Slashdot Mirror
Congress May Overturn FCC's Media Consolidation Plan
Spril writes "A congressional committee voted yesterday to prevent the FCC from allowing even more consolidation of the media industry. The original ruling was covered on Slashdot. The committee attached the pro-consumer proposal to a bill funding the Justice and State departments for 2004. But the Bush administration has threatened to veto the funding because they support ever-larger corporations owning ever-bigger chunks of the spectrum that theoretically belongs to the public. Clear Channel may need to cough up some more money for their lobbyists."
...the United States of America Congress for approx. 1.257631919191918 seconds sided with consumers.
The committee attached the pro-consumer proposal to a bill funding the Justice and State departments for 2004.
Finally, an attachment that might be safe to open!! *Proceeds to double-click in Outlook*
It's quite clear that President Bush (or I should say the White House)threatens to veto ANYTHING that even hints at anti-corporate behavior! It's quite clear that he feels his mandate is to serve the corporations rather than the consumer!! I keep the seeing this time after time after time since he was elected (or should I say appointed) President. Fuck him! I'm NOT voting for him in 2004 this time around!!!
...when we need clearchannel licenses to operate radios. Similar to the UK's radio/tv tax, only done by the one company that rightfully controls the entire radio band and has the right to tax it. In socialism, the government takes away freedoms. In democracy, companies take away freedoms. In a mix (the US), companies take away freedoms with government mandate.
It was becoming one of those situations where you're worried that it's going to wind up like a plot for a bad movie. "Thank you for tuning into KUSA (yeah, I'm a left-coaster), the ONE broadcasting company you need!"
At least there will be some discourse, or so one would hope.
Unfortunately, this challenge only applies to the increase in percentage of TV broadcast ownership. The change allowing cross-media ownership (so that ClearChannel, for example, can now own several radio stations plus TV stations plus newspapers) will not be challenged. Congressmen (mostly Republics, surprise, surprise) threatened to kill the entire bill if any changes in the cross-media section were pushed.
Still, better than nothing I suppose. If this passes, Fox will have to go ahead and divest itself of the excess Television coverage they picked up that put them in violation of the cap.
"Defenders of the recent FCC ruling said that critics were exaggerating its impact and that networks had to get bigger to continue providing free broadcast television"
You know, I had almost forgotten that you could get TV without cable or satellite. Silly luddites and their airwave TV.
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
Then again, I might just be a cynic at the ripe old age of 25.
Electric Monkey Pants
"the Bush administration has threatened to veto the funding because they support ever-larger corporations owning ever-bigger chunks of the spectrum that theoretically belongs to the public"
Now I remember why I read slashdot, for the non-biased even-handed reporting. Now when are we going to see a mention of Fritz Hollings' membership in the democratic party?
But the Bush administration has threatened to veto the funding because they support ever-larger corporations owning ever-bigger chunks of the spectrum that theoretically belongs to the public
Nice editorializing. Just tell us the story next time, okay?
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
Ralph Nader made some interesting observations about the proposed changes.
No, they will introduce a bill that will fail. But, it will only fail after the big business made large payoffs to their congress or senate scum.
Fight Spammers!
Given up on Media anyway. Even the media organizations that you could once count on being neutral and just reporting the facts are lost to us now.
If you trust anything reported by so called unbiased media sources, you are a fool. Times have changed, the news is all about ratings. Sensationalism, no matter the truth or consequences is the order of the day.
And no, you can't trust the news from the internet either. Honestly, as a society, I am concerned about what we are going to do next. If we continue along this path, Time-Warner, Clear Channel and the rest might as well just start speaking for us.
I'm certainly not against free speech...but I think more effort needs to be invested in keeping media conglomerates in check.
Can we PLEASE get the "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." with just straight reporting and not put editorial/opinion comments DIRECTLY in the lead? That's what the comments are for.
"Media companies continue to grow, and a shrinking number of them shape what we view and read. What does that mean for journalists -- and for the nation?"
Columbia Journalism Review's Web guide to what the major media companies own.
Judging by how tiny the scroll bar becomes when I open the Clear Channel page, I would say they own most of radio while Viacom, NewsCorp and Disney own most of TV.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Silly me.
