By
Ajit Pai, February 10, 2014 – Wall Street Journal
News
organizations often disagree about what Americans need to know.
MSNBC, for example, apparently believes that traffic in Fort Lee,
N.J., is the crisis of our time. Fox News, on the other hand, chooses
to cover the September 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound
in Benghazi more heavily than other networks. 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?
Should
all stations follow MSNBC's example and cut away from a discussion
with a former congresswoman about the National Security Agency's
collection of phone records to offer live coverage of Justin
Bieber's
bond hearing? As a consumer of news, I have an opinion. But my
opinion shouldn't matter more than anyone else's merely because I
happen to work at the FCC.
Mr.
Pai is a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission.
My
comments:
President
Obama, as an Alinskyite, will use ANY MEANS to achieved his goal
Of
a godless, Secular Humanist Society.
To
accomplish this he needs a compliant Media.
This
is the latest in his attempts to INTIMIDATE the Media into
Compliance
with his godlessness.
No comments:
Post a Comment