FCC Chairman Tries For More Media Consolidation

An anonymous reader writes "FCC chairman Kevin Martin wants to relax rules on how many media outlets one company can own in one market. Democratic commissioner Copps wants to rally the public to stop media consolidation. He says he's 'blowing a loud trumpet' for a 'call to battle' to stop the FCC from giving big media a generous Christmas present."

Comments

Man

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd be terrible if there was a place you went for news and everyone thought alike. And for those who didn't, they'd be branded and an invisible counter would go up or down depending on how many times you disagreed.

Re:Man

[sqrt(2)]

That's why we're not on Digg.

Re:Man

[dunezone]

Reddit is starting to turn for the worst also. This new breed of internet people are like locust, they go from one site to another, like locust, consuming all natural resources, and then they move on again, and their coming for us soon. Just like those aliens from Independence Day.

Re:Man

[DaGoatSpanka]

Digg is horrible. If you go against groupthink, even if you have a well researched, verifiable point, you will get "dugg" down.

Re:Man

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, with a name like that my heartbeat stopped for a second - UID 2? :D

Re:Man

[Seumas]

The only difference between Slashdot and, say, Digg is that when your view doesn't agree with the masses on Slashdot, you go to -1 instead of -842.

Re:Man

[gangien]

and their coming for us soon. Just like those aliens from Independence Day.

I have mod points, bring em on!

Re:Man

[nugneant]

Digg is horrible. If you go against groupthink, even if you have a well researched, verifiable point, you will get "dugg" down.

And in other news, a bear has been spotted defecating in a heavily wooded area, and the Pope has confirmed that, in fact, he remains a practicing Catholic.

Back on topic - regarding this FCC decision, who would a man write to? The FCC themselves? And what would he, the man writing, say? "I heard about this consolidation plan and don't like it one bit, no sir" has a nice ring to it, but I'm surprised this thread hasn't had more "open letters" posted to it.

Let's Remember

[MightyMartian]

Let's remember that Jesus loves large media conglomerates. Jesus despises a multiplicity of media providers in any given market. Jesus loathes a functioning marketplace, preferring monopolies that will supply money, trips, golf club membership and hookers to Senators and Representatives in exchange for screwing the average American. Jesus despises the average American. Jesus is all about the money, and that shows in His favorite country, the United States of America.

Re:Let's Remember

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus loathes a functioning marketplace, preferring monopolies that will supply money, trips, golf club membership and hookers to Senators and Representatives in exchange for screwing the average American.

You can forget about the trips and golf club memberships if you want.

Re:Let's Remember

[Anonymous Coward]

All religions suck, and infect their host countries.

America's no different than anywhere else in that way.

Re:Let's Remember

[calebt3]

Has anyone else noticed the sudden surge in religion-oriented trolling?

Re:Let's Remember

[sgt_doom]

Hey, dood, how come Jesus is always soooo special? There were two other guys that were crucified along with him that day - anybody remember those two doods? WTF? Let's spread the joy, after all, don't always give Jesus the limelight. What were those two guys names.......if I could just remember......

Re:Let's Remember

[Merusdraconis]

I don't think there's been much of an increase, feels like it's been going on since the Crusades.

Re:Let's Remember

[wizzahd]

Let me also point out that the algorithm constantly finds Jesus.

Re:Let's Remember

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Saudi Arabian religious fanatics kill 3,000+ in NYC
2. Texan religious fanatics try and turn the USA into a fundamentalist theocracy
3. Religious fanatics sentence a rape victim to 200 lashes in Saudi Arabia
4. Religious fanatics destroy 2000 year old Buddhist statues in Afganistan
5. Religious fanatics kill a woman while rioting over cartoons
6. Sudanese religious fanatics try to imprison a schoolteacher for allowing her students to name a Teddy Bear Muhammad
7. Muslim religious fanatics blow up random civilians in Jerusalem
8. Jewish religious fanatics displace local people and put up settlements in the West Bank

Jeez, I could go on for days. Do you seriously wonder why there's so much religion-oriented trolling?

Re:Let's Remember

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen, fellow Anon-cow.

I wish Slash wasn't so God-awful politically correct and someone would moderate you +5 Insightful.

Re:Let's Remember

[calebt3]

Not to discriminate, but which religions are associated with these events? As far as I can tell:
1. Extremest Muslim sect
2. Cultist branch of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination
3. Islamic law
4. Leader of a Muslim group
5. Muslim rioters
6. Muslim rioters
7. Extremest Muslim sect
8. Jewish (is this religious fanatics or the nation of Isreal itself?)

Christian: 1 (far deviated from normal Christianity)
Jewish: 1
Mulim: 6 (2 abnormal deviations of the religion, 1 ordered by a man in power likely too full of himself)
The riots and the rape case are indicative that something may be fundamentally wrong with Islamic dogma.

Could you please give more Christian examples? Preferably something that the majority of the Christian religion does not see a problem with. e.g. the Catholic molestation scandal was even repulsive to many Catholics, to say nothing about the other denominations.

Re:Let's Remember

[KDR_11k]

Brian?

Re:Let's Remember

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus is like a warm ray of sunlight... that gives you skin cancer.

Re:Let's Remember

[cayenne8]

"Jeez, I could go on for days. Do you seriously wonder why there's so much religion-oriented trolling?"

You noticed in your list the religion that was doing all the violence and physical damage?

I don't think we need worry that much about the other religions of the world. You might disagree with them, but, they won't try to kill you because of it...

Re:Let's Remember

[Luscious868]

Jeez, I could go on for days. Do you seriously wonder why there's so much religion-oriented trolling?

Stalin killed millions of people. He wasn't a religious fanatic. Neither was Mao. Extremists have been doing horrible things in the name of a lot of things since the beginning of time. I'll seed that more people have probably been killed over religion than anything else, but trust me, if tomorrow everybody was suddenly an atheist there would still be mass murder, terrorism and violence. It's human nature and group think that are the problem, not religion.

FCC

[mastershake_phd]

Does the FCC do anything besides stifle innovation, create monopolies, and tell us what can and can't be said in a "free"?

Re:FCC

[mastershake_phd]

that was supposed to be: "free" country.

Re:FCC

[spun]

Creating monopolies? They are also stopping them. The article is about them wanting to change that, so to answer your question, yes. The FCC currently prevents large media conglomerates from getting larger. Without the FCC, there would likely be only one media conglomerate in America, owning all publishing, television, radio, and movies.

Re:FCC

[DaedalusHKX]

No, in truth the FCC acts as a public opinion damper. Without their protector agencies of the government, large conglomerates would get burned off the face of the Earth by large mobs of angry people they've screwed over. This would be the so called "frontier justice" (i.e. the kind that works for the little guy better than it does for the big guy.)

Government never helps the little guy, never has. Even Yahweh in the Old Testament (this is for you Christians and Jews) tells the people of Israel who asked for a King from God, that he will send them one, who will take their sons as soldiers, their daughters as maids, and tax them 10% and in Yahweh's own words... "and then they shall be slaves."

Interestingly the same can be said for Jesus, but this implies actually READING THE DAMN TEXTS... (my own understanding of them grows daily, and I wouldn't consider me a religious man by any measure of the word, I dare say I have a beef with hierarchical religion and systems of control in general. Leadership is fine in my book, rulership is not, especially coerced rulership.)

Re:FCC

[calebt3]

Interestingly the same can be said for Jesus Out of curiosity, would you care to cite some verses that support that?

Re:FCC

[RabidOverYou]

The FCC is the Federal Buggy Whip Commission. They are regulating a bunch of dead, dying, or at the very least rapidly-changing businesses. The FCC getting in the action will help neither the businesses nor their consumers. If the radio/tv biz was made 100% unregulated, they'd still have less than even odds of surviving. The web will consume them. You're going to watch TV by browsing to www.desperatehousewifes.com. With the exception of real live stuff, podcasts will eat radio, and even the live will get done somehow or another. Heh, maybe all that free wifi will eventually work.

My fear of allowing the FCC to get up off the mat, is that they'll proclaim they're needed to regulate the Web. They're going to try to stick their nose in the tent.

-- Rabid.

Re:FCC

[DaedalusHKX]

Quick question, who does the government kill? The competition. Always.

Who was the government in Judea? Herod father and later Herod the son. Who was the imperial government there? Rome.

Who tried to kill Jesus? Herod the father when he was young (the flight to Egypt story). Who later tried to entrap Jesus into being nabbed as a rebel or Caesar denier/tax resister? Herod and the Pharisees. Who later conspired to kill and who actually killed Jesus? Bingo, Rome... mostly at the behest of the local government, that being the man's own people. Sort of like the county or state governments escalating his case up to the Supreme Court (or at least a Federal court) and then having the man executed for pissing on some statute or other and really upsetting the status quo (namely the rich Jews were pissed off that the rabble rouser was going to start a revolt, that would lead to an actual revolution instead of the usual revenue inducing bloodshed they were used to... so they had the man removed... resurrection or not, the historic part is likely to have happened in some form or other, betrayals of this type have always occurred when the people were promised a few breadcrumbs from the master's table in exchange for the life of a man who said "work for it and its yours, but YOU have to do it." Seems self starting impulses are about as common in history as they are today.

Hope you enjoyed the paraphrase, I'm not really that hard and set about digging up verse. I got the gist of it, I'm not a rabbi or a priest, so I don't make a habit of rote memorization, no more than any American kid makes a habit of memorizing our own Constitution or even the Declaration of Independence, despite swearing loyalty to said documents upon taking any form of government job or tax/wealth redistribution handout job. But at least your life or health isn't endangered or threatened by my lack of memorization, while it most certainly is by those who take an oath and never deliver on their word.

http://anti-state.com/redford/redford4.html A very nice view of the Bible, one I hadn't looked into since I walked away from the Church. That being said, this fellow seems quite positive that Jesus was intended as a liberator, not as a ham fisted patriarch for a corrupt church (one of which he faced in his day and age) and a totally irreparable construct (government) of which there were equal amounts of samples in his day also.

That link should help you out a bit, if it hasn't been changed, it posts a very good view on what I mentioned... he seems far more apt to quote bible verses which you should enjoy.

I've read the Bible in several different languages and have found incongruencies in all the translations, so if the translations are THIS piss poor with professional and highly paid translators in today's day and age when language is largely standardized (as are the translation tables for most of the mainstream languages) one has to wonder how piss poor the translations were from SPOKEN Aramaic/Hebrew to WRITTEN Greek, and later Written Latin, and yet again Written French/Spanish/Portuguese and finally Written German and English (and no, I don't speak them all, nor read them all). Nevermind those nasty little things like shifting "newspeak" meanings of all the languages in question, which immediately casts the light of doubt on any kind of job translators would've done.

Re:FCC

[falconwolf]

Without the FCC, there would likely be only one media conglomerate in America, owning all publishing, television, radio, and movies.

Not likely, without requiring licenses anyone could start their own media company and have a radio or TV station.

Falcon

Re:FCC

[dryeo]

Then it comes down to who can afford umpteen gigawatts of broadcast power. Pretty hard for the common person to compete.

Re:FCC

[calebt3]

Skimming the first few paragraphs, that guy actually seems to hold some sort of twisted view that Christ is Lord, but he was advocating Anarchy. Anyways, from your GPP:

Even Yahweh in the Old Testament (this is for you Christians and Jews) tells the people of Israel who asked for a King from God, that he will send them one, who will take their sons as soldiers, their daughters as maids, and tax them 10% and in Yahweh's own words... "and then they shall be slaves."

A few verses before that, in 1 Samuel 8:6-9 (from an online NIV):

6 But when they said, "Give us a king to lead us," this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD told him: "Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do."

Reminds me of issues within my own family: I am the only technical person in the house. Three of my siblings share one computer, and I administer it occasionally. When I was recently re-installing Windows over Ubuntu at their request, they insisted that they be given administrator privileges (they had them in Ubuntu, but they only used them to disable each other's admin privileges, not actually administer). Since using an admin account for ordinary activities is a Bad Idea, and they insisted anyways, I asked for permission from my parents to do nothing. Installing was not done and I proposed to my parents that when it finished, the siblings would be left with the task of setting it up and maintaining it. They would have to set up passwords, connect to the WiFi, run Microsoft Update, install drivers, a firewall, antivirus (I have set up Clamwin on all Windows systems, so no Norton disk lying around), etc. My siblings were smart and stopped protesting very quickly. That was yesterday. Today the vocal one was demanding admin privileges again, so that he could install a game. The Hebrews did much the same thing, except that they didn't relent when the great Admin in the sky threatened to withdraw support, but rather after their box ground to a halt.

Back on the subject of governments and the Bible's supposed opposition to them. Romans 13:1-7:

1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

And from 1 Peter 2:13-17:

13Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, 14or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. 15For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. 16Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. 17Show proper respec

Re:FCC

[falconwolf]

Then it comes down to who can afford umpteen gigawatts of broadcast power. Pretty hard for the common person to compete.

Have you ever heard two different people trying to talk on radios using the same frequency? I have and it was sometimes hard to make out what was being said by either party. Now if they both had been selling ads and I was a potential advertiser I never would have advertised on either one. Playing music would have been even worse. Two, as was done before the FRC, Federal Radio Commission, renamed the FCC in 1934, the courts were recognizing a right against interference. "During the 1920s, the courts were working out precisely such a system of homesteaded private property rights in airwave frequencies. It is because such a private property structure was evolving that Secretary of Commerce Hoover pushed through the Radio Act of 1927, nationalizing ownership of the airwaves."