This is my sig.
Needless to say, I was a bit, um, amazed. But regardless of what you (or I) think of him, Trent Lott is a seasoned politician. And the only way to become one of those is to listen to constituents.
Maybe he's still atoning for that Strom Thurmond thing...
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
I hope this personal anecdote is telling: I'm a journalist. Or will be. Depends on how you look at it. I just got a full scholarship + hefty fellowship to attend grad school in Journalism at University of Texas at Austin. When I graduate, I plan to leave this country for Canada anyway. There are too few jobs in journalism here - even fewer after all those media consolidation mergers go through. Furthermore, most of the "journalism" nowadays is merely "news-entertainment" in the same way the professional wrestling is "sports-entertainment" Hopefully, I plan to move to another country where the laws are freer, the job market for journalism isn't controlled by a handful of major entertainment conglomerates... Although I might leave earlier if Bush is elected in 2004. There's so many scary things going on with Bush that I can't help but think history is repeating itself. Assuming some national emergency doesn't call off the elections in 2004, if Bush wins, I'm leaving that month. There's just no place in America for me. I mean it. I want to be able to live my life without constant fear of getting "dissapeared" by my government or without fear of getting sued left and right by corporations. To grant some perspective on this: I'm scared as hell for this country. Precicely because I know history, and I follow the news. -- Funksaw
MoveOn.org recently ran a campaign on this issue.
I heartily recommend their newsletter.
Join the Libertarian Party. They are more serious about smaller government than the republicans, and they are more serious about protecting our rights than the democrats.
Wrote mine (Oregon) and found he was against this bill. Maybe the ones against, or at least neutral, might make enough noise to help this one go away.
Blogging because I can...
The definition of struthious. It means ostrich-like for those who don't want to click.
I'll admit I'm not an expert on House Committee rules, but this is a serious obstacle for this bill.
What has really peaked my interest is that this bill not only seeks to undo the most recent FCC decision, but seeks to undo the radio deregulation of 1996, which has been great for ClearChannel but a disaster for the music industry. In my opinion it is directly responsible for the lack of quality most people see in today's music industry (and therfore the primary reason for the music industrys economic slump).
Independent Media Center is amazing in it that anyone can submit a story. This is much more likely to be read on the local versions; there are dozens of locals Centers, spread around the globe. IndyMedia has proved to be an important organizing tool for progressive groups in third world countries.
AlterNet, on the other hand, is more of a news analysis site, where the headlines of the day are tackled from different angles and where you can find information that the mainstream media "forgot" to report.
The importance of sites like these is that they allow you to see a different side of an issue. In a world controlled by the right-wing corporate media machine, this can be seen as a very good thing©.
Electric Monkey Pants
If you think your government is not doing enough to protect consumers, take some responsibility and start planning how you're going to change things around next election.
The United States used to be a democracy, but it is less so now. This is only because of the recent apathy in the general population. Governments do whatever they want only when you allow them to.
There's nothing broken here (a right wing government, suppressive anti consumer legislation) that can't be undone once you get the people you want back into office.
I've been witness to this in Canada (both federally and provincially). Political parties that ruled wrecklessly can be made extinct if enough people are willing to make it their priority.
More info on a clear channel scandal regarding their traffic "reporting" can be found here.
From what I can tell the libertarians promote laissez-faire capitalism, which just means "leave regulation up to the markets (lit. "leave it alone" in french, i think)." Since it seems the markets have free reign right now, isn't this what the libertarians want? With the current administration, the market gets to decide how much of something one particular corporation can own in any particular market.
There is no easy solution to this. Personally, I'd just as well have communication companies be public trusts. Pulitzer was supposedly going to do this with his publishing empire before he died, but one of his heirs caught wind of it and made him change his mind.
The FCC doesn't like it, but you can probably expect to be on the air at a couple of watts (1-2 mile range) for a year or more before they come knocking. Just choose your frequency carefully, and listen to neighboring stations for interference (which, BTW, almost never occurs).
Text for those who don't want to clickI don't understand why there are so many Bush apologists from every camp, but I'd rather face facts that begin to pretend there are no differences between the two major parties regarding this issue.
