What is wrong with the FCC's news monitoring

[dblack]

If media aren't doing anything wrong, they have nothing to fear ...

 

[Pogo]

ROFL

TM level for sure...

Hmm, find pre-internet actions? Let me see what I can do.

I remember KABC in Los Angeles getting fined under the Fairness Doctrine - actually for lack of conservative content. But documenting this could be a challenge.

Hey, everything that doesn't exist "could be a challenge". I'm preeeeety sure the Internets do contain archives that go back before Al Gore invented it, so that's no excuse.

The FD didn't work that way anyway. Nobody monitored or tallied up "conservative content" or "liberal content" -- as if there could possibly be a way to do that. What the FD did is if I owned KABC and went on its airwaves to slander you, or even just to pick apart the flaws in your posts, then you would have the right to respond on those same airwaves. For a real life example, and I'm repeating myself, Joe McCarthy used it to respond to Edward R. Murrow's "See it Now" critique of him in 1954. CBS gave McCarthy an entire program to make his response.

In other words it's like the nature of this message board: when I write this post, you get to respond; I don't get a monologue.

Could that be because the fairness doctrine wasn't about making sure that a station actually presented both conservative and liberal viewpoints? Since you were just pretending you work n broadcasting, you would actually know that the fairness doctrine required stations to provide coverage of "controversial content" and to provide people a chance to reply to whatever topic they covered.

What Is The Fairness Doctrine? : FCC History and Policies, Fairness Doctrine

Since you are a brain dead idiot I am sure you will argue this isn't about content, even though it clearly is, so feel free to make a fool out of yourself.

By the way, if you read that link I provided you will see that another regulation exists that affects content, the equal time rule. That is the one that tells them that they have to provide equal time to every politician running for office.

1. Like the FD, Equal Time (which carries myriad exceptions) does not control content. It just says who gets invited. Perhaps you're too stupid to understand the concept that allowing some party to speak is not controlling what they can or can't say.

2. Every station, since it's licensed to use the public airwaves, is required to provide some kind of community-interest content. Neither the nature nor the volume of that content is specified, it's left intentionally vague. Come license renewal time a station's application narrative will include every time they aired a city council meeting at 4 am when no one would be listening and every PSA they pepper in between the music. That's why they do it. It didn't require that content to be controversial. That's bullshit. So when you ask "Could that be because the fairness doctrine wasn't about making sure that a station actually presented both conservative and liberal viewpoints?", exactly -- that's what I just said.

3. it's revealing that you keep going to non-broadcast, non-informed sites to try to make points. I've seen this About.com page before; it's riddled with errors (example: "Communications Act of 1937" was actually 1934).

4. I have worked in broadcasting for roughly 25 years, including those license renewals, and held multiple FCC licenses since the Johnson Administration, so you can go fuck yourself.

5. Try reading this thread sober some day.

 

[HenryBHough]

OK, 25 years is a tad beyond hobbyist status - so long as all of those years were full time, not just fill-in between selling insurance or used cars. If those 25 years count backward from today then they all fell during the period after the Fairness Doctrine had gone the way of the spark gap transmitter.

Still, anyone who actually did air work would never go all potty-mouth anywhere in public. It tends to become habitual and often results in sudden termination. Perhaps sales? Janitorial? Traffic?

An interesting side effect of FCC content meddling lead to a really nasty conundrum for broadcasters. Political time had to be sold at the lowest available rate to any candidate and any candidate doing their own ads could say anything they wanted, even the most vile filth, and the broadcaster couldn't filter it in any way or change a single word. Conflict with obscenity rules! Led to some interesting court cases.

True, though, that The FCC did not monitor for that stuff. They relied only upon dealing with listener complaints. At one time that was reliable but later in the game it became clear that various special-agenda groups were mobilizing to monitor and (when it became reasonably easy) record every word in hopes of stirring the pot at license renewal time. Some of them front groups for an entity intent on challenging a renewal and grabbing a license for free.

What made some of the Fairness Doctrine seem fair was that radio and especially TV were "scarce" since there were relatively few licenses and building a facility was expensive. In addition, of course, to using "the public's air"....the use of which later came to be heavily taxed in the form of license fees. Remember, there were exceptions for "bona fide" news broadcasts the definition of which was subject to a lot of discussion. Investigative reporting was taboo because it could be called "commentary" and trash the whole newscast as far as being "bona fide" was concerned.

