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*
...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.
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.
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!
i'm pretty evenly split on dem/rep issues.
a few issues on both sides that i agree with, with a lot of issues "undecided/don't know"
what i do know is the republicans push the idea of "smaller government"
this is appealing in a way. i don't want a large overbearing government fucking with my life.
but i think many pure unquestioning republicans don't understand is, I DON'T WANT LARGE OVERBEARING CORPORATIONS fucking with me either.
the end result is the same. I, an individual, am made irrelevant.
THAT is why i have so little faith....in either party.
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.
At the very least, our government theoretically has some sort of accountability to the people. Corporations do not have this, as the stockholders will be happy as long as their shares pay out.
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
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!
...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.
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