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.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 