SOME of the things that brought down The Fairness Doctrine included the constitutional argument that, in order to be fair, it had to be applied to all media. Radio. TV. Magazines. Newspapers. Anything that used the public anything. Roads. Airplanes in flight. Especially U.S. Mail. Plainly unconstitutional and once that argument was made the party was over. To make the cheese more binding, The FCC granted licenses willy-nilly, going from hundreds of AM stations to thousands. Then FM took off and again licenses fell like snow upon the land. Scarcity? Not hardly. To a lesser degree UHF did the same when it became workable (more channels available to allocate).

Key here is that currently The FCC acts only in response to:

Technical violations: frequency, power, directional pattern problems, failure to change power/go directional at appropriate times (AM). These may be brought to attention by public complaints or the very few inspections The FCC ever does. Various subsets according to service - FM, TV, etc.

Paper violations. Inadequate (or missing) public inspection files; posting licenses in all the right places. Giving proper notice of pending renewals.

Complaints concerning obscenity. Even these have been attenuated in light of recent court decisions.

Key here is that content is hands-off for FCC inspectors visiting a facility. They can monitor stations for technical compliance but not for content.

What's being proposed (OK, "was" but we know it'll be back when the heat's off) is contracting out monitoring for content and a plan to enforce somebody's idea of what's fair and balanced. Naturally someone with a political agenda though none would openly admit it.

And that's wrong.

Basis of these opinions? Broadcast since 1959. Announcing. News. Engineering, AM/FM/VHF TV including chief engineer on radio side. Program management. Sales in broadcast equipment, domestic and international. Instructor for various SMPTE and SBE seminars. Now retired and enjoying see what's happening to the industry....being very glad to be out of it.

 

[Pogo]

OK, 25 years is a tad beyond hobbyist status - so long as all of those years were full time, not just fill-in between selling insurance or used cars. If those 25 years count backward from today then they all fell during the period after the Fairness Doctrine had gone the way of the spark gap transmitter.

Still, anyone who actually did air work would never go all potty-mouth anywhere in public. It tends to become habitual and often results in sudden termination. Perhaps sales? Janitorial? Traffic?

An interesting side effect of FCC content meddling lead to a really nasty conundrum for broadcasters. Political time had to be sold at the lowest available rate to any candidate and any candidate doing their own ads could say anything they wanted, even the most vile filth, and the broadcaster couldn't filter it in any way or change a single word. Conflict with obscenity rules! Led to some interesting court cases.

True, though, that The FCC did not monitor for that stuff. They relied only upon dealing with listener complaints. At one time that was reliable but later in the game it became clear that various special-agenda groups were mobilizing to monitor and (when it became reasonably easy) record every word in hopes of stirring the pot at license renewal time. Some of them front groups for an entity intent on challenging a renewal and grabbing a license for free.

What made some of the Fairness Doctrine seem fair was that radio and especially TV were "scarce" since there were relatively few licenses and building a facility was expensive. In addition, of course, to using "the public's air"....the use of which later came to be heavily taxed in the form of license fees. Remember, there were exceptions for "bona fide" news broadcasts the definition of which was subject to a lot of discussion. Investigative reporting was taboo because it could be called "commentary" and trash the whole newscast as far as being "bona fide" was concerned.

SOME of the things that brought down The Fairness Doctrine included the constitutional argument that, in order to be fair, it had to be applied to all media. Radio. TV. Magazines. Newspapers. Anything that used the public anything. Roads. Airplanes in flight. Especially U.S. Mail. Plainly unconstitutional and once that argument was made the party was over. To make the cheese more binding, The FCC granted licenses willy-nilly, going from hundreds of AM stations to thousands. Then FM took off and again licenses fell like snow upon the land. Scarcity? Not hardly. To a lesser degree UHF did the same when it became workable (more channels available to allocate).

Key here is that currently The FCC acts only in response to:

Technical violations: frequency, power, directional pattern problems, failure to change power/go directional at appropriate times (AM). These may be brought to attention by public complaints or the very few inspections The FCC ever does. Various subsets according to service - FM, TV, etc.