Falcon

Re:FCC

[spun]

Anyone could start one, but competing with a large monopoly like that is impossible. They would use every trick in the book to destroy competition. Undercut them until they went under, pay off suppliers to raise prices, buy up anything they could. I understand that libertarians believe that without government, there would be perfect competition, but I don't see the evidence for that.

Re:FCC

[spun]

Coerced rulership is not okay, but in an anarchist society, people would more than likely freely create an entity like the FCC to mediate the issues of public use of the airwaves, as airwaves are a rather strange type of property that doesn't work like real property. Although the airwaves may be amenable to certain free market solutions to the problems of externalities, I still think people would create a body to arbitrate disputes.

Anarchism means no coercive rulership, it does not mean lawlessness and disorder. People under anarchism can still create governments and elect leaders. They just won't use force for anything but defense.

Re:FCC

[DaedalusHKX]

Not Catholic, thankfully, but have family members of all denominations, I've sampled 'the fruit' of the tree and found it deeply lacking.

I.E. by their fruits I knew them, and I didn't like what I found out.

Re:FCC

[DaedalusHKX]

Arbitration is fine, but arbitration requires a voluntary group and a third that merely weighs the things in question and renders a decision that both agree to be bound by. Government makes its decision regardless and will sequester or kill anyone who disagrees (after robbing them blind, of course, I believe they call that "confiscation".)

As for your second comment, I'm also in agreement, but remember "rulership" is different than "leadership"... a leader actually serves the group inasmuch as they serve him (they all get to a goal together, they've agreed upon it, and have selected the one most fit to lead that particular task/goal/mission to do so), but a ruler, may or may not exhibit leadership, may or may not be elected, but he is certainly benefiting mostly himself and the group gets the scraps, regardless of the agreement, if even that much. He doesn't have to show this to the group, and in fact most modern ruling groups hide the fact that they RULE rather than lead.

Re:FCC

[spun]

This is what anarchism is about. You and I may differ on certain things, but we agree on the basics. The Tao Te Ching, written by Lao Tzu, arguably one of the world's first anarchists, has some interesting quotes on leadership:

When the Master governs, the people
are hardly aware that he exists.
Next best is a leader who is loved.
Next, one who is feared.
The worst is one who is despised.

If you don't trust the people,
you make them untrustworthy.

The Master doesn't talk, he acts.
When his work is done,
the people say, "Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!" and:

The best athlete
wants his opponent at his best.
The best general
enters the mind of his enemy.
The best businessman
serves the communal good.
The best leader
follows the will of the people.

All of the embody
the virtue of non-competition.
Not that they don't love to compete,
but they do it in the spirit of play.
In this they are like children
and in harmony with the Tao. And my favorite, one of the most succinct statements on the theory of anarchism I've ever read:

If you want to be a great leader,
you must learn to follow the Tao.
Stop trying to control.
Let go of fixed plans and concepts,
and the world will govern itself.

The more prohibitions you have,
the less virtuous people will be.
The more weapons you have,
the less secure people will be.
The more subsidies you have,
the less self-reliant people will be.

Therefore the Master says:
I let go of the law,
and people become honest.
I let go of economics,
and people become prosperous.
I let go of religion,
and people become serene.
I let go of all desire for the common good,
and the good becomes common as grass.

Re:FCC

[dryeo]

One. If owner of large transmitter plays their cards right they can cancel out your low powered transmission. eg adding the inverse of your signal to their signal.
Two. So you're saying instead of competing about who can afford the biggest transmitters it will be who can afford the best lawyers over the longest term? Either way it seems large corporation has the advantage.

Re:FCC

[DaedalusHKX]

That was an interesting statement. We're even more in agreement now. (You were correct in your request, I did not write you off, I write few people off, but I do "let go" and I find that it gives me peace of mind. Change occurs internally, none can be effected externally through force.)

I didn't know you were an adherent (or rather "student") of the Tao. I am not certain the "Tao Te Ching" was "written" by Lao Tzu, but I would think it was certainly paraphrased from what writings he may well have left behind, before taking off on his famous water buffalo journey into the wastes.

His actions and teachings were similar to other prophets of the past who taught similar things, and yet the populace, lacking insight, followed the rulers (*) instead of understanding that the path is something one travels on one's own or with a few others, but rarely en masse.

*note: the rulers rarely wasted time in subverting the teachings of each subsequent prophet after Lao Tzu, once force proved an inadequate means of subjugating those who were on their path to enlightenment. A prime example of this is the council of Nicaea. Another is the council of Laodicea. The prime example in modern day is Confucianism as practiced by the Chinese authorities. What boggles the mind is WHY, and HOW is it that the students of the Tao did not succumb to statism and authoritarianism. Every other system of thought did, but those who adhere to the Tao, did not. Very curious.

I agree with what you say this time. Technically this is what I was advocating, though my approach is mostly one of lack of caring (this is why I sometimes come off as a heartless bastard, especially as of late). I tried agitating, but it simply doesn't work, as I'm sure you'd know, having a far longer history with it than I did (by the sound of it). So I figured that since I already know that liberty isn't exactly a cause that fighting will help, and try simply rubbing it in, by "it", I refer to the massive amount of stupidity or just gullibility required of people to believe that those who rule have their best interests at heart or mind.

That being said, the rulers are not entirely to blame, nor ever have they been. People, in general, don't want any form of liberty, for themselves and even less so for others. Rulers merely capitalize on this very "mass man" desire to be "better off" than others by seeing others downtrodden through the often quoted statement of "pay your fair share" rather than uplift oneself and those around one's presence. Rulers very readily jump in and provide EXACTLY this means of crushing fellow serfs, by giving the "mass man" all the means the mass men as a group will need to keep themselves enslaved, in perpetuity, without any real need to do more than routinely provide them with a few shocks to keep them in line.

Freedom, as a way of life, however, is natural, but also a difficult path (technically the Tao refers to it in several occasions) and requires a certain type of individual to enjoy it and live it fully. To work as a form of common governance, liberty/freedom requires responsibility and the ability to examine one's own actions in the light of reason, which often is an unkind light to one's own more preferable "feel good" light.

That being said, neither Liberty nor Reason nor the Tao Te Ching are things that are going to change the world. The world will have to change itself, or fail, but we're not the ones who can do that. All we can fix or mess up is our own lives.

And after having said all that, let me say that arguing certainly can be a fun, though it was far more enjoyable actually finding a common ground with a few folks out here, you included. I'm slightly surprised, but pleasantly surprised at that. Glad we could come to such an interesting meeting of minds.

Re:FCC

[spun]

Also of Buddhism, another philosophical system that has been very corruption resistant. Which reminds me of a joke. A Buddhist monk goes to a hot dog vendor and says, "Make me one with everything." The vendor says, "That'll be two fifty," so the monk hands him a five. The vendor gives him his dog, but no change. The monk says, "Where's my change?" And the vendor replies, "Change comes from within."

You seem to have a rather low opinion of human nature. I'm just guessing, but would you say that some of your political beliefs stem from being hurt? I won't blame you or think less of you if it's true. Recent economic research seems to show that you are wrong. Take a look at the concept of Inequity Aversion. Most people are averse to inequity, and will incur financial harm to ensure it does not happen to others. Most people resort to selfishness when the system they are in rewards it and does not provide mechanisms for punishing non-cooperation. I say "most" because there are the sociopaths out there who have no aversion to inequity and no sense of empathy.

You may want to take a gander at James Demeo's Saharasia , a book that purports to show the true origins of human violence. The web site has a very good overview of the theory, so you don't need to buy the book. It was recommended to my by Robert Anton Wilson. James was a student of Wilhelm Reich. Conspiracy theory goldmine, right there.

True seekers need to be able to look at themselves without judgment. It sounds like you agree. I've found The Four Agreements to be a helpful. I've met Miguel and he comes across as sincere, even if some of his publicity comes across as, "Buy my book! Buy, buy buy!" Basically the four agreements are:
1. Be impeccable with your word. Don't misrepresent, and don't use your words to hurt yourself or others.
2. Don't take anything personally. Nothing is about you. People act the way they do for internal reasons.
3. Never make assumptions. Don't be afraid to ask for help, but be okay with, "No." Don't assume you know what others think or feel.
4. Always do your best. Rather, know that you are always doing your best, but 'best' will vary from moment to moment.

Anyway, I've got a SUSE install going for our new Sybase-on-Linux testbed, and it's bleating for attention. I think that's enough of a brain dump for one post anyhow.

This is old news; Martin's tried this before

[postbigbang]

Perhaps it's Sneaky Time to do this on Holiday Break (for Congress, anyway) so that he won't catch too much hell.

It would make a nice present for Murdoch, and the other media gluttons.

Where I live, we have a newspaper monopoly brought to you by Gannett and the quality of the newspaper plainly stinks, now that they've put all of the competition out of business.

That pesky competition stuff seems all too familiar at the FCC these days. It makes one wonder what might happen if the FCC had the interests of the American consumer in mind, rather than that of the media and telco mega-corps.

Re:This is old news; Martin's tried this before

[Hatta]

Where I live, we have a newspaper monopoly brought to you by Gannett and the quality of the newspaper plainly stinks, now that they've put all of the competition out of business.

And better still, when their circulation goes down because nobody wants to read the crappy newspapers, they get to blame it on the internet.

Re:This is old news; Martin's tried this before

[postbigbang]

Oh, now that Craigslist and others have eaten their classifieds, and online communities do better news, they're starting to pay attention.

They do this by wrapping the Sunday Comics in tear-away ads, and other slimey things that their sales guys must drool over.

They launched a city site, and have all sorts of 'business partners' to feed and link content. Seemingly astute, but state of the art 1998.

Their website currently as a registration policy that makes the old WSJ and NYT premiums seem laughable by comparison.

I think I like their old crabby-assed publisher better. At least he knew how to pay reporters and do investigative journalism. The reporters are all but gone, and there hasn't been an investigative piece since the takeover. Why ruffle advertiser feathers, after all?

Re:This is old news; Martin's tried this before

[djlosch]

If slashdot had a "misleading" tag for headlines, I would be adding that right about now.

Martin is in favor of implementing the next level of the 70/70 rule which would be really nasty in capping a lot of the things Comcast can do because Comcast is already at 27% market share.

However, Martin is also in favor of destroying net neutrality, and anyone who knows anything about economics knows that tiered networking will bring media consolidation to websites.
-- law student who spent last 3 weeks researching telecom law for senior thesis.

Re:This is old news; Martin's tried this before

[postbigbang]

Bravo on the thesis.

Martin's not very nice towards the consumer/populist mentality that he's sworn to protect.

We the Major Corps, in order to form a more perfect shareholder experience, establish Justice, ensure domestic Profits, provide for the common litigation defence, promote the general Marketing Plan, and Secure the the blessings of the SEC, to ourselves and Posterity, do ordain......

Re:This is old news; Martin's tried this before

[infonography]

Perhaps it's Sneaky Time to do this on Holiday Break (for Congress, anyway) so that he won't catch too much hell. Ah, you haven't been reading the news, the dems blocked bushie boy on his recess appointments by putting someone in the senate every two days as a profroma session. Bang in and out 30 seconds a senator (or a hookers) dream. [come to think of it, they are both the same thing]

shrub was really pissed cause he couldn't get another Bolton in. http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/bush-blasts-senate-over-pro-forma-sessions-2007-12-03.html

Re:This is old news; Martin's tried this before

[phlinn]

I think that comment was insulting to hookers. At least they only sell their own property, not other peoples...

Pffft.

[djasbestos]

As if Clear Channel and Rupert Murdoch needed even more media outlets to turn into mindless, commercial-ridden crap...

There is a happy medium between anti-trust and monopoly, and this is not a move toward equilibrium. At least someone internal is vocally disagreeing. Go Copp!

Re:Pffft.

[tmittz]

While you might not care for Murdoch's brand of politics or his business style, it is difficult to argue that he has done anything but increase diversity in the media marketplace. Before he launched Fox, there were 3 networks. He created a new one, with a distinctly different politic perspective.

He's been attacked mercilessly for this Dow Jones merger, owning "2 of the 5 biggest newspapers". Except of one those is the Post, which operates at a loss. Murdoch is subsidizing an unsuccessful conservative paper to keep in it production. More diversity, not less.

Consolidation has allowed Murdoch (and presumably others) to keep open additional channels and voices, even unprofitable ones, with the money made by successful ventures. It's a good thing, not bad.

Re:Pffft.

[countSudoku()]

Let the babies have their bottles. I dare any of the uber-corporations to erect a media outlet that does not suck donkey balls. If Ropert Morduck wants to own every station in my market, let him! I won't be listening to any of that garbage. I have iPods, CDs and superior satellite radio. What do I need with a Ropert Murduck? Sounds like a skin condition. Throw another media outlet on the barbie, douche!

Re:Pffft.

[Cajun Hell]

That sounds a lot like, "It's a good thing that we have given the executive so much power, because our president is doing a great job keeping Americans safe from the Iraqi terrorists." It's ok for George's people to listen to your phone calls. But what do you do, once Hillary is elected? Suddenly you're paying for everyone's manditory healthcare insurance, farmed out to some no-bid-contract provider, and she is listening to your phone calls.

What do you do, when you justify centralization of authority, and then after that, the central authority becomes your enemy?

Principles, not examples. Safeguards, not circumstances.