This is not a troll, just my honest feelings. I tuned out of all mass media almost 10 years ago. Every once in a while I accidentally see or hear a bit of it and can't believe that the garbage the megacorps churn out has become even worse than when I tuned out. What, like more consolidation will make it even sh*ttier, and that's why I should care? Hmmm.... That's a thought: Let them consolidate. Maybe consolidation will make them all go under sooner; hopefully there will be enough remnants of our culture left to help people learn to be creative *on their own* again.
Once upon a time, folks finished out their evening singing around a piano or playing parolor games instead of stearing mindlessly into the hypnotizing blue light of the boob tube telling them what to think about and how to think about it.
Take a walk around your neighborhood some night and look at all the houses around 10pm. Seriously, go do it. It's surreal. All you'll see is the eerie blue glow in each and every house. The living rooms without curtains drawn will let you see that every house is now filled with overweight listless expressionless creatures plopped down on overstuffed furniture with their mouths half open. It's like the aliens came down to earth and took over our minds with glowing blue mind control devices. BUT WE DID IT TO OURSELVES!
Yes, but Bush's attitude after being elected is no surprise. It was always fairly obvious he didn't really earn his position. If he didn't earn his way then who did? Big business maybe? Special interests of the monied kind? This guy somehow feels conned, but only because he didn't pay attention to the obvious warning signs("Strategery", "Major League Asshole", lower GPA than befitting a President, etc.). Slick Willy was one, but at least he spent most of his life prepping to become a public servant. However disgraceful his corporate giveaways may have been, at least it was plausible he was going to fight for the interests of all the American people.
On a side, but related note, do you expect a person to agree with every single policy a president supports even after they helped vote him in office??
Nope. It never happens. But, like I said above, it seemed fairly obvious this guy didn't make it as far as he did fighting for the little guy.
Quit being so struthious.
Oh shit, where's the dictionary? It seems to me that people who voted for Bush and are surprised at his favoritism towards big money have been behaving rather struthiously (Did me use fancy word good?).
BTW: I voted, as well and bitch I will. I think W is a sucky Prez. Worse than that, I feel like he doesn't give one tex-mex turd about myself or others in this country that don't have a lot of dough. I don't believe he possesses the passion or wisdom required of a President and therefore don't believe he is actually passionate about 'his' agenda. This can only lead me to believe that he doesn't actually set or stand by his agenda. I also think this was pretty obvious from the get-go, necessitating the "Amen" post above.
xoxoxoxo
L5
capitalism and socialism are opposite ends of an axis.
democracy and dictatorship/monarchy are opposite ends of another axis.
A state can be totalitarian and capitalist (fascism):
"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt
A state can be totalitarian and socialist (communism)
A state can be democratic and capitalist.
A state can be socalist and capitalist.
A state can be anywhere inbetween the two axis. The U.S. has both capitalist policies and socialist policies.
Here is a list of some of the socialist ones:
socialized armed forces
socialized water
socialized police
socialized fired department
social(ized) security
medicare
road building/maintanance
public waste and water treatment
public schools
Write, and throw in a $20 campaign contribution check. Even that little amount of money shows them that you really ARE sreious and are willing to actually help them if they make you happy. It makes your voice carry a great deal more weight. Might seem silly, but they get letters all the time, when you send money you prove that you aren't just a whiner, you are someone that really does care and will back up your words with actions.
...It's dead on. last I heard, the US legislature was supposed to support its *citizens* regardless of how (or if) they spend money.
We are not money-spending machines, and that is not our sole duty to our country - we are humans who live here, and this country is *our* country, as it says in our constitution...
Every time when I read articles such as these I wonder: why oh why do Democrats in the USA have such a hard time selling the truth to the public? I mean: the current Bush administration has piled misleading and disputable decision on decision, and the American public seems to feel it is all right. How come? Why aren't the Democrats using these obvious limitations on the freedoms of the American citizens to rally the public so they'll support the Democrats and elect a better government in place which will overturn such decisions like a concentration of media companies?
