thing the Regime is doing worthy of reporting on. They certainly do not suspect the Regime.  They are not at all concerned with the power the Regime is amassing, not as they would be if this were a Republican Regime. …

Somehow, this was going to lead to the acquisition of more data helping the government figure out how to get more minorities owning broadcast outlets.  However, the question and the whole proposition showed that it was much more intrusive than that.  That was just a cover.  Actually,  the avowed purpose was, “Well, yeah, we want to investigate minority ownership and see what we can do about it.”  That’s a way to get everybody to lay down.  Who’s gonna oppose that?  …

Will major American media organizations stand up and righteously, indignantly oppose this?

I can make the case that I don’t think they would.  Most people think instinctively, reflexively, the media not gonna put up with it something like that.  “No way! You’re gonna have a government monitor in my newsroom? You’re gonna be quote/unquote ‘monitoring’ the stories I choose to cover and the stories I don’t want to cover, and you are gonna be cataloging what you think is my bias?  No way, pal!”  But I can see where, given the current circumstances that exist today, they wouldn’t oppose it.

In fact, I could make the case to you that they would welcome it.  I explained this to [producer Bo] Snerdley today.  He could not believe me.  He did not believe that I was being serious.  “You’re joking,” he said.  No.  I can make the case where journalism schools would not oppose it but instead will support it — and I’ll bet I could make the case to you, given current circumstances.  I think the media might look at it as an opportunity to get even closer to Obama.  I think some might look at it as a way of impressing Obama. …

They’re not gonna go forward with it since it’s been discovered. They’re not gonna move forward with it now. They’re gonna delay it. It was all a ruse based on trying to figure out some things about how to enhance minority ownership of media properties. That’s what they said this was about and that’s how they were able to get it in under the radar. Then the commissioner wrote the op-ed 10 days ago in the Wall Street Journal.  It’s finally surfaced and people have seen it, and there is some reaction on the right.

There isn’t any reaction to this where you would think there would be.  It is conservatives standing up to defend the media.  They’re not standing up in righteous outrage or indignation over what would happen to them.

Proving Limbaugh’s point are the Tea Party News Network …

But, not all news networks reported on this shocking story. ABC, NBC, and CBS were all silent regarding this attack on freedom of the press. A search on the websites of CNN and MSNBC also found no report on this unconstitutional power grab and attack on freedom of the press.

… and, sadly, Columbia Journalism Review:

The FCC is now responding to concerns by adjusting the study’s design under the direction of Wheeler, who became chairman in November. An FCC spokesman told CJR, “The Commission has no intention of interfering in the coverage and editorial choices that journalists make. We reviewed the research design carefully and plan to adapt the study where appropriate.” The course change was reported last week by AdWeek and National Journal. …

Steven Waldman, a senior advisor to former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (and a contributor to CJR), told me in December that concerns that the planned study amounts to “Fairness Doctrine 2.0” were “completely and utterly made up.”

Waldman was the chief author of a 2011 FCC report looking at the information needs of communities and operations of the news media. The 464-page report did make reference to the Fairness Doctrine—by calling on the FCC to eliminate its last vestiges, as Genachowski did in 2011. …

Still, if the FCC were to actually question local broadcasters about their “news philosophy,” it likely would encounter more pushback—and not just from the broadcasters.

“I’m not crazy about the federal government questioning reporters and editors about their news judgments,” said Bill Rogers, director of the South Carolina Press Association, which represents the state’s daily and weekly newspapers.

Rogers added: “What is the relevance of news decisions as to whether small businesses can enter the broadcast industry? Viewers evaluate coverage for content and fairness, and the marketplace responds accordingly.”

Notice the lack of interest in pursuing the question of whether the various quoted Obama toadies are telling the truth here. The government said it, and they never lie!

The point CJR misses is that this study shouldn’t be taking place at all. Thanks to the Internet, the barriers to entry to the media are the lowest they have been since the days of Poor Richard’s Almanack, and some new media don’t blindly parrot whatever the government tells them. The question of media ownership is an increasingly moot point except for those professionally involved with identity politics and those who hate the news media because the media doesn’t reflect their point of view.

Limbaugh is correct in asserting that this pernicious idea hasn’t gone away at all. Do you seriously believe a Hillary Clinton administration wouldn’t pursue a way to intimidate the news media into repeating whatever Hillary Clinton wants them to say?

If an editor or news director with courage could be found in the news media, he or she would write or appear in an editorial saying that any government official or contractor who comes into their building to monitor news-gathering will be leaving immediately. By gunpoint, if necessary.