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FCC Orders Anti-Monopoly Report Destroyed

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the for-the-good-of-the-people dept.

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."

6 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. Memory hole by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Rather frightening that with every passing day, the US is getting closer and closer to Eric Blair's 1948 visions...

  2. What a surprise by Aexia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Bush administration disregards evidence contradicting their world view.

    1. Re:What a surprise by maynard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Who appoints the chairman of the FCC? President Bush. Who sets FCC policy? The FCC chair. Ergo... you are seeing Bush administration policy in action.

    2. Re:What a surprise by maynard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, I don't realize that - because it's not factually accurate. Powell, as a member of the GOP, was appointed to the FCC board by Clinton in '97. Bush appointed him Chair to the FCC board in January of 2001. As a board member he was in no position to set or control policy. As the chairman of the FCC, under a president of the same political party, one can reasonably assume Michael Powell enacted policy as set by the Bush administration. These intellectual contortions to avoid that fact is just plain lame. Deal.

    3. Re:What a surprise by InsaneGeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'd maybe go with that if he hadn't been so entwined with the whole content protection thought process that previous administration brought into play "DMCA, Sonny Bono act, v-chip, etc" along with the 5 dems that were the author of the DMCA2 (SSSCA/CBDTPA) which he was for as well. I will agree that Martin is not angel as the broadcast flag passed with no votes against it (which means he voted for it).

      Earlier this year in regards to the broadcast flags hearings, 2 dems (Stevens & Inouye) stood up and basically said that "having no broadcast flag is a terrible thing content providers will stop providing, so we have to pass this as soon as possible". Which repub Sununu later said (I'll directly quote it because it is so good):

      "The suggestion is that if we don't do this, it will stifle creativity. Well...we have now an unprecedented wave of creativity and product and content development...new business models, and new methodologies for distributing this content. The history of government mandates is that it always restricts innovation...why would we think that this one special time, we're going to impose a statutory government mandate on technology, and it will actually encourage innovation?"

      The problem I see is everybody tries to pin *everything* on Bush, you trip on a crack and it's his fault, etc. Critize him for the correct things, and you will get people to listen, the witch hunt for trying to tie anything & everything to him is a problem because now people are tuning out because "the sky is falling" has been called and attributed to him too many times. I try to keep a little more of an open mind where I can then actually say "Bush is an ass because of this" and directly point to it, rather than say basically everything is his fault.

  3. For the people... how quaint. by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It really aggravates me that decisions keep being made to help a few big companies at the expense of everyone else. It seems obvious that keeping more local control over TV stations is in the viewer's best interest, and yet the decision was made to let these stations get taken over. It seems it's only getting easier and easier for big money to grease the wheels of government.

    The fact that this report was ordered to be destroyed only goes to show that someone's best interests other than the public's are being defended here. How far will this sort of thing go? How much are people going to take before they push back, or are we pretty much screwed to slide down this slope to a place where we have no voice and no control? I sure hope not.