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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."

11 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...

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

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

  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 BrynM · · Score: 5, Informative
      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.
      --
      US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
    4. Re:What a surprise by megaditto · · Score: 5, Funny

      My point exactly.

      It is all Clinton's and Democrats' fault, since they (Clinton and the Democrats) currently control the White House, the Congress, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. Republicans have no say whatsoever. As you know, Clinton took the funding away from FEMA before Katrina, appointed college dropouts to edit scientific reports on global warming, and even appointed this hack to head FCC.

      Remember that Republicans have no power to subpoena anyone and launch an investigation into anything since they are the minority party, be it

      -Iraq (damn Clinton got us there by getting CIA to lie about WMDs there),
      -9/11 (Monica distracted Clinton from reading 'Bin Laden determined to attack the U.S.' memo in August '01),
      -gas prices (damn Democrats get donations from the oil companies),
      -unemployment or healthcare (ditto),
      -record deficit (damn liberals love their Big-Spending Government),
      -illegal wiretapping (damn Clinton has no respect for the Constitution by spying on his oponents)
      -tax cuts at the time of war (fucking Democrats setting us up for tax hike in the future)
      -letting North Korea develop nukes (that's 9/11 Windows' fault there, not just Clinton's)
      -letting $4,000,000,000 in cash literally disappear after taking over Iraq's Food-for-oil accounts (Democrats paying off their terror buddies for 9/11?)
      -or taking bribes from Abramoff (50 Democrats took bribes vs 1 Republican)
      -election finance reforms (currently the Democrats have 500% more money than the Republicans to spend on elections, somehow)

      Please remember that since Republicans do not have the majority in either House or Senate, they are powerless to bring any laws to vote, hold an oversight hearing, subpoena any witnesses, or launch any investigations.

      This is why we should vote Republican this November to restore checks and balances to our Government.

      --
      Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
    5. 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.

  4. Report and response are online by lostboy2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Fascinating.

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

  5. they're so cute when they get worked up by mcmonkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.