What I mean is, some day, a leftwing commie hippie is going to own 66% of the media. That block will be diverse, too. One channel will be full of ads for marijuana, another full of ads for sex chat lines, and that's not counting The Satan Channel (even though it operates at a loss, subsidized by the sex chat lines).

Re:Pffft.

[MrKaos]

While you might not care for Murdoch's brand of politics or his business style, it is difficult to argue that he has done anything but increase diversity in the media marketplace.

Perhaps for now, but like his now-dead compatriate, Kerry Packer, his unwavering faith in himself is a curse to you all because of his own mortality. Let me explain...

Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch were players in the Australian media market place, they each staked their claim but from different parts of the market - Murdoch from News Papers and Packer from Television stations, both were conservatives. They both expanded until they were eyeing each other off, Murdoch looking over some local television stations and Packer eyeing off some print news assets, there was only one thing stopping them, Cross media ownership laws. Now they had a common cause.

In Australia they lobbied tirelessly to have cross media ownership laws broken down until finally our previous conservative government gave in and relaxed the laws, the buying frenzy began even before the laws were passed, and as we regress to what is happening in Canada something happened that gave us a glimpse of post-media-mogul media.

Murdoch finally realised that the Australian market was just too small for him to play in anymore, and expanded into America, grooming his son for taking over the growing media empire.

Packer expanded into Internet gambling assets, bought into Fox and kept an iron fist on the control of the Nine network in Australia. When he was passing the media empire over to his son, you could see the glint of pride in his eyes. Then he died, James sold the nine network to concentrate on greener pastures (I guess he wasn't interested in his fathers passion), leaving nine as a shell of what it once was pwned by some faceless investment con-glomerate.

The legacy of both these men are the media cross ownership laws as a template for the world. The moral of the story is once the man with the passion dies you are left with the banal framework of the control he established and you might not like who/what takes over that control - that is what happened here.

Re:Pffft.

[esocid]

The only difference between a leftwing commie hippie and who owns the media now is that I think the pinko commie would have a little more respect for multiple viewpoints, whether or not he or she agrees with them. Not that I am for monopolization in any way, but it shouldn't matter whether or not you trust or believe the ruling power. The checks are there for a reason, to make sure that power doesn't go unchecked. There used to be a time when presidents filled their cabinets with dissenting opinions to get a broader scope of influence to make better informed decisions, rather that some buddies you went to school with who would rather kiss your ass than give informed advice. But you do make a good point: Principles, not examples. Safeguards, not circumstances.

Re:Pffft.

[NoMaster]

You're timeline's a bit out of whack - Murdoch gave up on the Wide Brown Land for the Land of Hope and Glory years before the cross-media laws were changed, and Packer's TV interests have been on the downward slide for years (propped up by their other media interests e.g. magazines, and gambling) - but otherwise, you're spot-on.

Really, I just dropped into this thread to watch people's heads explode from the "Big Media is Evil!" / "FCC is evil!" dichotomy ;-)

Funnily enough, Australia started to avoid the worst stupidity of the American situation - where the FCC is both a technical and content standards regulator - with the divesting of roles between the ACMA / ACCC / ABA at various times during both the late Hawke and early Howard governments. Unfortunately, a lot of that good was undone in the later Howard years, to the point that nobody - not even the relevant organisations - really knows who's responsible for exactly what, except that even more of the content regulation role is now in the hands of the broadcasters themselves.

Still, we live in a land where televisual boobies aren't taboo, and free-to-air TV can broadcast the word "shit" at prime-time and "fuck" after 9:30pm...

Re:Pffft.

[djasbestos]

Really, I just dropped into this thread to watch people's heads explode from the "Big Media is Evil!" / "FCC is evil!" dichotomy ;-)

It's not dichotomy when they're in bed together, it's "get your dichotomy ass!!!"

Ugh

[Dirtside]

A strong, independent media (meaning: lots of independent sources for news and commentary) is essential to the health of a democracy. (Or even a republic.) Many points of view allows the (cliché inbound!) market of ideas to determine what's best. When there's only a handful of humongous players in that market, they all tend to have an identical set of interests and will likely end up as an oligopoly, much to our detriment.

Media consolidation is, overall, a Bad Thing.

Re:Ugh

[Rick17JJ]

The Bill Moyers Journal on PBS had two recent shows about the problem of media consolidation. In case anyone is interested, here are the transcripts to those two episodes:

Bill Moyers Journal Transcript for November 16, 2007
Bill Moyers Journal Transcript for November 2, 2007

Re:Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Media consolidation is, overall, a Bad Thing.

And the alternative we should embrace for sake of freedom is government control of the media. Come on, don't leave it unsaid.

Re:Ugh

[Dirtside]

Don't be a fucking twat, you anonymous shitbag -- "government control of the media" is insane and retarded, assuming you mean "government control of the media's content". The government should obviously have no say in what the media says -- and I'm sorry, but buying another company is not even in the same ballpark of "expression" as actually publishing words, pictures, or video.

Regulations about how much of the natural-scarcity media (TV, radio, newspapers) one entity can control are entirely rational. Regulations controlling content are, almost without exception, bad. And I honestly can't believe I still have to explain that to retarded assmonkeys like you.

Media Monopoly Cartel

[Doc Ruby]

The US already has a media monopoly cartel:

In 1983, there were 50 companies that owned nearly all of the major US media sources. Today, only five corporations, "The Big Five," absorb the lion's share of the 37,000 different media outlets (daily newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, book publishers, and movie companies) in the United States. According to Bagdikian, the number of media companies dropped drastically due to many recent mergers and acquisitions. In 1983, the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal involving the Gannett Company, a newspaper chain, which bought Combined Communications Corporation, whose assets included billboards, newspapers, and broadcast stations. Then, during the 1990s a small number of America's largest corporations purchased more public communications power than ever before. In 1996, Disney's acquisition of ABC/Capital Cities was a $19 billion deal -- 56 times larger than the 1983 deal. In 2001, AOL's acquisition of Time Warner dwarfed even this deal at $182 billion, ten times the price of the 1996 Disney deal and 537 times the price of the Gannett merger.

[...]

99.9% of the 1,468 daily newspapers in the United States are the only daily in their cities. As Bagdikian explains:

That 99.9 percent of morning papers are monopolies in their own cities understates the problem. Owners exchange papers with each other or buy and sell papers so each can have as many newspapers as possible in a geographic cluster. This permits individual owners to have something close to a monopoly for daily printed advertising in that region and in many cases to use one regional newsroom to serve all their papers in that cluster.

These media monopolies present our entire society through their filter of corporate priorities:

(1) ensure that the parent company is never cast in a negative light, and (2) find ways to plant positive news items about the parent company. Bagdikian details several examples in which journalists were fired and stories killed simply because the subject was in some way injurious or potentially injurious to the parent company. For instance, a survey by the American Society of Newspaper Editors found that 33% of all editors working for newspaper chains said they would not feel free to run a news story that was damaging to their parent firm.

And of course that "info monoculture" dictates politics that can be rigged most easily by a single political party, so long as it is thoroughly corporatist. Which is why the US government is getting rid of the rules that protect a free market of consumers and diverse startups, in favor of corporate anarchy.

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Garrett Fox]

So, if the current practice of having a federal bureaucracy that dictates who can own what and what people are allowed to say, allows the current state of the media to exist, how great is it? Might there not be more freedom of competition, and more voices, if there weren't a federal agency charged with managing our ability to talk and write? There wasn't much push for government management of the media in early America (except maybe the Sedition Act) yet even with that era's primitive tech, there were a variety of newspaper and pamphlet voices out there. (Anyone who says that modern media are biased and rabid, by the way, should read an eighteenth-century newspaper.)

As one example, what if we found a way to make the radio spectrum freely available to all without mutual interference, so that as many people who wanted to broadcast, could? If it weren't for the scarcity of usable frequencies imposed by past-generation technology, would we need or want the FCC to be telling corporations how many stations they can own in an area. And would the FCC be able to impose censorship or (currently at bay) a "fairness doctrine" using the excuse that it can impose any restrictions it wants on a limited public resource? We may actually be seeing this unlimited-resource situation in the Net;

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Anonymous Coward]

corporate anarchy very quickly becomes corporate tyrrany.

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Doc Ruby]

Like I said, you're describing a corporate anarchy. It is precisely the deregulation that the story we're discussing documents that has allowed the media consolidation I just detailed.

The early US had lots of media competition, but it had no corporations. Corporate personhood, which offered legal protections to corporations, wasn't invented until 1886, when a railroad monopoly faked a legal ruling in the newspaper monopoly it owned, on which the entire corporate scam is based. Within a generation, monopoly corporations had so abused America that they were finally regulated a little with "antitrust" laws, but they've steadily crawled back to unprecedented power and consolidation.

Early America also had no "truth in advertising" or other consumer protection, and frequent ripoffs and unchallenged political abuses. It was also a relatively small country (0.3% in 1776 as in 2007), though the ability to independently publish was very widespread. But as conditions for publishing improved, that power fell into increasingly monopolistic hands. As is the case with all power when the people don't organize to protect ourselves from it - which is exactly what we started America for.

You're right about tech making the FCC's mission irrelevant, if noninterference is part of the tech. I impatiently await phased arrays freeing spectrum myself. Though we'll still need our government to prohibit unhealthy radiation emissions from telecom products, but that should be part of the FDA, the Health agency, or a product safety agency. But you're confusing the FCC's role in controlling content, which is already irrelevant with media client filter tech, widespread tagging activities and busybody ratings orgs, with the FCC's role in controlling the market itself. The media is a unique industry for control by government, because it is so integrated with our government structure that it's still referred to as the Fourth Estate, even though the first (clergy) is (officially) gone, the second and third merged. When spectrum management is unnecessary or minimized, the FCC should be replaced by a "Telecom and Media Agency" which oversees media, prioritizing market protections, consumer protections, primarily discouraging monopolies and cartels.

A bottom line example: without decreasing government protection, this media cartel is threatening the Network Neutrality that makes the Internet the most accessible, diverse - and therefore essential - info source in our society. Markets don't protect themselves. We establish governments to protect ourselves from predators, like the corporations that control most of the media. When we beat them back with better regulation, we'll have a freer society and better media, through increased competition among all of them. Rather than the cozy relationship where the media and government mutually exploit each other to their mutual benefit, entirely at the public's expense.

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[KlomDark]

Mod parent up, specifically for the fourth paragraph, which spells it all out to be understood by our mindset.

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Garrett Fox]

Interesting. Would you agree with me that (1) where no scarcity of "voices" exists, as on the Net, there should be no restriction on how many channels one entity can own, how many people they can reach, or what they can say short of fraud, libel, death threats etc.? And/or that (2) to the extent that the FCC or its successor has the power to control ownership of media, it will try to use that power to control content and should be restrained from doing so?

Where I'm most likely to disagree with you here is that I'm skeptical that we'll get "a freer society" from increased government control. Look at the nature of the coercion being used by/against the media, versus the coercion involved in the American Revolution as you refer to it. In the Revolution the people our (moral) ancestors fought were literally pointing guns at them and "declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever." In the case of modern media, the abuses you seem to be referring to are corporations doing things like lying to consumers, taking bribes for good press, or trying through legal means to change how they charge for their services (the Net Neutrality issue). There's no violence involved in those actions, and not even fraud in the last one, and there's always the possibility of an upstart coming along and starting their own media organization. (Fox News, for all its faults, was built as an alternative to what was seen as a monopoly of press opinion.) So, I don't think the comparison between "taming the rampant corporations" and "stopping the British from burning our city" is fair.

On a related note, I see the US health care issue in a similar way. If the current system is so bad, with government heavily involved in it, should we be imposing greater regulation that fossilizes delivery methods (eg. enshrining the idea that employers should pay), or finding ways to encourage people to invent a new free-market model that blows the existing one out of the water?

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Doc Ruby]

Although I do agree with what you said strictly in (1), I don't quite agree with what I think you really mean. I don't think there should be any restriction on, say, how many websites, or its share of the audience (traffic by headcount) any one entity (like eg. MSN or AOL) can have. But I do think that if smaller competitors can demonstrate market conditions that force competition with them to be unfair in a way that consumers don't have equal opportunity to choose the smaller competitors instead (and grow them), then consumers have legitimate market protection available from the government we create for those protections. Primarily in finding ways to encourage the disadvantaged competitors, rather than discourage the market controllers, but that kind of discouragement is certainly a legitimate option for the people to use by the government to protect ourselves.

The government should indeed abide by the 1st Amendment and keep out of the content restriction business. Instead its legitimate job of protecting the vulnerable (including children with irresponsible parents, who grow up to cause lots of damage to their neighbors) can be satisfied by education, including public service messages, and promotion of screening software, if the public isn't using them enough. Perhaps even drastic interventions like requiring some percentage of "home media terminals" (eg. TVs, Windows/Mac PCs, etc) include at least some screening software meeting some minimum standards, and pointing to upgrade choices, if the people turn out to need it. But not make any content choices itself, which it does not have power to do as the 1st Amendment explains.

To be specific about Net Neutrality, there is no way for an "upstart" to compete with a cartel of the incumbent telcos (including cable and the other few backbone operators) collaborating to disadvantage access to messages and content outside the preferred corporate offerings. Even Google, which owns a fair amount of nationwide (and perhaps global) fiber, lots of datacenter operations, plenty of content, a beloved brand, soon some radio spectrum, and lots and lots of money, is threatened by AT&T and Verizon (and their cartel) working to extort from them. Real upstarts don't stand a chance.