Paper violations. Inadequate (or missing) public inspection files; posting licenses in all the right places. Giving proper notice of pending renewals.

Complaints concerning obscenity. Even these have been attenuated in light of recent court decisions.

Key here is that content is hands-off for FCC inspectors visiting a facility. They can monitor stations for technical compliance but not for content.

What's being proposed (OK, "was" but we know it'll be back when the heat's off) is contracting out monitoring for content and a plan to enforce somebody's idea of what's fair and balanced. Naturally someone with a political agenda though none would openly admit it.

And that's wrong.

Basis of these opinions? Broadcast since 1959. Announcing. News. Engineering, AM/FM/VHF TV including chief engineer on radio side. Program management. Sales in broadcast equipment, domestic and international. Instructor for various SMPTE and SBE seminars. Now retired and enjoying see what's happening to the industry....being very glad to be out of it.

Henry, are you addressing me? I can't tell since you don't use quotes but if you are, take a look at how that troll yaps after me with "brain dead idiot" and all that other shit. That's all he ever does, so if I talk back to him that way it's because he's earned it. It's got nothing in the world to do with my on-air style.

"Sales- janitorial - traffic"? Well I've done some traffic, lots and lots of production, anchored live events including national, produced live remotes, lots of on-air shifts, spots, engineering, voiceovers, program directing, development directing, and lots and lots of mundane paperwork, including license renewals and a CPB application. Sorry, never been a janitor and never did sales. Sales isn't radio anyway. And I got my first ham license in 1966.

And no, those (broadcast) years straddle both sides of the FD, as I said earlier. You don't count backwards from today because I'm not in it today. And as I mentioned, changes in FD application made zero difference in anything I did or saw in my career. Zero.

I still disagree with the premise of comparing broadcast with newspapers using the public roads, etc. The use of public roads, telephone lines, etc, is not finite in the way that broadcast space is. If I start a newspaper, it doesn't prevent you from starting a newspaper in the same place. That makes them apples and oranges. We both know the FD never did apply to other media outside broadcasting, exactly for that reason. I've heard that argument before (it's in that paper that Windbag linked earlier too) but it just doesn't wash.

Most of what you've written in the middle seems accurate (where was this Henry before?) until your conclusion at the end, which from strictly a logic standpoint is the same old probability fallacy that this thread started with, i.e. "If X is done, Y will happen". A conclusion in endless search of a basis. As noted earlier what the FCC is going for with this study is part of what they're required to do by Congress. The fact that a few demagogues want to sell newspapers by jumping to baseless conclusions need not concern us.

 

[American_Jihad]

UW journalism center defends involvement in ‘inappropriate’ FCC study

By M.D. Kittle / February 25, 2014

OBAMA’S LOBBYIST: FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is a former lobbyist for big cable and wireless companies. His commission has been on the hot seat of late for a proposed Critical Information Needs study that critics say is just more government treading on First Amendment rights.

...

Even for a Democrat-controlled FCC serving in a Democrat administration that has been downright prickly about opposition to its agenda (See: Internal Revenue Service and AP phone records monitoring), the study screams of government intrusion.

Rieder rates the study as a “misguided plan to stick its unwelcome nose into newsrooms of America and explore how journalists are doing their jobs.” That’s a particularly troubling prospect for broadcast news outlets, which must go through the FCC licensure process to exist.

“How anyone even came up with this idea, let alone how it was put into motion, is hard to fathom,” Rieder wrote in a piece published Monday. “Not to go all (tea party) on you, but those questions are none of the government’s business. The last thing we need is journalism cops flooding into newsrooms to check up on how the sausage is being made. That’s particularly true when the journalism cops are dispatched by the outfit that grants licenses to television and radio stations.”

“Fortunately, the FCC, under heavy fire — particularly in the conservative media and on Capitol Hill — for this boneheaded, intrusive initiative, is now in full retreat mode,” he added.

...

UW journalism center defends involvement in 'inappropriate' FCC study « Watchdog.org

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Hey, everything that doesn't exist "could be a challenge". I'm preeeeety sure the Internets do contain archives that go back before Al Gore invented it, so that's no excuse.

