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

FOIA

[sdaemon]

Can someone get a FOIA suit going fast enough to beat the shredders to those docs?

The FCC is kinda frightening. It does a lot of good, but it does a lot of harm as well. It's on my top 3 list of government agencies to not piss off.

So.. where's the link to these documents!

[plasmacutter]

Seriously.. every other redaction or witholding of important perspective/evidence posted to slashdot as a story prompted people to post links of the supposedly stifled documents.

So.. who has em!.. where's the link people ; ).. don't let me down!

they're so cute when they get worked up

[mcmonkey]

Boxer's office said if she does not receive adequate answers to her questions, she will push for an investigation by the FCC inspector general.

Isn't she precious. Gonna push for an investigation. How cute.

Listen, hon, the horse left that barn behind a long time ago. Congress has made itself pretty much irrelevant. President breaks the law? They just pass a new law making whatever it was legal. They threaten to actually do their jobs and enforce some oversight? President claims he can do whatever he wants anyway. (When there was some talk about the USA PATRIOT act not getting renewed, Bush just came right out and said he could do whatever he wanted anyway as C and C. Rather than challenge that assertion, they just passed the law.)

And they gave away the store long ago with these agencies. Agencies like the FCC enact and enforce regulations without all that pesky oversight and due process they have to deal with down in congress. Better yet, agency heads don't have to worry about elections. Regulations are so much easier than laws.

What are they gonna do about it now? What did they do when all those energy executives lied to them? What did they do when all those baseball players lied to them? Mrs. Boxer and her colleagues are gonna do whatever they think they need to do to get reelected. Nothing more. They're certainly not going to do anything to anyone at the FCC.

In proper Newspeak:

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Minitrue report "Local Media Ownership" doubleplusungood, rectify fullwise 2006.09.14: memoryhole.

RS

Re:So?

[Doc Ruby]

Yes. They were different from Republicans when they had power before. They're different now, even without power. There's no reason, except baseless Republican apologies, to think they're as bad as Republicans.

Your .sig says "I want a Social Security safety net. You are free to become a stain on life's floor if you don't.". Social Security was created by President Roosevelt, a Democrat, after his Republican predecessors presided over the creation and beginning of the Great Depression that made its necessity obvious. Gore campaigned in 2000 on keeping it safe, in a "lockbox". Bush took over and started to try to sell it off, while robbing it to fund his $45-65 TRILLION debt. Social Security is just one basic, important system that Democrats can be trusted with, while Republicans will steal it, are stealing it.

I remember what the country was like before Republicans controlled the government. It was better. Right now, it's bad in a way few would have imagined before. Unless maybe they were Republicans.

Why does this administration hate research?

[Serveert]

From global warming and EPA report cutting.. To fmr Treasury Paul O'Neil, who after showing that income taxes would need to double in order to support the aging baby boomers, was rewarded by the report being axed before he was fire err before he resigned.

This has got to be the most hand over the eyes administration in history. History books will not be kind. Especially when taxes must be raised in the future to cover the huge US debt or when there is only one entity controling all media. At some people it will be obvious what a terrible administration this is, right now it's not so clear.

Re:So?

[Plaid Phantom]

Do you want to unacceptably bad Republicans, or the acceptably not so great Democrats?

If that's the Democrats message, no wonder they lost two elections in a row to Bush. Sorry, but I don't accept not-so-great. I don't accept "better". Show me a good president, not a "better" one. Anyone can be "better". We need "good", and that's all I'm going to accept.

Re:So?

[plasmacutter]

the problem is there are no partisan boundaries anymore.

you have the Remocrats/Dempublicans.. and the cabal that's working for bush..

Now the cabal working for and with bush is universally reviled by all worldwide with the exception of the most extremely right americans, and they're reviled for reasons which even tribes buried deep in the amazon know about by now.

as for the DemPublicans...

there are no substantial differences from republicans and democrats otherwise.

they both prop up their own equally manipulative sets of moneyed interests, they both support the DMCA, the both vote for war against nations when those nations refuse to give us what resources we want when we want them, they both support the corporate undermining of national sovreignty (and through that consumer and worker rights) through GATT treaties and the WTO, and they both support the current joke that is the american media, because a media with substantive reporting is the enemy to all political beltway insiders.