Especially since the Internet was produced by public investment through the government (despite protests from telcos at every step, even after it became popular), then largely handed to private corporations as an incredibly valuable giveaway that underwrites much of their profits, the people have a real right to keep it in public service, protecting it from subversion to primarily corporate interest in conflict with the public interest. Just because too much government control is bad, doesn't mean too little is good.

I don't know where you're coming from with the healthcare example, except that healthcare/insurance corps have produced a "libertarian" hoax that is precisely wrong. Government healthcare and insurance is among the best performing parts of the US healthcare system, just like in the other countries with which we compete globally. The problems lie mainly in the private insurance corps extracting profit by making care worse and scarcer, and the scarcity of doctors protected by the doctor industry making it artifically hard for new doctors to get educations, certifications and practice. I don't think you're going to try to say that healthcare would be better if, say, the government no longer invested in medical educations or infrastructure, or got out of the business of deciding which medical "content" is legitimate for selling in the market. This analogy is a dead end for your argument.

Coercion is bad both because of the effects of the means to its ends, the violence or threats itself, as well as its ends in forcing actions despite the target's preference. Just because the modern world often avoids blatant coercion in favor of merely restricting choices doesn't mean the coercive effect of forcing decisions is gone. Market abuses aren't as bad as armed invasion, bu

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Tancred]

99.9% of the 1,468 daily newspapers in the United States are the only daily in their cities.

Hmm. Only one in a thousand? I live in Seattle and there's the Times and the Post-Intelligencer. That's 2. So either Seattle is unique and someone rounded up to 99.9% or that stat is bogus.

Also, I've seen Michael Copps speak. He seems to have intelligence and integrity. Great combo.

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[sgt_doom]

So, if I understand you correctly, Doc, America is a Corporate Fascist State run as a criminal enterprise in a state of artificial perpetual war. Thought so......

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[falconwolf]

We establish governments to protect ourselves from predators, like the corporations that control most of the media. When we beat them back with better regulation, we'll have a freer society and better media, through increased competition among all of them.

You don't create competition by regulating an industry, you create competition by making it easy for competition to form. If I wanted to I should be able to start my own radio station without a license therefore creating competition for the established broadcasters. I don't like media consolidation but the way to fight it is by opening up the airwaves. The only regulations should be on certain frequencies for emergency personnel and services like ambulances and police, and maybe one for the safety of equipment.

Falcon

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Doc Ruby]

Seattle is very much unusual in media independence, as you should know from living there. And of course 99.9% is rounded, because there's more than just 3 dailys with local competition. But it's not much of an exaggeration, especially in the places that usually vote Republican, as I know from visiting a lot of it (though of course local readers wouldn't know).

Michael Kopps seems to be a decent choice to run the FCC when the current administration is over. Whether he gets it, or who instead, will be a good barometer for the fate of the country.

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Doc Ruby]

You're going to have to explain how the market is served by your buying a transmitter to drown out the signal of your incumbent competition, broadcasting their format to their old listeners, but with your own ads inserted.

You make it easier for competition to form by protecting the market from domination by a cartel (among other cultivation). That requires regulation - proper regulation. We have living proof of how deregulation, except for regulations that enforce a billionaire's club barrier to entry, creates monopolistic conditions. Since you can't even recognize the basic necessary function of the FCC regulating signal noninterference, you're not going to get anywhere making equally naive pronouncements about government role in mediating an economy.

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Doc Ruby]

Largely, though quite a soft implementation (with some defining exceptions). Though it's largely through the mediated acceptance of that condition by the voters, and perhaps more by the nonvoters.

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[falconwolf]

You're going to have to explain how the market is served by your buying a transmitter to drown out the signal of your incumbent competition, broadcasting their format to their old listeners, but with your own ads inserted.

Can you please tell me where I said ANYTHING about drowning out my competition? That's a good thing about courts, if I interfere with someone else they can sue me. However why would I even want to drown them out, by broadcasting on the same frequency nobody would be able to listen to anything, theirs or mine.

Falcon

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Doc Ruby]

It's precisely because you didn't mention it that I brought it up. Without the FCC ensuring you didn't overpower a competing signal, you could do just that. And steal their listeners. If your signal were strong enough, you would certainly be heard while the competition would be just so much noise - which could also be removed by inverting their signal and mixing it into yours before broadcasting, until they were just a whisper.

What laws do you think your lawyer would invoke if you sued them without the FCC? Do you think that we should just wait for the legal system to grind through those disputes, rather than the preemptive registration process we currently have?

OK, now you've demonstrated you don't understand even the basics behind radio, the legal system, and elsewhere in these threads about healthcare, government or even basic logic. I'm done pretending this is a debate, when it's just typical Web SimLibertarianism. You want to run your gerbil tank as libertarian, knock yourself out. Don't waste the time of people who actually understand administration and debate just because you've got a submit button.

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Garrett Fox]

The reason for my comparison to health care was that I saw this pattern: "Industry X is substantially regulated at the federal level, and X isn't being done as well as it could be. So, the solution must be to tighten regulations." There's a cost to that even aside from the question of economic efficiency.

Doesn't your reference to Google and the fact that they're supposedly getting into the telecom business (and possibly even alternative energy) suggest that it's possible for an "upstart" to get into the industry despite all hostility from existing firms? And isn't Google's success because of a good product and shrewd business practices, rather than because Washington graciously allowed them to join the market? Google was founded in 1998, so you can't get much more upstart than that.

Coercion is bad both because of the effects of the means to its ends, the violence or threats itself, as well as its ends in forcing actions despite the target's preference.

I agree with you on that part. I think where we're differing is on when a nonviolent abuse of a favorable social/economic/etc. position becomes bad enough (by some definition of "bad") to justify actual, bayonet-style coercion.

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[_Sharp'r_]

A quick google search finds this quote about a related book:

Citing Ronald Coase's path-breaking work, Walker argues that it would have been far better to have allowed broadcasters to stake their claims to frequencies and then to have protected their frequencies against interference through tort law, much as a homesteader would sue to stop trespass on his land. During the 1920s, such a common-law-based order in radio was emerging, with spectrum rights being traded and some court decisions recognizing a right against interference. Unfortunately, the free-market, common-law regime that was beginning to break through the crust of federal regulation was strangled in its cradle by the 1927 Act, which eliminated all individual rights in the radio spectrum. Henceforth, the Federal Radio Commission (later renamed the Federal Communications Commission) would assign frequencies, and naturally politics would play a leading role.

The basic principle based on existing common law that was emerging in the courts before the Feds stepped in and decided they were going to control everything was that once you began using a frequency in an area you had a right to that frequency and no one else could overpower your signal. Private property rights instead of government ownership of the airwaves.... what a simple concept, eh? It almost seems like that's been tried in other areas before and worked well....

The problem of the early radio conflicts is that no one was recognized to own a particular frequency yet. Before that was completely sorted out in the courts, the feds came in and essentially socialized frequencies by declaring that the government owned them all and work control, assign, and regulate radio. That led to our current situation where you must get government approval of whatever you use radio waves for, in circumvention of the 1st amendment, among other things.

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Doc Ruby]

We're talking about competing with telcos in controlling backbone access. Google is failing to enter the competition, despite having $billions, lots of its own fiber, and a decade of tremendous success in the Internet business that is still open to competition (though good luck competing with Google now). That's why Net Neutrality is a primary policy goal for Google's lobbyists, but Google hasn't gotten much traction, despite the issue's surprising popularity with the public. It's not a question of "Washington graciously allowing Google to join the market", because you're claiming Google's success in the Web search/ads market is somehow delivering success in governing the backbone market, which it is decidedly not - and which proves government intervention is necessary to keep even Google from being squeezed by telcos.

If you mean law enforcement, which can end in cops with guns coming to your house, by "bayonet-style coercion", then demonstrating that the earlier, persuasive style of court orders (before they send the cops) is not enough to stop illegal acts like market abuses exhausts the options that don't call for "bayonets". Ignoring persuasion doesn't let nonviolent criminals avoid the violent coercion to stop their lawbreaking.

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Doc Ruby]

Well, that book review is by the FFF, which also wants the government to stay out of the education business.

I expect the FFF would also prefer that the police not arrest people invading your house for criminal trespass, but rather just civil liability for any damage. Or, even more likely, you should just shoot anyone you see on your property, including that annoying neighbor kid cutting across your lawn on his way to play basketball.

As I've delineated, the government should not prohibit content, especially now that it's easy to filter content on the receiver. But registering frequencies for noninterference is sensible. Or would you rather the government stay out of the business of enforcing the double yellow line down the middle of 2-way streets, until you (or your estate) sue the head-on collider for their civil liability in breaking your back?

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[falconwolf]

OK, now you've demonstrated you don't understand even the basics behind radio,

I've built radios, have you? And not by assembling a kit. The first radio I built I even wrapped bare wire around the tube from an empty paper roll. All the other pieces I used I scavenged. Years ago, when knowing Morse code was needed I wanted to get my amateur, shortwave, radio license. Back then you had to be able to build your own shortwave radio. Unfortunately I had difficulty with Morse code so I didn't get my license.

That's it for me on this thread.

Falcon

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Lockejaw]

Doesn't your reference to Google and the fact that they're supposedly getting into the telecom business (and possibly even alternative energy) suggest that it's possible for an "upstart" to get into the industry despite all hostility from existing firms?

Google has lots of money and infrastructure already in place/available, so "upstart" is a bit extreme. If I were getting into the telecom business, I'd be an upstart.

Re:Media Monopoly Cartel

[Midnight Thunder]

You don't create competition by regulating an industry, you create competition by making it easy for competition to form.

Regulation and competition aren't necessarily opposites. In reality it all comes down to the nature of the regulation and what intended mission of the regulation is. If your regulation is to limit anti-competitive behaviour, ensure the prevention of dilution of free-speech and ensure that companies operate within the social structure of the country, then I can only see it as a good thing. If your regulation ensures all the opposite, then I can see why you wouldn't want it.

Kevin Martin is a hard nut to crack

[langelgjm]

Funny that a few stories down we should have an example of one of Kevin Martin's ventures in the other direction. Then of course is one of my favorite quotes of his, "The public interest is not what any company wants." Not particularly eloquent, but succinct and true enough. I like to think the man's heart is pointing in the right direction. Anyone care to comment?

Re:Kevin Martin is a hard nut to crack

[Pinky's Brain]

Maybe I'm a bit cynical ... but isn't that just to protect AT&T?

Diversity.

[headkase]

I just finished reading The Wisdom of Crowds. Great book, highly recommended. Anyway in the context of group decisions the book postulates that one of the fundamental requirements to make good group decisions is diversity. Without it you end up in the "me too" situation where opinions cascade through the group simply because there are less building blocks to improve on. With less diversity there is less granularity to approaching a problem leading to situations where a groups decision doesn't fit the original problem as well as it could have.
Right now the book is just a proposal - it will take much more time to empirically test the ideas put forth in it.

Re:Diversity.

[psychicninja]

I couldn't agree more!

Re:Diversity.

[headkase]

:) Tongue in cheek or do you really mean it! ;)

Re:Diversity.

[jellie]

Abraham Lincoln appointed several of his political rivals to his Cabinet, and most historians agree that the diversity of opinions and perspectives helped him understand the situation better and control dissent. This was also the subject of Doris Kearns Goodwin's biographical book about Lincoln, Team of Rivals.

Re:Diversity.

[Floritard]

I don't see why this idea isn't more evident to people. It has its roots in biology, in life itself. Diversity is important in ecosystems, in gene pools, in immune systems. Its important in industry, in the market as well as within an individual company itself. Crop rotation. Stock portfolios. The video game industry. As any old wife will tell you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Why do people not see that all around them the more diverse something is the less chance it has of getting wiped out or callapsing suddenly from one common vulnerability. So of course this would extend to the media and the political sphere.

ps. My captcha was "concur."

Re:Diversity.

[psychicninja]

Firmly. So I suppose it should have been: "Ah hwognt ahwhee whoa!"

Where do I go?

[CityZen]

Okay, I got my keyboard, I'm ready to fight.

Where do I go to fight this? Write my representatives/senators? Or what?

Opposite Day?

[pembo13]

Is it opposite day already? I thought the FCC was supposed to regulate such things.

Flocking

[paladinwannabe2]

People tend to flock to where the group-think is. Very few people want to be challenged about what they believe on a daily basis- it takes a lot of work, especially if you're willing to admit the possibility you might be wrong. Slashdot tends to have a variety of (highly nerd-centric) views, so it's easy to find a bunch of people who passionately agree with you on issues that most people don't care about: File sharing, the best Star Trek Captain, Emacs vs. Vi, etc. There will be the heretics who disagree with you, but you can always mod up those you agree with and ignore the rest.

That being said, Slashdot would be horrible as my only news source. It's got a huge number of opinions, but most of them are the idealistic ravings of an intelligent but dysfunctional individual with minimal real-world experience. (Something like 80% of non-troll posts are in this category, including most of my own). Then you've got the corporate shills, the grammar Nazis, and the occasional individual who knows what he's talking about. Plus, there are all these rambling posts that are almost on topic, but don't really address the issue at hand- not to mention the article.

Re:Flocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you've got the corporate shills
 
you mean anyone you disagree with?

Re:Flocking

[baldass_newbie]

the occasional individual who knows what he's talking about

I was wondering when you were going to mention me...