You can come to two conclusions:
1) The Democrats are also after the same money from these media companies as the Republicans are, which in fact makes the USA's democracy rather dead: there is no real choice for Joe Sixpack, the two parties which matter are NOT serving the interests of the people
2) The Democrats are incapable of fighting Bush effectively. Which also makes the USA democracy rather dead, because the general public doesn't KNOW there is an alternative to 'Bush'. When Bush gets the concetration of media in place, and the holders of these media on his side (which seems to be the case) he controls EVERYTHING and the republicans can stay in power, well... forever.
If the republican party would exist in The Netherlands, Europe, they would get at most 2 seats in the 150 seat parlement, roughly guessed. Not because we're all 'stinking liberals', but because we tolerate less a government that thinks of big $$$ first and the interest of the public second.
(To the USA citizens: as a European I see you as a group of people who thought that a president who nailed his intern with cigars should be impeached and a president who started a very expensive war under false intelligence in a time where jobs dissapear very quickly should stay in his office and should stay popular. Think about that for a second.)
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Let me start my post by saying that I work for ClearChannel... Proud to admit, since I'm one of the youngest full time DJ's in the country, but bad around here since ClearChannel has apparently turned into microsoft...
The FCC ruling was actually considered *a bad thing* within the company because it reduced ownership caps for the radio side of things. What the ruling did was allow cross-ownership of television stations and newspaper outlets in the same market area. In radio, it just changed the method by which caps were enforced; they are now enforced within an arbitron defined market rather than by signal overlap, and it counts noncommercial stations towards the number of competitors in a market.
States.
Every time when I read articles such as these I wonder: why oh why do Democrats in the USA have such a hard time selling the truth to the public? I mean: the current Bush administration has piled misleading and disputable decision on decision, and the American public seems to feel it is all right. How come? Why aren't the Democrats using these obvious limitations on the freedoms of the American citizens to rally the public so they'll support the Democrats and elect a better government in place which will overturn such decisions like a concentration of media companies?
... these being the same people who relish the opportunity to bash Hilary and slam President Clinton. In other words, Bush seems to be losing a fair chunk of moderate-to-conservative, but non-religious right, republicans).
... and most people never realize it!
Because we don't get the news here.
Seriously.
Or, to be more precise, the main networks and popular media outlets have filtered the foreign and domestic news beyond all recognition.
Why? Not because they harbor some pro-Bush bias (although clearly some, such as Fox news, do), but because they all compete in a market for viewership, and several factors coincide to make the media self censoring and self-slanting, including the desire to cozy up to the administration in order to get and maintain access to the white house (which the Bush administration exploits and enforces shamelessly and aggressively...witness seasoned reporters who have been in the whitehouse for 20 years or more being relegated to back seats behind neophytes for posing difficult questions in White House press conferences and subsequently being ignored by the press secretary/president/etc.) and the desire to maintain popularity with a public they perceive as supporting the president.
The latter is an assumption that is quite possibly mistaken, if the conservatives I work with are any indication (most of whome are saying rather loudly that Bush has gone to far and things are spirallying out of control
Back on topic, the news we get in the United States is NOTHING like the news you get overseas. Our information is so sanitized and slanted that you would probably not recognize the same events if you saw them reported here. This was driven home rather forcefully the other night when I was at my girlfriend's watching the BBC news on PBS at 10:00pm, and for the first time saw footage of injured soldiers and Iraqis, and heard first hand just what an appalling quagmire this administration's precipitious invasion has put us into. Contrasting that with Fox or CNN (modulo the editorializing there is little difference of late) is like night and day.
So, while we aren't forbidden from getting foreign news sources per se (the Internet is available, after all, and the BBC is available once/day at 10:00PM), we are discouraged in that the BBC is shown at a time when it must compete against most of the local news broadcasts, on a station few bother to watch (more's the pity), and that virtually every mainstream press to which people have subscribed for the bulk of their lives is heavilly censored and sanitized
It is incredibly discouraging to be an American at a time like this, when our country appears to be spiralling full steam into a state of plutocratic fascism, the FCC has gutted and destroyed our telecom industry, crippled our internet industry, and is hell bent on consolidating our remaining media into a few easilly-influenced mega-companies, perhaps even into a single monopoly. The freedom I grew up with has dissappeared bit by bit ever since the Reagan era in the 1980s, and while more people are becoming aware of it today, still there are too few of us, and too many who simply toe the party line or bury their head in the sand in a frenzy of misplaced national pride, and things continue to spiral downward and get worse.