The FD didn't work that way anyway. Nobody monitored or tallied up "conservative content" or "liberal content" -- as if there could possibly be a way to do that. What the FD did is if I owned KABC and went on its airwaves to slander you, or even just to pick apart the flaws in your posts, then you would have the right to respond on those same airwaves. For a real life example, and I'm repeating myself, Joe McCarthy used it to respond to Edward R. Murrow's "See it Now" critique of him in 1954. CBS gave McCarthy an entire program to make his response.

In other words it's like the nature of this message board: when I write this post, you get to respond; I don't get a monologue.

Could that be because the fairness doctrine wasn't about making sure that a station actually presented both conservative and liberal viewpoints? Since you were just pretending you work n broadcasting, you would actually know that the fairness doctrine required stations to provide coverage of "controversial content" and to provide people a chance to reply to whatever topic they covered.

What Is The Fairness Doctrine? : FCC History and Policies, Fairness Doctrine

Since you are a brain dead idiot I am sure you will argue this isn't about content, even though it clearly is, so feel free to make a fool out of yourself.

By the way, if you read that link I provided you will see that another regulation exists that affects content, the equal time rule. That is the one that tells them that they have to provide equal time to every politician running for office.

1. Like the FD, Equal Time (which carries myriad exceptions) does not control content. It just says who gets invited. Perhaps you're too stupid to understand the concept that allowing some party to speak is not controlling what they can or can't say.

2. Every station, since it's licensed to use the public airwaves, is required to provide some kind of community-interest content. Neither the nature nor the volume of that content is specified, it's left intentionally vague. Come license renewal time a station's application narrative will include every time they aired a city council meeting at 4 am when no one would be listening and every PSA they pepper in between the music. That's why they do it. It didn't require that content to be controversial. That's bullshit. So when you ask "Could that be because the fairness doctrine wasn't about making sure that a station actually presented both conservative and liberal viewpoints?", exactly -- that's what I just said.

3. it's revealing that you keep going to non-broadcast, non-informed sites to try to make points. I've seen this About.com page before; it's riddled with errors (example: "Communications Act of 1937" was actually 1934).

4. I have worked in broadcasting for roughly 25 years, including those license renewals, and held multiple FCC licenses since the Johnson Administration, so you can go fuck yourself.

5. Try reading this thread sober some day.

1. Once again, the Fairness Doctrine required stations to cover controversial topics, and provide a forum for rebuttals. That, like it or not, is content.
2. The fact that they do not specify the content does not mean that they do not regulate content. On the other hand, I am sure you also believe that the fact that the government requires people to buy insurance doesn't mean they are taking over health care.
3. It is stupid that you think that the only sites that are qualified to anything are the ones you personally approve of.
4. I don't give a fuck what job you held, or for how long, you are still stupid.
5. Why? Did I miss something you didn't say?

 

[Pogo]

1. No, it didn't.

The fact that they do not specify the content does not mean that they do not regulate content.

Yeah, actually it does. Idiot.

 

[Pogo]

UW journalism center defends involvement in ‘inappropriate’ FCC study

By M.D. Kittle / February 25, 2014

OBAMA’S LOBBYIST: FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is a former lobbyist for big cable and wireless companies. His commission has been on the hot seat of late for a proposed Critical Information Needs study that critics say is just more government treading on First Amendment rights.

...

Even for a Democrat-controlled FCC serving in a Democrat administration that has been downright prickly about opposition to its agenda (See: Internal Revenue Service and AP phone records monitoring), the study screams of government intrusion.

Rieder rates the study as a “misguided plan to stick its unwelcome nose into newsrooms of America and explore how journalists are doing their jobs.” That’s a particularly troubling prospect for broadcast news outlets, which must go through the FCC licensure process to exist.

“How anyone even came up with this idea, let alone how it was put into motion, is hard to fathom,” Rieder wrote in a piece published Monday. “Not to go all (tea party) on you, but those questions are none of the government’s business. The last thing we need is journalism cops flooding into newsrooms to check up on how the sausage is being made. That’s particularly true when the journalism cops are dispatched by the outfit that grants licenses to television and radio stations.”

“Fortunately, the FCC, under heavy fire — particularly in the conservative media and on Capitol Hill — for this boneheaded, intrusive initiative, is now in full retreat mode,” he added.