Re:FCC creates its own necessity

[jnadke]

In the ideal world, there would be no government regulation. However, because radio waves are a government regulated commodity, Joe Schmoe can't hijack, for example, FOX's airwaves and broadcast his own competing opinion. Sure, it starts a "signal strength" battle, but energy is a limited commodity itself. Eventuall Joe Schmoe can win, only a smaller area. Many Joe Schmoes can pool their resources and win a bunch of smaller areas. To an extent, the Internet has given Joe Schmoe and Media Conglomerates a level playing field. For the first time, their voices can be heard equally. That is, until Net Neutrality gets bashed in the face. However, this is merely a leveled playing field. For every website/blog started by Joe Schmoe, the Media Conglomerates can start one. The Media Conglomerates still have the airwaves... which are protected from Joe Schmoe by the Government, thereby creating it's own necessity to regulate the Media Conglomerates.

Re:FCC creates its own necessity (formatted)

[jnadke]

In the ideal world, there would be no government regulation.

However, because radio waves are a government regulated commodity, Joe Schmoe can't hijack, for example, FOX's airwaves and broadcast his own competing opinion. Sure, it starts a "signal strength" battle, but energy is a limited commodity itself. Eventually Joe Schmoe can win, only a smaller area. Many Joe Schmoes can pool their resources and win a bunch of smaller areas.

To an extent, the Internet has given Joe Schmoe and Media Conglomerates a level playing field. For the first time, their voices can be heard equally. That is, until Net Neutrality gets bashed in the face.

However, this is merely a leveled playing field. For every website/blog started by Joe Schmoe, the Media Conglomerates can start one. The Media Conglomerates still have the airwaves... which are protected from Joe Schmoe by the Government, thereby creating it's own necessity to regulate the Media Conglomerates.

That's Western innovation, baby!

[Chris Burke]

And of course that "info monoculture" dictates politics that can be rigged most easily by a single political party, so long as it is thoroughly corporatist. Which is why the US government is getting rid of the rules that protect a free market of consumers and diverse startups, in favor of corporate anarchy.

In the East they have official state news sources like Pravda or Xinhua, while in the West we have a vast network of ostensibly separate and independent news sources which are ultimately through various obscured financial ties effectively the same thing! Go capitalism!

Oh wait I'm sorry I'm being cynical. After all, the NYT did sincerely apologize for being credulous parrots of anything the government wanted them to say. I'm sure that's all in the past now. I must have gotten my scandalous anti-American ideas from the liberal media.

From...

[calebt3]

...First Post to First Reply to second post. You must be slipping.

Jesus also...

[Hamster Lover]

Jesus also loves you, but everyone else thinks your an asshole.

Re:Jesus also...

[DevilDoc]

Actually, Jesus just told me he thinks MightyMartian is an asshole as well.

If dinosaur media is dead, then why the outcry?

[Anonymous Coward]

With all the claims that Newspapers are dead and meaningless, why the strong objections to cross-ownership of a TV (or Radio) station and Newspaper in the same market?

And if America truly has "freedom of the press", why put special restrictions on who can operate a newspaper at all?

Re:If dinosaur media is dead, then why the outcry?

[ktappe]

if America truly has "freedom of the press", why put special restrictions on who can operate a newspaper at all?

(Assuming you're not just trolling...)
Because we want to be sure more than one person has a press.

Limiting freedom...

[mi]

In order to defend the freedom of expression, which is somehow vaguely threatened by media consolidation, the opponents are willing to sacrifice the very real freedom of business-owners to sell their businesses to whomever they want to...

Re:Limiting freedom...

[The Master Control P]

Don't pretend that this is about Joe Business Owner selling the company he built at a healthy profit, this is about five or fewer corporations controlling the vast majority of media in the entire United States who want to make it four or fewer (preferably one). History has shown that the rules need to change for oligpolies and monopolies or very bad things happen. These "very bad things" take on the general form of low quality goods and/or high prices.

In the case of multimedia, are you going to seriously pretend that that you don't see how having an oligopoly controlling the media is a bad thing? Here's an outline: First, a story threatens to upset the Status Quo and/or expose wrongdoing by the rich and powerful. Word of it percolates up, and in one conference call between the good 'ole boys club they make sure your story never gets any real press.

Re:Limiting freedom...

[Dirtside]

In order to defend the freedom of expression, which is somehow vaguely threatened by media consolidation

What media consolidation threatens is not freedom of expression, it's variety of expression, and you're going to be hard-pressed to convince anyone that it's good for a democratic society to reduce the number of different viewpoints that are available. Since an unfettered media market will always tend toward consolidation, and media consolidation harms society by reducing the exchange of ideas, it's in society's interest to regulate the market to prevent consolidation.

Yes, it's also good for society when people can do business as they see fit, within reason. Talking about the "freedom of business-owners to sell their businesses to whomever they want to" as if it's as important as freedom of speech is silly; there have been quite a number of precedents establishing that business "freedoms" can be restricted far more thoroughly and easily than personal freedoms. Markets work best when unfettered, but they serve society best when they're regulated by the will of the people. History and studies have shown that different kinds of markets serve us best when regulated in different ways; certain markets can go almost completely unregulated without harming society; others need to be heavily regulated in order to best serve us.

Don't get caught in the trap of thinking that all markets should be completely (or even equally) unfettered. The electricity market, for example, behaves radically differently than the computer hardware market.

Re:Limiting freedom...

[Anonymous Coward]

It saddens me that people don't understand that dynamic. In a functioning educational system, your comment would be yawn worthy. Instead, it's +5 insightful because you and most slashdot readers have no understanding of basic economic theory (economies of scale), monopoly power, or how major corporations simultaneously fight with and support government regulation.

Monopoly power and lack of information are very real factors in modern society. Whether you look at research of publication diversity or economic research about information scarcity and how it impacts prices and decisions, the impact is quite clear. So take your pick: social scientists? economists? They will often agree on the impacts of limited information on decision making.

Re:Limiting freedom...

[kmweber]

this is about five or fewer corporations controlling the vast majority of media in the entire United States who want to make it four or fewer (preferably one).
So? The owners of big companies are people too, and have the same rights as everyone else.

History has shown that the rules need to change for oligpolies and monopolies or very bad things happen.
This justifies government violating individual rights how?

These "very bad things" take on the general form of low quality goods and/or high prices.
It's not government's job to do anything about that.

In the case of multimedia, are you going to seriously pretend that that you don't see how having an oligopoly controlling the media is a bad thing?
I don't see how it's worse than the violation of individual rights that is being proposed to prevent it.

When formulating policy, individual liberty is the ONLY relevant concern. Nothing else matters.

Re:Limiting freedom...

[kmweber]

it's in society's interest to regulate the market to prevent consolidation.
It is not government's job to act in "society's interest." Government's job is to protect individual rights. This proposed action would do the exact opposite.

Yes, it's also good for society when people can do business as they see fit, within reason.
The interests of society are irrelevant; only individual liberty matters.

Talking about the "freedom of business-owners to sell their businesses to whomever they want to" as if it's as important as freedom of speech is silly;
No, it's not. All liberty is equally sacred and equally important AS AN END IN ITSELF.

there have been quite a number of precedents establishing that business "freedoms" can be restricted far more thoroughly and easily than personal freedoms
Those precedents are wrong.

Markets work best when unfettered, but they serve society best when they're regulated by the will of the people.
That is not a relevant concern when deciding on government policy.

The thing is, you incorrectly view liberty as only a means to an end. It's not. The individual, and therefore his liberty, is an end in itself, and trumps all other concerns.

Re:Limiting freedom...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Libertarians.

Re:Limiting freedom...

[mi]

Don't pretend that this is about Joe Business Owner selling the company he built at a healthy profit, this is about five or fewer corporations controlling the vast majority of media in the entire United States who want to make it four or fewer (preferably one).

Where exactly does "Joe Business Owner" stop being such?

I would grant you, that one is too few, but I see no reason, why anything other than the usual anti-trust/anti-monopoly rules should apply. Five, four, and even three is still perfectly healthy, and even two may be Ok. When FTC blocked the Office Depot/Staples merger, it was a questionable move.

But five reducing themselves to four is perfectly fine...

Re:Limiting freedom...

[mi]

What media consolidation threatens is not freedom of expression, it's variety of expression, and you're going to be hard-pressed to convince anyone that it's good for a democratic society to reduce the number of different viewpoints that are available.

It is devastatingly bad for a free society to dictate to people, when and how they can sell their property. If you value the "variety of expression", go ahead and publish your own. And if you can not or would not, keep away from what somebody else owns — it is not yours.

Even if the various blogs and Internet-accessible foreign private and state-owned sources of expression were not available, that is...

there have been quite a number of precedents establishing that business "freedoms" can be restricted far more thoroughly and easily than personal freedoms

Yes, unfortunately, there have been. Their number, however, is simply an illustration of how powerless the businessmen are in a society, where everyone has an equal vote. The State is supposed to uphold individual's rights, however unpopular, but politicians are influenced by the majority of the voters (which is why businesses have to resort to the infamous lobbying). A Democracy, it is said, is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. See also "Atlas Shrugged".

Re:Limiting freedom...

[GalacticLordXenu]

Strange, though, that if it's so undesirable, people are patronizing big businesses and allow them to be big on virtue of the fact that they are choosing them. What we need is customer education, not more training wheels for the masses. The truth is, I think, is that you have your own biases and opinions you don't see echoed in the mass media; you think the best way to serve your agenda is by tearing down the big guy. Maybe that works; I feel the same way, but at the end of the day it's simply the selfish desire to control. You talk about the "will of the people", but there is no "will of the people". Hell, when someone says "will of the people" my ears perk up because almost always I sure as hell aren't agreeing with whatever they're trying to sell with that rhetoric. Slavery was once the will of the people, as was the subjugation of women; in some parts of the world, that's still true. If you want enlightenment and freedom, taking away certain freedoms from others, as if you were some sort of mastermind tinkering with knobs and levers to make the "best possible society" (a value-laden personal opinion on how the world should work) neither works nor is often fair. Businesses are there to serve us insofar that we agree to whatever we're selling, and we serve businesses by patronizing them and giving the owners wealth. Even if you, technically, could get a better deal through wild machinations, in the end you're doing what big business often does with government--manipulating the rules to benefit you over another entity, or at least widen a perceived gap. This may come as a shock, but businesses are not established "for the public good". Despite what most relatively-wealthy individuals cozy in their first-world homes might think or wish, people in general do prefer to look out for themselves before looking out for someone they don't even know, and might not even like. And many of us aren't keen on putting others lives ahead of the hordes' based on some principle that is very open towards crushing some to benefit "the greater good".

Re:Limiting freedom...

[The Master Control P]

If the government should never regulate business, why is the period of American history from 1870 to 1910 not regarded as a golden age of wonders? Ya see, if we're going to live together in societies of hundreds of millions of people, we're going to have to make some compromises to prevent the assholes from causing too much misery.

I should be able to shoot you if I feel like it; The government saying otherwise is restricting my liberty to do as I want.

Re:Limiting freedom...

[The Master Control P]

I'd say that many aspects of a media oligopoly are essentially impossible to police; Given a very small number of CEOs, they'll very likely reach an agreement (implicitly or explicitly) to protect mutual interests and the status quo (think of how all the news channels seem to have determined that Hillary is the winner). By keeping the number up, the probability of a majority or supermajority working together is decreased and real competition is maintained.

We used to have hundreds of news and media corporations in the US.

Re:Limiting freedom...

[falconwolf]

five reducing themselves to four is perfectly fine...

It's fine as long as you don't want freedom to choice what you listen to. I'd rather have 100, 1000, even 100,000 options instead of 4.

Falcon

Re:Limiting freedom...

[falconwolf]

think of how all the news channels seem to have determined that Hillary is the winner

What I've heard most recently is Obama is ahead of Hillary in some polls.

Falcon

If you love freedom vote for Ron Paul

Re:Limiting freedom...

[falconwolf]

This may come as a shock, but businesses are not established "for the public good"

No but this may shock you, corporations are granted charters to serve the public, or common, good. The very first company to be granted a corporate charter, the Dutch East India Company, was granted the charter for that very reason.

Falcon

Re:Limiting freedom...

[GalacticLordXenu]

Your argument relies mostly on the fallacy that the law is morality (I'm not talking about what the law states)... I'm not speaking within the context of what the government simply says is and should be so. It is at least hypothetically possible that a sole proprietorship could be as large as any corporation (I can't think of any)--they wouldn't, and shouldn't, have to deal with some nebulous concept of "public good"--you'd think providing something that people want, and pay for, is a public good unto itself, but sometimes people just feel entitled to more... If the masses seek to dissolve a company because it has become too profitable, and its produce too desirable, then the masses must be stopped from their own barbarism. The real problem is big business in bed with the government--and, simply, people are too stupid to vote for anything other than corrupt politicians. Do you want people who can easily fall for and continually elect the sleezebags to have a more democratic say in ANYTHING?

Re:Limiting freedom...

[The Master Control P]

True, I should've given a timeframe. As usual, Jon Stewart had the best explanation; Half a dozen clips of talking heads saying "Hillary is inevitable" just before the... second? most recent debate.

Oh, and Ron Paul FTW. Ever notice how Fox/CNN/ABC/NBC are trying so hard to ignore him? And how after Kucinich said the I word at that debate, they made sure to shut him up? This is the kind of crap that I was talking about in terms of oligopolies being bad: They've all decided who's in their/the status quo's best interest, and it's not in ours.

Re:Limiting freedom...