Perhaps this years record deficit of 450+ Billion dollars, beneath a Republican President and
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
-- Rep. DAVID OBEY, D-Wis., sponsor of legislation on Capitol Hill to block a new FCC rule allowing media companies to buy more TV stations.
Found that on Yahoo.
--rhad
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
What do I do? I don't watch anymore. Farscape only comes on once a week now, so I only watch:
Simpsons
King of the Hill
Futurama
(hmm.. all cartoons..)
Farscape (now reduced to once a week, Sundays at FRELLING MIDNIGHT)
I used to watch TV news all the time but now I get it from NPR or off the net. The TV news is way too right-wing biased, and the white house press corps is way too chickenshit to do their job anymore.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
Defenders of the recent FCC ruling said that critics were exaggerating its impact and that networks had to get bigger to continue providing free broadcast television.
You know what would make it easier to provide free broadcast television? Maybe some content entering the public domain. They need to relax their grip before they strangle themselves.
ClearChannel is all about the commoditization of music. The goal of ClearChannel is to make money by selling advertising, and the music is largely irrelevant. That's why it is in their best interest to push music which is "inoffensive" to the largest number of listeners, because then they can charge more for advertising. It is to their benefit to play music which is bland.
Many people who are passionate about music resent this greatly. Music is art, not something to be packaged and sold like Instant Oatmeal. For the same reason, foodies don't like McDonalds and many coders don't like Microsoft. REAL innovation can never happen in these environments. You'll never see a radical shift in computing from Microsoft, amazing new flavors from McDonalds (or even places like T.G.I. Fridays), or musical breakthroughs on ClearChannel. They'll wait until things have been largely sorted out so that those pesky rough edges can be smoothed away, and they can sell everyone the equivalent of safety scissors. Revolutionary ideas make people uncomfortable, and that's just not good for sales.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
You are referring to the Appalachian Law School shootings. You are also, deliberately or not, misstating what happened.
This case was popularized by the work of pro-gun researcher John Lott. It is an important anecdote in his book The Bias Against Guns. Lott claims that in only 4 of 208 stories on the incident was the fact that the students apprehending the gunman used guns mentioned. Unfortunately, Lott's methodology is screwed up. He counts identical wire service stories appearing in different papers as different stories.
Tim Lambert has done the hard work of debunking this story. For another perspective on the accounts of the incident, see this entry of his blog.
That's what Lott and the pro-gun movement wants you to think. Unfortunately, it just isn't so. They WERE cops. There are two "student heroes", Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross. (Note: the quotes are not intended to minimize their actions.) Bridges is a deputy at the Buncombe County Sheriff's Department. Gross was director of police corps training at the North Carolina Justice Academy in 1998 and 1999 (before entering law school). During breaks at law school, he works as a cop for the Grifton force. And he put on a bulletproof vest and retrieved handcuffs from his car before slapping them on the tackled suspect who has run out of ammunition.
Check out Lambert's entry on the incident.
Finally, if Lott isn't discredited enough, consider that he also pretends to be a 115 pound woman to bolster his case and attack his critics. Too bizarre to be true? Check out Who is Mary Rosh? and Lambert's information and see for yourself.
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
>> Once all the "voices" in society are all filtered through the government and big business...
I don't understand this obsession with equating the "media" with "the voice of the people".
First, there is no "people". We're just 300 million indviduals. Most of the time when someone starts emoting about "the people", he means "the people who agree with me".
Second, a media outlet reflects the views of its owners and the people who create the content. That's the way it has always been and that's the way it will remain. The "media" has never impartially reflected the views of every citizen, because that's impossible.
Third, I don't have much use for ClearChannel, but I wouldn't say business has "hijacked" airwaves owned by the public. Airwaves are uselss without a studio and a transmitter. Someone will always own those, What's the difference between a station owned by a business and a stationed owned by soething or someone else? Nothing, as far as I can see. The salient point is that they're owned.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"