...

UW journalism center defends involvement in 'inappropriate' FCC study « Watchdog.org

Blogosphere goes Danth's Law?

Check that letter from Wheeler I linked a while back, Jizzhat. It's from two weeks ago and FCC was already acknowledging and addressing problems with the Social Solutions proposal then. Before all this fake kerfuffle. It's in the letter. Your hair-on-fire blogwags are playing Shoot the Wounded.

Oh wait, that would require you actually reading a thread. What was I thinking...

 

[Pogo]

What was the fairness doctrine about then, oh he who is never wrong because he never said what he said.

P: "It's always been that way".
Q: "Has not! You're lying!"
P: "OK, prove me wrong. Show an example."
(pregnant pause)
Q: "well ... uh... what was it about then?"

(this, after I've already made about 352 posts on what it was about, including right here on this page)

Except that I actually provided a link that shows you don't know what you are talking about, so you can now go back and pretend you never said it.

Bullshit. You provided nothing. I challenged you to come up with something I already know doesn't exist, but you're too much of a jackass to admit you fucked up. You've never done that even once, have you?

Yet you keep issuing a fucking challenge to people to prove that it happened. Does that mean you are using a straw man argument, because you are the only fucking idiot on this thread I have even seen raise the issue.

A challenge (or question) cannot be a strawman, dolt. A strawman requires an assertion. When I challenge you to prove something you assert, I do so because I already know you can't because you're wrong. Your failure to find such an example should demonstrate that even to you. But you'll never admit it.

 

[American_Jihad]

FCC grasping for relevancy with net neutrality rules​

By Josh Peterson / February 24, 2014

In the same week a Federal Communications Commission plan to monitor newsrooms took the spotlight, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced the agency would also once again seek to impose so-called “net neutrality” rules on Internet service providers.

Leading an agency created during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration to oversee the nation’s wireline and radio communications, Wheeler’s announcement reveals a bureaucratic machine grasping for relevance in the Internet age.

Policy advocates on the right and left cried foul in January when a federal appeals court struck down two out of three of the agency’s net neutrality rules. The rules prevented ISPs from blocking or slowing down content and network traffic.

Progressives argue that without the rules, ISPs pose a threat to free speech and would unfairly discriminate against content providers.

Free market advocates have fought hard for years against the push to regulate the Internet, defending its explosive success as a product of a dynamic marketplace flourishing under deregulation and consumer choice.

The court did, however, recognize the agency’s authority under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to promote broadband deployment and competition — an avenue by which the agency is now using to justify a rewrite of its rules.

Wheeler, in his announcement Wednesday, also kept open the possibility of reclassifying how the FCC categorizes Internet service providers, which would bring the companies under a stricter regulatory regime akin to the days of the mid-20th century.

...

The White House also recently affirmed its support of Wheeler, an Obama loyalist; President Obama campaigned on net neutrality in 2008.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, a Republican, likened the agency’s renewed attempt to write net neutrality rules to the movie “Groundhog Day,” where the main character is forced to repeatedly relive the same day.

FCC grasping for relevancy with net neutrality rules « Watchdog.org

 

[hazlnut]

PRAVDA here we come!

It was only a matter of time before the moronic comparison was made.

Well done Tiny.

 

[Uncensored2008]

>> The Commission has no intention of regulating political or other speech ofjournalists or broadcasters by way of this Research Design, any resulting study, or through any other means. The development of the Research Design was intended to aid the Commission in meeting its obligations under Section 257 of the Communications Act. Section 257 directs the Commission to identify and eliminate "market entry barriers for entrepreneurs and other small businesses in the provision and ownership of telecommunications services and information services." The statutory provision expressly links our obligation to identify market barriers with the responsibility to "promote the policies and purposes of this chapter favoring diversity of media voices." Finally, Section 257 requires the Commission to review and report to Congress on "any regulations prescribed to eliminate barriers within its jurisdiction ... that can be prescribed consistent with the public interest, convenience, and necessity." <<

- Tom Wheeler, FCC Chairman, excerpted from a letter (here in full) to Fred Upton, Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, 2/14 (emphasis added)

Far from being "none of its business", the project is part of what the FCC is required by law to do. And to correct our own term, this isn't even a formal study; it's what they call a "research design", which is a precursor to a formal study.