[falconwolf]

Oh, and Ron Paul FTW. Ever notice how Fox/CNN/ABC/NBC are trying so hard to ignore him?

Yeap, the mass media does downplay Ron Paul. CNN did have a small spot of him that I thought was good though. What will be even worse is the media attention the Libertarian Party will get. Back in the 2004 campaign Michael Badnarik, the LP's candidate, was arrested when he tried to attend one of the presidential debates and Nader was barred. Yet there was hardly a peep out of the press. The press is supposed give voice to the people, instead they drown it. I did like how CNN teamed up with YouTube to sponsor the debates recently but I wonder how the questions were picked. I liked the response from one of the questions for Ron Paul. After he spoke it seemed like the whole auditorium stood up and applauded him. I know there's not enough tyme to answer all the questions but I'd like to see the candidates answer the unasked questions online after the debate. Perhaps a bunch of similar questions can be combined and answered at one tyme.

Falcon

Re:Limiting freedom...

[mi]

It's fine as long as you don't want freedom to choice what you listen to. I'd rather have 100, 1000, even 100,000 options instead of 4.

Yes, I prefer a variety too, but these companies are not mine to control. They are not yours either, but, mysteriously, you feel comfortable telling them, what they can and can not do.

Blocking mergers in the name of preventing monopolization (such as the recent block of Staples' merger with Office Depot) is bad enough, but I'm willing to accept it as necessary evil needed to maintain competition. But there is no reason to impose additional limitations on media companies' mergers.

Re:Limiting freedom...

[Dirtside]

Their number, however, is simply an illustration of how powerless the businessmen are in a society, where everyone has an equal vote

Gosh, I think this just about sums up your grasp of logic right here. :)

Re:Limiting freedom...

[falconwolf]

Yes, I prefer a variety too, but these companies are not mine to control. They are not yours either, but, mysteriously, you feel comfortable telling them, what they can and can not do.

No I don't "feel comfortable" telling them what to do. Neither do I like the government telling me what to do. I shouldn't need a license to broadcast, whether it cost millions of dollars as broadcasting licenses do today, or if the license is free. The regulations in place today for broadcasting go back to 1934. Back then when the FCC was created from the Federal Radio Commission, itself creared in 1927, the technology available then did not allow broadcasters to use frequencies that are close. Transmissions would interfere with each other, however with the tech available today broadcasters could use frequencies that are much closer. Instead of the dozen or so broadcasters a city may have today, technology can allow dozens more. Besides allowing the use of closer frequencies, micropower radio makes it able to broadcast in a small area.

Quite simply if I wanted to start a radio station specializing in talking about model railroads without needing a license I should be able to do so. The radio spectrum is no longer the limited resource it was in 1934, heck just 20 years ago.

Falcon

Hmmmm.

[WindBourne]

I am a registered libertarian, and I have to say that even here, I prefer the FCC to not allow this. The reason is that the gov. already created the monopolies, but granting exclusive owning of the airwaves. As such, I think that if they are going to give monopolies, then it should be regulated. Of course, if they would create a space where anybody could compete (i.e. think of the open regions), then it should be winner take all assuming that you limit the power of the radio.

Contacting the FCC

[ZipK]

You can find the contact e-mail addresses of all five FCC commissioners here.

I attended the Seattle Town Hall meeting

[Anonymous Coward]

I was surprised that the crowd didn't rip Martin to pieces. I've never seen such unanimous hostility or disgust from nearly 1000 individuals before. People do not want media consolidation!

Re:I attended the Seattle Town Hall meeting

[ScrewMaster]

I was surprised that the crowd didn't rip Martin to pieces.

Maybe if citizens were allowed to rip misguided public officials to pieces when they err, there'd be a lot less erring on the part of said officials.

Toss the cross-ownership rule

[Percy_Blakeney]

Let's be honest about the situation: no matter WHAT rules are eventually enacted, they will be challenged in court. Once it is in court, there is a significant chance that the entire newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule will simply be invalidated. Why? Because a very similar rule, the cable-broadcast cross-ownership rule, was tossed out in 2002 by the DC Circuit Court because it was arbitrary and capricious.

Personally, I could care less if a local newspaper owns a radio or TV station; I care more about media concentration than formats. Which is more troubling, ClearChannel owning half the local radio stations (and another billion across the country), or a local newspaper owning a single "oldies" FM radio station? In my opinion, they should assign different weights to the different kinds of media, and then say that you can own whatever you like up to the weight cap.

Re:Toss the cross-ownership rule

[sgt_doom]

Dood, I don't mean to burst your balloon or anything, but given the truly bizarre judicial decisions handed down over the preceding 7 years, at the federal district court level and the SCOTUS (Supreme A**hole Court)level, it is highly unlikely a challenge will hold up in court. What ammo do you use, BTW? With regard to assault rifles, I recommend Rugers for reliability.....

Does anybody have the article text?

[markjhood2003]

I don't really mind seeing ads to read Salon content, but the site is no longer allowing client machines that block ad.doubleclick.net to view anything. Tolerating ads is one thing, but I'll be damned if I'll allow doubleclick to track me all over the freakin' web just to see Salon's stuff.

Re:Does anybody have the article text?

[Rick17JJ]

I have about 36 different variations of the doubleclick URL blocked in my hosts file and I did not have any trouble viewing the article. The article appeared as it should, other than for the missing advertisement's rectangle which said "Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at ad.doubleclick.net." The article was there but the advertisement was missing. I use Mike's add blocking host file on both my Linux computer and my Windows computer. As a result, on many websites, I get one or more empty rectangles were an add would normally have appeared.

I have recently run across a few websites which would allow me view an article but not the print version of the article. On those few websites, when I try to view the print version, I get a message about not being able to connect to doubleclick. Sometimes after a few seconds the print version appears, sometimes not. On the Salon webpage I had no problem viewing either the regular version or the print version of the article.

For people who haven't already blocked DoubleClick, I seem to recall that another option was to go to the DoubleClick webpage and select the opt-out option. That would cause an opt-out cookie to be downloaded to the person's browser. Of course if they cleared the cookies from their browser they would need to go back and do the opt-out thing again.

Seattle's reaction to Martin

[Anonymous Coward]

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin at the Seattle FCC media ownership hearing, 9 Nov 2007.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6_CUTRG2M_c

Jesus doesn't like you

[Trepidity]

I have it on good authority that He looks poorly on the use of "your" where "you're" was intended. And don't even try to use an apostrophe when making plurals.

Re:Jesus doesn't like you

[jlowery]

Jesus prefers "you all", but will accept "y'all" in informal correspondence.

Re:Jesus doesn't like you

[Carpe PM]

I believe Jesus had at least 12 apostrophes.

Re:Jesus doesn't like you

[Carpe PM]

And for that matter, died of punctuation.

How do you know if he is democratic?

[Anonymous Coward]

He is referred to here as the 'Democratic commissioner'.

How do you know if he is democratic?

Spelling...

[Hamster Lover]

Strange, I went back and changed it before hitting "Submit".

It's actually a peeve of my own. "CD's" instead of CDs.

*Shrug* Oh well...

competiton on the airwaves

[falconwolf]

That pesky competition stuff seems all too familiar at the FCC these days. It makes one wonder what might happen if the FCC had the interests of the American consumer in mind, rather than that of the media and telco mega-corps.

If the FCC really wanted competition on the airwaves they'd allow Pirate and Micropower broadcasters. But instead the FCC does what it can to shutdown them.

Falcon

Re:competiton on the airwaves

[Actually, I do RTFA]

If the FCC really wanted competition on the airwaves they'd allow Pirate and Micropower broadcasters. But instead the FCC does what it can to shutdown them.

Pirate radio stations are prima facia imposisble to allow. And competition does not mean anarchy. Aside from the fact that they would collide with one another, and thus interfer greatly, micropower stations make copyright law much harder to enforce.

Re:competiton on the airwaves

[falconwolf]

Pirate radio stations are prima facia imposisble to allow.

Only impossible from the big corporate media perspective. Competition takes advertising revenue from them.

And competition does not mean anarchy.

Not requiring licenses isn't anarchy.

Aside from the fact that they would collide with one another, and thus interfer greatly

That was true in 1934 when the FCC was created but with modern technology stations can broadcast at much closer frequencies allowing more stations in the same area.

micropower stations make copyright law much harder to enforce.

It may but it also allows more media. Without needing a license if I wanted to I could start a radio talk show about model railroads. I could then sell ads to local hobby shoppes that sale trains and equipment. Or I could have a radio station that plays music from local bands, which would give them more exposure, then air ads for the bands. I like Reggae and Calypso so maybe I'd start a radio station playing them, or maybe I could play Bluegrass. Or, the ultimate reason for free speech, I could have a political talk station.

Falcon

Re:competiton on the airwaves

[KDR_11k]

We have limited radio spectrum, allowing anyone to broadcast will cause collisions, either accidentally or on purpose. Jamming a station that disagrees with you? Broadcasting in a spectrum that another station uses and jam that for some areas? Sorry but as long as there's limited spectrum to go around there's no way we can let just anyone broadcast.

Re:competiton on the airwaves

[falconwolf]

We have limited radio spectrum, allowing anyone to broadcast will cause collisions, either accidentally or on purpose.

But with technology radio stations can be a lot closer together allowing more stations to broadcast in a given area.

Jamming a station that disagrees with you?

"During the 1920s, such a common-law-based order in radio was emerging, with spectrum rights being traded and some court decisions recognizing a right against interference. Unfortunately, the free-market, common-law regime that was beginning to break through the crust of federal regulation was strangled in its cradle by the 1927 Act, which eliminated all individual rights in the radio spectrum. Henceforth, the Federal Radio Commission (later renamed the Federal Communications Commission) would assign frequencies, and naturally politics would play a leading role."

"During the 1920s, the courts were working out precisely such a system of homesteaded private property rights in airwave frequencies. It is because such a private property structure was evolving that Secretary of Commerce Hoover pushed through the Radio Act of 1927, nationalizing ownership of the airwaves."

Falcon

Re:competiton on the airwaves

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Pirate radio stations are defined by their illicit nature. Hence, it is impossible to allow pirate radio stations.

When I dislike your model railroad station, or more realistically, when I (or the opposing political party) dislike your political talk station, I could purposefully broadcast white noise at the same frequency. While maybe I could broadcast at 99.666667 instead of 99.666668 (your station) I only want to be disruptive. Make it illegal to broadcast white noise? So I broadcast me singing the Star-Spangled Banner on a loop, etc. What, want to make it first come-first serve? Then we are back to FCC regulation, and frankly, I would rather the channels were bid on than given away.

Additionally, there are anti-profanity laws regarding what may be broadcast. And lastly, copyright law enforcement is important.

Re:competiton on the airwaves

[falconwolf]

When I dislike your model railroad station, or more realistically, when I (or the opposing political party) dislike your political talk station, I could purposefully broadcast white noise at the same frequency. While maybe I could broadcast at 99.666667 instead of 99.666668 (your station) I only want to be disruptive. Make it illegal to broadcast white noise? So I broadcast me singing the Star-Spangled Banner on a loop, etc. What, want to make it first come-first serve? Then we are back to FCC regulation, and frankly, I would rather the channels were bid on than given away.

Additionally, there are anti-profanity laws regarding what may be broadcast.

The same sort of laws on profanity can be used for interference, no FCC needed. Someone starts interfering then there's such a thing as courts. If someone intensionally interferes then you can sue them. And if they do it to a lot of others there may be a legal basis for a class action lawsuit.

Falcon

Re:competiton on the airwaves

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The same sort of laws on profanity can be used for interference, no FCC needed. Someone starts interfering then there's such a thing as courts. If someone intensionally interferes then you can sue them.

Two totally different points. The anti-profanity rules come from the FCC as a condition of being granted a license. Hence, if your pirate radio station starts broadcasting a stream of profanity, you still can only get in trouble for the pirate part of the station. (And maybe some law against exposing minors and/or being obscene depending on state and local laws.)

Without an FCC, how does 99.66667 become "yours" that someone is infringing upon? And how do you prove it? Why cannot I say that 99.66667 is my patriotic Star-Spangled Banner loop and you are infringing on my frequency. This is especially true if we had two stations in the same city, with transmitters only overlapping in a small section and then for whatever reason one or both stations' range increases. It is almost as though we need a government agency to keep track of who is broadcasting on what channel where.

Re:competiton on the airwaves

[falconwolf]

Without an FCC, how does 99.66667 become "yours" that someone is infringing upon?

Ever hear of Homesteading? Before the Federal Radio Commission, the predecessor to the FCC, was created courts in the US were recognizing rights to frequencies someone had homesteaded, started broadcasting on. In other words if a person, party, started broadcasting on a given frequency then another party started broadcasting on the same frequency the first party could sue the second party for interfering and the court would uphold the first party's right to use that frequency without interference. No FCC or other agency, commission in this case, was needed. Just allow civil courts handle it.

This is especially true if we had two stations in the same city

With the number of frequencies available all one broadcaster would have to do is shift the frequency used. Where one of them could prove they were using that frequency first the court could require the second one of move to another frequency. And it's no technological feat to use another. I was able to easily change the frequency of the first radio I built, back in the 1970s, of course it didn't have much of a range of frequencies it could pick up but it was a simply radio with a wire coiled around a roll taken from a used roll of paper.

Falcon

Re:competiton on the airwaves

[Actually, I do RTFA]

With the number of frequencies available all one broadcaster would have to do is shift the frequency used.

