FCC Orders Anti-Monopoly Report Destroyed

jagger writes "According to an article on MSNBC a report, written by two economists in the FCC's Media Bureau, showed local ownership of television stations adds almost five and one-half minutes of total news to broadcasts and more than three minutes of 'on-location' news. The conclusion is at odds with FCC arguments made when it voted in 2003 to increase the number of television stations a company could own in a single market. Senior managers at the agency ordered that 'every last piece' of the report be destroyed."

Comments

Re:Memory hole

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a slip. Eric Blair used "George Orwell" as his pen name, and "1984" was written in 1948.

Report and response are online

[lostboy2]

Fascinating.

The draft report and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's response to Senator Boxer are linked on the
FCC's website.

Re:What a surprise

[BrynM]

Perhaps you didn't realize that the FCC Chairman at that time (Michael Powell) was appointed by President Bill Clinton. Somebody rate the parent comment as flamebait.

Damn there's a lot of "facts" being thrown around in this thread. From the Wikipedia article on Michael Powell:

President George W. Bush designated him chairman of the commission on 22 January 2001. (then at the end of the article) Powell resigned as Chairman of the FCC on January 21, 2005.

He was followed by Kevin Martin. According to his WP entry:

Martin worked several years for Wiley, Rein & Fielding, "Rated Top Telecommunications Lobbyists" according to an article on their website. The firm represents the Bells as well as Viacom/CBS, Gannett, Belo, Emmis, Gray Television, and Motorola.

. Thus, the current and most recent former Chairmen of the FCC have been both Bush appointees, Republicans and the current one is a former media company lobbyist.