But never mind all that, here's the quick summary --- Newsroom police! Booga Booga!

If you like your insurance plan, you can keep it.

If you like your doctor, you can keep him.

Yeah, we can take the promises of democrats to the bank.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Hey, everything that doesn't exist "could be a challenge". I'm preeeeety sure the Internets do contain archives that go back before Al Gore invented it, so that's no excuse.

The reason I remember KABC getting fined is that they put Bruce Herschensohn on to rebut the far left

The FD didn't work that way anyway. Nobody monitored or tallied up "conservative content" or "liberal content" -- as if there could possibly be a way to do that. What the FD did is if I owned KABC and went on its airwaves to slander you, or even just to pick apart the flaws in your posts, then you would have the right to respond on those same airwaves.

And if you didn't give me airtime, and I filed a complaint, then the FCC fined you and monitored you for complience.

I realize you want to whitewash this.

For a real life example, and I'm repeating myself, Joe McCarthy used it to respond to Edward R. Murrow's "See it Now" critique of him in 1954. CBS gave McCarthy an entire program to make his response.

My god, an entire half-hour to respond to years of slander by Edward R. Goebbels? How magnanimous.

In other words it's like the nature of this message board: when I write this post, you get to respond; I don't get a monologue.

{The Supreme Court proved willing to uphold the doctrine, eking out space for it alongside the First Amendment. In 1969's Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, journalist Fred Cook sued a Pennsylvania Christian Crusade radio program after a radio host attacked him on air. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court upheld Cook's right to an on-air response under the Fairness Doctrine, arguing that nothing in the First Amendment gives a broadcast license holder the exclusive right to the airwaves they operate on. But when Florida tried to hold newspapers to a similar standard in 1974's Miami Herald Publishing Co. V. Tornillo, the Supreme Court was less receptive. Justices agreed that newspapers — which don't require licenses or airwaves to operate — face theoretically unlimited competition, making the protection of the Fairness Doctrine unneeded.

Read more: A Brief History Of the Fairness Doctrine - TIME A Brief History Of the Fairness Doctrine - TIME
}

Try again....

 

[Pogo]

{The Supreme Court proved willing to uphold the doctrine, eking out space for it alongside the First Amendment. In 1969's Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, journalist Fred Cook sued a Pennsylvania Christian Crusade radio program after a radio host attacked him on air. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court upheld Cook's right to an on-air response under the Fairness Doctrine, arguing that nothing in the First Amendment gives a broadcast license holder the exclusive right to the airwaves they operate on. But when Florida tried to hold newspapers to a similar standard in 1974's Miami Herald Publishing Co. V. Tornillo, the Supreme Court was less receptive. Justices agreed that newspapers &#8212; which don't require licenses or airwaves to operate &#8212; face theoretically unlimited competition, making the protection of the Fairness Doctrine unneeded.

Read more: A Brief History Of the Fairness Doctrine - TIME A Brief History Of the Fairness Doctrine - TIME}

pppffft. Your comparison is absolute bullshit. I've been stressing thoughout the thread (read it) that the FD has never had anything to do with print media. It was never part of the design, never part of the basis, and NO print media has ever been under any purview of the FCC, ever. Any lawyer who would try to make that case against a newspaper is gaming the system. And the reasoning in your link that it doesn't apply (finite airspace) is exactly what I've been saying throughout. DUH!?

Hey, everything that doesn't exist "could be a challenge". I'm preeeeety sure the Internets do contain archives that go back before Al Gore invented it, so that's no excuse.

The reason I remember KABC getting fined is that they put Bruce Herschensohn on to rebut the far left

I don't know from Herschensohns but that would be a programming decision -- where's the fine?

The FD didn't work that way anyway. Nobody monitored or tallied up "conservative content" or "liberal content" -- as if there could possibly be a way to do that. What the FD did is if I owned KABC and went on its airwaves to slander you, or even just to pick apart the flaws in your posts, then you would have the right to respond on those same airwaves.

And if you didn't give me airtime, and I filed a complaint, then the FCC fined you and monitored you for complience.