True, but presumably having all your listeners know that 99.412341 is your station already has value.

Where one of them could prove they were using that frequency first the court could require the second one of move to another frequency.

But my example in no way excludes that both started broadcasting on the same day. Even if they didn't, it matters what day their broadcast was able to reach a certain area (a big radio station in the center of town wants to expand it's broadcast, and I'm a small station on the end of town. The big station was broadcasting first, but I was broadcasing first here.) Otherwise, my collection of 100,000 microtransmitters with a 1000 yrd range can wait for another station to get big and then expand into their turf while offering to sell the station. Or maybe it could be first in a predetermined region, with the regions and how close the frequencies could be being determined by some Federal agency...

Ever hear of Homesteading?

Yup, if you read my posts I expressly say I'd rather have the FCC than a "first-come first-serve" mentality to the airwaves. I hate the concept of homesteading without an annual ad valorem tax.

We should all be paying as close attention as

[MrCopilot]

We should all be paying as close attention as these people.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/68295/

And be making as much noise.

broadcasting Cartel

[falconwolf]

As one example, what if we found a way to make the radio spectrum freely available to all without mutual interference, so that as many people who wanted to broadcast, could? If it weren't for the scarcity of usable frequencies imposed by past-generation technology, would we need or want the FCC to be telling corporations how many stations they can own in an area. And would the FCC be able to impose censorship or (currently at bay) a "fairness doctrine" using the excuse that it can impose any restrictions it wants on a limited public resource? We may actually be seeing this unlimited-resource situation in the Net;

It's good to see someone who supports pirate and micropower broadcasters. With today's technology there can be a lot more radio and TV stations that won't interfere with each other in given locations so there is really no need for expensive licenses to broadcast, and the license is the major cost of broadcasting.

Falcon

corporate aristocracy

[falconwolf]

So, I don't think the comparison between "taming the rampant corporations" and "stopping the British from burning our city" is fair.

No less than Thomas Jefferson saw the risk of the Corporate Aristocracy. Specifically Jefferson said "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

Falcon

For CEOs not Companies

[Weezul]

There is a substantial body of evidence saying that mergers hurt : employees, customers, and stock holders. Only the executives normally benefit. because they become executives of a larger corporation.

Only solution is personal education and vigilance

[GalacticLordXenu]

Splitting up media companies or preventing them from getting bigger isn't going to change anything. The other companies will, probably, be much the same, following the same time-proven formula used by the current media giants.

Ignoring the possibility of government machinations aside (I cannot think of any), big media became big media because People Paid Attention. And they still do. Maybe they're doing so less, with the advent of the internet, but we still have the big 5 or whatever the number is.

The "Big Media" from outside the world is outside of our control, yet we can still access it and if, we so cared, can get information from it and the government can't do a damn thing to stop it, no matter how big it gets.

What if a media company based itself outside of the USA, but operated on a global level, reporting the minute details of U.S. news much like CNN or MSNBC or other media conglomerates do? Should we block citizens from accessing their website or TV station, if they had one?

Turning knobs and hitting levers to try to make some sort of utopia where we play with other peoples' stuff to get what we want is never good or "fair" and often has unintended consequences. If people continue to watch CNN or FOX, it's their human failing.

I have news for you, people that talk about needing "diversity of opinion" to maintain a "healthy democracy" (whenever you lack a coherent, strong argument, always appeal to the fuzzy notion of a "healthy democracy"--apparently a buzzword for the person's own private little perfect world). Personally, I'd prefer an "unhealthy democracy" insofar that the giant massive will of Leviathan doesn't impose on me. Some of us would like to make deals and bargains on our own terms, even though this notion is disappearing in a time of "social responsibility".

I'd rather the world not be one big chain gang but instead composed of people more intent on using their wits and relying on their own brains rather than be given a state-subsidized set of training wheels to go about through life on. To do that, you need real education, motivation (and remember, you can lead a horse to water but can't make him drink--how many people have YOU tried to get into politics but refuse to care, instead deciding that America Idol is a far more interesting and relevant thing to spend their neural resources on?) and unfortunately, quite possibly an innate intelligence above that which is median.

Which is it Slashdot?

[Bartles]

"FCC Chairman Tries for More Media Consolidation" Or "FCC Commissioner Stumps for More Media Diversity" So is Kevin Martin a chairman or a commissioner? More seriously, which Slashdot article should I disregard, and which should I take with a small grain of salt?

libertarians and health insurance

[falconwolf]

healthcare/insurance corps have produced a "libertarian" hoax that is precisely wrong.

Neither healthcare nor health insurance were created by Libertarians in the US. The current health insurance industry was created by a Democrat, FDR. During WWII, because of wage and price control laws, employers couldn't pay employees more so to entice people to work in factories and other establishments the government allowed employers to pay for health insurance for the employees. And still today employer have an incentive to offer insurance instead of just paying employees more. If the laws favoring employer provided health insurance, they pay no tax on it, were gotten rid of and employers were able to pay employees more so they could buy health insurance on their own healthcare would be cheaper and more people would be more keen to hold costs down. And by allowing people to buy and pay for their own healthcare they will be able to decide what sort of coverage they want, if they only want catastrophic coverage they can pay less for it versus another person who wants everything covered. Then with more people paying more out of pocket they will be more willing to shop for lower prices. That's called competition, you know, what many blame on driving workers pay down? Let competition drive cost down.

Falcon

Re:libertarians and health insurance

[Doc Ruby]

I didn't say that health care or insurance was created by libertarians (or the Libertarian Party). I said the health care and insurance corps have produced a hoax that looks "libertarian", but is just a reversal of the actual condition.

The condition is that insurance companies don't compete - they're a cartel, with their product mandated in many ways. The New Deal that offered capitalist employers the economic niche of offering healthcare, contrary to the socialist systems established by our global competition, first had to be fixed after a generation by another Democrat, Johnson, who cleaned up the postwar mess made by capitalizing social insurance like retirement and health. But even that lessened degree of capitalism eventually let employers offer artificial switching costs through illiquid accumulated insurance equity, and the cartel that currently extracts massive profits by providing the worst quality service (claims payments), which makes the healthcare it controls worse per dollar than our competitors get from their evolving government insurance and delivery systems. Individuals each paying their own health insurance is more expensive than the broader base of statistical risk and per-capita cost of sales of policies by employers, but also much more expensive than if that aggregation were replaced by the government which also takes no profits on the operation. As is proven around the world by our competition, which didn't waste time on employer insurance the way we have.

The hoax is that the very exploitave corporations that feed on the regulation they've paid for decades to skew to their advantage now claim that it's the small remaining regulation that does limit them that's at fault. Or they say that the laws that hold doctors liable for the poor quality work they often do while trying to maximize their own profit with too few doctors are to blame. Their solution: the "libertarian" hoax that further deregulation will somehow solve the problems that have been permitted by the large deregulation (and favorable reregulation) to date.

I know there's all kinds of people around the US right now, especially ones active on the Internet, who are jumping for any chance to argue the merits of libertarianism. That cause isn't served by creating a straw man to argue about from what I did really say. Nor is healthcare a good argument for libertarianism, when every decrease in government service has resulted in both worse care and higher costs that have made the US much less competitive with foreigners who do less work for better health, because their governments ensure they're protected in that way. Next you'll be arguing for a return to the private fire departments that let America burn until the late 1800s, and then maybe private gangs to replace our police with competitive security - for the warlords on top, anyway. Oh, competitive certifications for doctors and lawyers, based solely on customer satisfaction surveys - of the ones who survive anyway.

Re:libertarians and health insurance

[falconwolf]

I didn't say that health care or insurance was created by libertarians (or the Libertarian Party). I said the health care and insurance corps have produced a hoax that looks "libertarian", but is just a reversal of the actual condition.

Rereading the post of your's I replied to I have to admit I was wrong, you didn't say it was created by libertarians. Sorry for the mistake.

Individuals each paying their own health insurance is more expensive than the broader base of statistical risk and per-capita cost of sales of policies by employers, but also much more expensive than if that aggregation were replaced by the government which also takes no profits on the operation.

While true now that most people who have health insurance get it through employers insurance costs more, I believe that if employers paid employees more to cover the cost of insurance, it would be lower. This is because there would be more competition driving costs down. However I disagree the government providing healthcare would cost less. When something is "free", ie the government pays for it, people will use it more thus driving up the costs. Since people won't pay out of pocket for healthcare they don't see how much it actually costs. But when they have to pay then they notice it. And though government may not be into making a profit bureaucracies always expands driving up costs. Businesses though, if the people are any good, try to lower costs so they can maximize profits. When they have to compeat this means reducing bureaucracy and paperwork. The same as Dell compeating against HP, compeating against Gateway. That's why governments pay contractors to build roads, they can do it cheaper. Heck, years ago I worked for a construction subcontractor and one of the jobs we had was building an assembly building at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Even though while working there all of us on the work crew were paid more than at any other job site, I was paid more than $5 an hour more, it was still cheaper for the Air Force to have a contractor build it.

As is proven around the world by our competition, which didn't waste time on employer insurance the way we have.

Health insurance is an advantage businesses in other countries have over US businesses. They don't have to pay for health insurance. However because of this taxes are higher. The US has one of the lowest income taxes in the world.

Nor is healthcare a good argument for libertarianism, when every decrease in government service has resulted in both worse care and higher costs that have made the US much less competitive with foreigners who do less work for better health, because their governments ensure they're protected in that way.

Can you provide any research links supporting this?

Next you'll be arguing for a return to the private fire departments that let America burn until the late 1800s, and then maybe private gangs to replace our police with competitive security - for the warlords on top, anyway.

Ah now you're reading my mind. But you read it wrong, I have never thought that. That is one problem I have with anarchists, I am not an anarchist. And I know of no other Libertarians who think that either.

Falcon

Re:libertarians and health insurance

[Doc Ruby]

That's the debate honesty I expect from "libertarians" these days: ask a question, then turn out the lights.

Though its no fun wading through your facile model of the world, for the benefit of readers who might be distracted, I'll point out that you are perfectly libertarian in your ruthless ideology while leaving the boundary between your opportunistic version of libertarianism and just anarchy. Which demands ignoring practically all of the world around you, in all its complexity, in favor of the top-down toy politics you're privileged to indulge at your keyboard, because actual governments and societies have made your life so easy you don't even notice the rough edges that intrude in reality.

The kind of person who will build a radio from scratch, and not realize that another radio 100x the power competing on the same frequency will drown out their little toy.

You want "research" showing US employer health insurance makes us less competitive? Why don't you just read some news about US car corps choking on their healthcare costs, while foreign competitors benefit from the more economical nationalized healthcare? Since you didn't even notice that your favorite experiment in peoples lives and privatized economics is failing in our core industry, I don't expect you'll understand that the US income tax is low because we're $10 TRILLION IN DEBT, and the global enemies we depend on to buy it are now stopping the free ride we depend on. Or that the reduced taxes come at the expense of worse healthcare and higher prices when the private insurance premiums are tacked on. Here it is simplified for you: The same scale economies that make group premiums cheaper than individual premiums also make national premiums even cheaper at even larger scales. Eliminating the waste and profit proven for generations in private health insurance more than compensates for the typical government waste. Which is proven by any number of studies comparing government-financed healthcare to private healthcare, either globally or in the US. Simplified: the average product delivered to private insurance consumers is worse per dollar than that delivered to consumers of government health insurance, like Medicaid, Medicare, and various veterans programs.

The same is true overall for the actual healthcare delivered by government hospitals, like the VA and our many public centers, compared to the average incompetence delivered by private hospitals. You haven't dealt fairly with this thread, and you made me return to it after I'd prefer to drop it, so I'm not going to dig up the specific research. I saw it consistently through my pre-med college career, including working at hospitals in NYC and California, and also post-grad in the medical insurance billing industry I helped take online starting in California, and again at the big insurance corps I brought online in NYC. All you have to do is wait for the headlines, as this issue is going to grind against America until we're either smart enough to take our lives back from the wasters and crooks like everyone else we're competing with has, or we just die broke.

To bring this back to the original point of this story, we're supposed to be discussing the FCC doing the perfectly libertarian job of standing aside while a handful of giant corporations take even more monopoly control of the media for their cartel. Which, like increasingly privatized and failing healthcare, has demonstrated just how bad it gets when the people abandon the government as our way of protecting ourselves from powerful people with abusive organizations, whether nobility or corporations. Everywhere you look, libertarianism is a tragedy. Except when two libertarians get together to sing its praises, say at a public library, or a publicly funded university, or some tax-subsidized think tank, or on public television...

I just hope that the current libertarianism parlor game doesn't leave us so deluded about history,

Re:libertarians and health insurance

[cayenne8]

"The same is true overall for the actual healthcare delivered by government hospitals, like the VA and our many public centers, compared to the average incompetence delivered by private hospitals."

Hmm...maybe the VA centers from where you are are the model of efficiency and great care (you're in the NE?), but, from the ones I've seen...while they did try hard for the vets....man, it was kinda scary what they had to work with. I've seen first hand how big govt. programs like FEMA have worked, and I've worked before with large govt. computer projects, and I gotta say, I've never seen a single govt. program that wasn't run in a bloated, inefficient manner, with so much red tape, that even those that try to do good, are bound and gagged by it.

I think govt. is good for things that just can't really be done privately (roads, infrastructure, fire/police), but, it seems to suck pretty bad on anything else that can be done privately.

That being said, I remember back years ago when I was younger...and we didn't have the HMO's and all, you could go see private Dr. Smith. He charged a reasonable fee....etc. I have Dr's in my family...back when in practice, one would let people that didn't have the means, pay much less...they had room to be compassionate and reasonable. Not so much nowdays...bean counters are essentially making medical decision, HMO's and insurances industries have caused things to skyrocket...and then there are the lawyers.

I don't know the answers....but, I don't have faith in big govt. making healthcare right. I lean more towards giving the people more choice in their healthcare dollars...and instilling competition again, and having more independant doctors hanging their shingles out for private practice.

Re:libertarians and health insurance

[Doc Ruby]

I worked in the hospital system in NY. I saw that VA and other government hospitals had plenty of waste and kafkaesque bureaucracy. But I saw that the private ones had a lot more. And, since they were turning a profit (including government subsidies), the private ones didn't have their governing bodies (execs, corporate boards, shareholder orgs) breathing down their necks to clean up their act. Since their "paying customer" was the insurance corps, who were profiting from the inefficient care (justifying premium increases by marked up waste payouts), the actual capitalist remedy of customers going elsewhere wasn't correcting them, either. Alice in Wonderland style excess, illogic, waste and corruption.

Hospitals aren't efficient, especially big ones, especially when waste is profitable, and when people are grateful for the "miracle lottery" to which there's no alternative. But the public ones also have extra oversight by government, and the expectation of the public that they will deliver the best service, especially since they serve veterans to whom we're all grateful, which is enforceable by government systems. Accountability based on quality, not the profit that is all that governs private healthcare.

The supply/demand of doctors more competent in treatment than in managing their wealth and limiting their liabilities is also screwing us. Especially the replacement of treatment by doctors with instead insurance corps absorbing liability for drug corp prescriptions, and the entire marketing system that lubricates that replacement, and the cutthroat educational system that produces doctors who want to be (legally, if not medically) safe drug pushers rather than actually working to heal people - that's integral to the private health care and finance system. Hell, the Republicans even prohibited the government from negotiating with drug corps for better prices, so the whole system is largely a way to guarantee unrestricted public expense on poorly-tailored prescriptions by doctors first produced on an assembly line, then running the most patients on their own assembly like as possible. So, like the Republican abuse of FEMA that mismanages government systems for both immediate profit and eventual destruction of the government competition to lesser private service providers, government health care and finance can be done wrong to make private systems look good. But when done right, it's better than private systems. While the same could be said about private systems done right, given the opportunity the past several generations, it doesn't get done right. Perhaps as government does more of the care and finance, private systems will compete by offering better service, and a balance will finally be struck with the government supplying the competition to keep the private corps straight, before the transformation to public is complete. The transformation isn't ideological, but rather driven by now obvious results from both systems, in the US and abroad. If the results change as government competition really has effects on a private industry seeing its guaranteed profits no longer safe, then we can keep the balance. But we have to leave the discredited ideology in favor of practical results if we want to keep our money or or health - or, preferably, both.

Americans have had all kinds of choice as delivered by public healthcare and its finance, and it's gotten us misery. We have domestic and foreign proof that government alternatives offer better care for less expense. This isn't the kind of theoretical argument that insurance and healthcare corporate PR flacks would like it to be. We have enough to decide we have to change, and in which direction. If we don't, "your money or your life" won't even be a choice available any more - the answer will be "neither".

Re:libertarians and health insurance

[falconwolf]

You want "research" showing US employer health insurance makes us less competitive? Why don't you just read some news about US car corps choking on their healthcare costs, while foreign competitors benefit from the more economical nationalized healthcare?

The first result of the link you provide has this to say " GM's biggest competitor Toyota, in its home ground of Japan, did not have to foot the bill for their employees' healthcare. The state provides healthcare, paid out of taxes. Toyota has a clear competitive advantage over GM in the pricing of its products, thanks to the difference in the two countries' healthcare systems. Of course, this is not the only competitive advantage that Toyota has over GM." Notice how it says Toyota "did not have to foot the bill for their employees' healthcare" thus giving Toyota an advantage over GM, ie GM is not as competitive. A big factor in negotiations between the big three auto companies in the US and the United Auto Workers is health insurance. Ford, GM, and Chrysler don't want to continue to pay for health insurance for retired workers.

Since you didn't even notice that your favorite experiment in peoples lives and privatized economics is failing in our core industry

Prey tell, what's my favorite experiment? Not what you imagine it is but what it really is.

I don't expect you'll understand that the US income tax is low because we're $10 TRILLION IN DEBT

You are compleatly and utterly mixed up. US taxes are not low because of the debt, the debt is high because government has gone on a spending spree since Bush came into office. One of the few good things Clinton did was reducing the government deficit. He took the deficit from the biggest there was before Bush Jr to almost wiping it out, actually there was a small surplus when Clinton left office. Bush Jr then increased spending but cut taxes. Can you understand that?

I can't read the rest of the garbage, the way you ignore things or twist what you don't.

Falcon

Re:libertarians and health insurance

[Doc Ruby]

OK, so now you confess that you can't even read. Otherwise, why would you cite Toyota's lower prices, a result of their lower costs that exclude "socialist" healthcare, being a leading competitive advantage over GM, proving my point and destroying yours?

Maybe it's because you don't understand the most basic economics, that lower costs mean lower prices means more competitive in the market. Probably that's it, because you also don't understand that since the jump in debt is larger than the reduction in taxes, that all those tax reductions (that haven't done any good, except further enrich the rich) would have lowered the debt with the same (insane, like the $TRILLION on Iraq that's only 1/10 of the debt) spending. Let me repeat that for the illiterate: No tax cuts with the same excessive spending would have given us less debt.

I bet you can't understand that. But then, you claim you built a radio, but couldn't even master Morse code, which a century and a half of frequently unschooled key operators mastered better than you type.

Now go waste someone else's time posing as the model obnoxious, childishly ignorant libertarian. I already know all I need to about your breed. You think government is something anyone can build from the Heathkit, but don't realize that it doesn't just operate itself, because it's made of live, actual people, not a pretty diagram.

Stop media consolidation? HA!

[iminplaya]

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear?

blocking ads

[falconwolf]

I don't really mind seeing ads to read Salon content, but the site is no longer allowing client machines that block ad.doubleclick.net to view anything.

I block ad.doubleclick.net yet I have the Salon page open in a tab. Of course right at the top of the page there's
"Unable to connect"
"Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at ad.doubleclick.net."

TFA on the page shows though. Are you using a Hosts file?

Falcon

What's in an Outlet?

[yintercept]

I am not a fan of media consolidation. For that matter, I actively work promoting alternative media.

That said, what is going on in the technology is a blurring of lines between different media. FCC rules that assume some sort of clear and magical distinction between newspaper, TV and radio are faced with a market where newspapers have a need to stream audio and video content to the public. TV shows need to be making print copies of their programs available and radio are compelled to push out more print and video material.

There are now 500+ channels on cable, on demand shows and the Internet.

Tossing out old regulations based on some sort of idea of completely separate media channels is more likely to generate more competition as different concerns struggle to make a multimedia presence.

Re:FCC creates its own necessity

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure a signal strength battle is all that winnable for Mr. Schmoe, beyond a trivially small area.

I'm a bit confused here

[Lockejaw]

It is not government's job to act in "society's interest." Government's job is to protect individual rights. This proposed action would do the exact opposite.

So... GP says government should protect society. You say it should instead protect individuals.
Are these different sets of people or something?

Re:I'm a bit confused here

[heinousjay]

"Protecting" society is about keeping all people powerless as a means to prevent anyone from becoming too powerful. It seems like a good solution to the powerless, who generally favor it in droves. Obviously it is less attractive to those with power, unless they are in the central group that will maintain power over everyone else in an attempt to keep them powerless. Generally speaking, anyway. Like all applications to the real world, it's a question of degrees.

sole proprietorships

[falconwolf]

Your argument relies mostly on the fallacy that the law is morality

No, my point was that unlike what you said corporations were in fact granted charters when they served the public good, and that when they no longer did the charter could be revoked. Just because charters are no longer revoked doesn't make this untrue. Just as Thomas Jefferson warned about them, I am wary of corporations, and would like it for states to start revoking charters.

Falcon

Ropert Murdock

[falconwolf]

If Ropert Morduck wants to own every station in my market, let him! I won't be listening to any of that garbage. I have iPods, CDs and superior satellite radio. What do I need with a Ropert Murduck? Sounds like a skin condition. Throw another media outlet on the barbie, douche!

And what if Ropert Murdock also owned the satellite?

Falcon

wait, let me get this straight

[MadJo]

they are against a merger between XM and Sirius because it might become too big a player, but they want more consolidation for terrestrial radio? How does one correspond with the other? Or am I mistaken somehow?

tl;dr

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically, this is seven paragraphs of angry ranting from a self-centered BOOTSTRAPPER (as in "pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps", not the computer term)?

Yeah, seriously, Democracy should basically be mob rule, and, uh, if people have dangerous ideas, well then THEY'RE STUPID, UNEDUCATED, WE SHOULD EDUCATE THEM, SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Lemme guess, you're a supporter of that dude who supports the Janjaweed's non-genocidal efforts in Darfur, right? That senile dude from Texas? Yeah, only people too broken to show even basic compassion for anybody other than themselves support him, so it makes sense. Show us on the doll where Daddy touched you, Lord Xenu...

Confessions of a Covert Agent

[Opinion2k]

"I secretly worked with the world's most powerful media companies to get you to believe what "they" want you to believe. The media is the most efficient weapon of tyranny and oppression ever created. No need to physically control populations anymore when you can do it mentally - program it in, internalize the rules."

[...]

"4. Get people into the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) who will smash the current media ownership rules. The concentration of media ownership is the foundation of the covert power structure. Without that, the whole thing is a house of cards. That's why the FCC is currently trying to ram through rules that will further consolidate media ownership before the Bush administration leaves office. As part of this, it is pivotal that we protect the open architecture of the Internet. The media belongs to the people, as does the government, in theory anyway, but we need an information system that actually serves the public interest."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7525

He's douchebag

[bogie]

I've seen the few public sessions he's attended on this and it is just so clear that he is a total douchebag running his own personal agenda(supervised by big business of course). The democrats on committee are against it, the public is clearly against it and yet there he goes in a total rush to force more consolidation. It's very sad and frustrating to see someone so who has been paid off(either now or in the very near future from big media) sit there and lie to our faces. You can watch a summary and a great piece of video here http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11162007/profile2.html

I'm going to take this opportunity..

[ThEATrE]

to plug Media Matters hosted by Bob Mcchesney. A weekly radio show that has some really great guests, and all the content is always available online.

http://www.will.uiuc.edu/am/mediamatters/

Mods, feel free to ignore my post as usual.

media monopolies

[falconwolf]

Anyone could start one, but competing with a large monopoly like that is impossible. They would use every trick in the book to destroy competition.

Oh really? The big media companies of today are different companies from 20 years ago. Check this out, "Does Rupert Murdoch control the media? Does anyone?". If there are problems with what TFA says then point them out, don't just trash it because who wrote or published it.

Falcon

Re:media monopolies

[spun]

It's not just the companies involved or the straight percentages. Media is a far larger market now, and worldwide, so even though the top ten companies own only a little more, percentage wise, they own a much larger mindshare. And even that is a minor point. The article doesn't look at the composition of the boards. Those ten companies aren't really competing, they are controlled by a small group of individuals. Most board members sit on the boards of several companies.

About the source, I'll just say that when you start with a desired conclusion, it isn't hard to come up with data to support it. Reason isn't interested in finding out if free markets are they best, they take that on faith. They are out to prove what they already believe.

Re:media monopolies

[falconwolf]

Those ten companies aren't really competing, they are controlled by a small group of individuals. Most board members sit on the boards of several companies.

Would you care to prove that? Say, by naming the board members of each company then pointing out each board a person sits on. Start with say NBC, or more correctly General Electric which owns NBC. Then name what boards other than Walt Disney, which owns ABC, Steve Jobs sits on. Now about CBS, owned by Viacom, here's Viacom's board of directors.. To make is easier here's Disney's board of directors. Here's GE's Board of Directors.

I bet you won't find many directors that sit on more than one media company's board of directors, never mind "several".

About the source, I'll just say that when you start with a desired conclusion, it isn't hard to come up with data to support it. Reason isn't interested in finding out if free markets are they best, they take that on faith. They are out to prove what they already believe.

Exactly what I expected, you rag on who did the study not on what faults, if any, the study had despite my having asked you not too do so. Even opposed scientists critique research and studies not the views of the opposing scientists.

Falcon

Re:media monopolies

[spun]

Scientists are quick to point out that, say, intelligent design isn't science. And neither is this, it's propaganda from people who want to prove that free markets always work. As for the directors, you'll need to give me a few days. I used to have a link to a great web program that would diagram the connections between the boards of any fortune five hundred companies. It was truly eye opening. But it hasn't been working for the last few years, so I'll need to find some other sources.

Regulation and competition aren't

[falconwolf]

necessarily opposites. In reality it all comes down to the nature of the regulation and what intended mission of the regulation is. If your regulation is to limit anti-competitive behaviour, ensure the prevention of dilution of free-speech and ensure that companies operate within the social structure of the country, then I can only see it as a good thing. If your regulation ensures all the opposite, then I can see why you wouldn't want it.

True, however a lot of regulations today in the US do limit competition. As with regulations from the FCC.

Falcon