Again, both Henry and I have noted this, the FCC doesn't "monitor for compliance". It responds to complaints. The initiative is on the public, not the agency. But the first half is correct; I would have to give you airtime. Just as I have to let you respond to these posts.

Should I be able to just delete your posts instead of answering them?
See those buttons that say "quote" and "post reply"? That's the operational equivalent of the Fairness Doctrine. Should the site remove them?

For a real life example, and I'm repeating myself, Joe McCarthy used it to respond to Edward R. Murrow's "See it Now" critique of him in 1954. CBS gave McCarthy an entire program to make his response.

My god, an entire half-hour to respond to years of slander by Edward R. Goebbels? How magnanimous.

So in the line above you whine that an aggrieved party should not get time to respond; now you're arguing he doesn't get enough.... ?
Well that's about the fastest 180 I've seen all day. Pass the Dramamine.

FWIW McCarthy got exactly the same time that Murrow had for his exposé. If you have "years of slander" or "years" of anything, let's see evidence. Toss it in with that elusive KABC fine and save on shipping.

Hey here's a question. ---

Could someone explain to me why conservatives hate the idea of a Fairness Doctrine if the media is as liberal as they say it is? Wouldn't a balancing factor work to your ideological advantage?



Seriously, you guys are all over the reasoning map. It's like being a passenger in car stuck in a traffic circle.

(/offtopic)

 

[Quantum Windbag]

1. No, it didn't.

The fact that they do not specify the content does not mean that they do not regulate content.

Yeah, actually it does. Idiot.

This is from the guy that sends a neg rep demanding that I learn how to debate.

Tell me something, Oh Great Master of Nothing, how is requiring a station to cover controversial topics, even if they don't want to, not about content? Why does the Supreme Court disagree with you?

 

[Pogo]

1. No, it didn't.

The fact that they do not specify the content does not mean that they do not regulate content.

Yeah, actually it does. Idiot.

This is from the guy that sends a neg rep demanding that I learn how to debate.

Tell me something, Oh Great Master of Nothing, how is requiring a station to cover controversial topics, even if they don't want to, not about content? Why does the Supreme Court disagree with you?

That refers to your relentless crutch of ad hominem. If you ever figure your way out of that crutch you might be ready for your first debate.

And again, for at least the third time, stations were not "required to cover controversial topics". How the fuck would you measure that? Again, you get what you pay for in terms of sources. About.com is like Wiki-wannabe without a proofreader.

Depending on what defines "controversial" (what defines "obscenity"?), the radio where I worked during the active Fairness Doctrine either never covered controversial topics, OR we did cover them literally every day and never found ourselves forced to bring in a rebuttal. But then again we never went on the air and slandered anybody.

(/still offtopic)

 

[Quantum Windbag]

UW journalism center defends involvement in ‘inappropriate’ FCC study

By M.D. Kittle / February 25, 2014

OBAMA’S LOBBYIST: FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is a former lobbyist for big cable and wireless companies. His commission has been on the hot seat of late for a proposed Critical Information Needs study that critics say is just more government treading on First Amendment rights.

...

Even for a Democrat-controlled FCC serving in a Democrat administration that has been downright prickly about opposition to its agenda (See: Internal Revenue Service and AP phone records monitoring), the study screams of government intrusion.

Rieder rates the study as a “misguided plan to stick its unwelcome nose into newsrooms of America and explore how journalists are doing their jobs.” That’s a particularly troubling prospect for broadcast news outlets, which must go through the FCC licensure process to exist.

“How anyone even came up with this idea, let alone how it was put into motion, is hard to fathom,” Rieder wrote in a piece published Monday. “Not to go all (tea party) on you, but those questions are none of the government’s business. The last thing we need is journalism cops flooding into newsrooms to check up on how the sausage is being made. That’s particularly true when the journalism cops are dispatched by the outfit that grants licenses to television and radio stations.”

“Fortunately, the FCC, under heavy fire — particularly in the conservative media and on Capitol Hill — for this boneheaded, intrusive initiative, is now in full retreat mode,” he added.

...

UW journalism center defends involvement in 'inappropriate' FCC study « Watchdog.org

Blogosphere goes Danth's Law?

Check that letter from Wheeler I linked a while back, Jizzhat. It's from two weeks ago and FCC was already acknowledging and addressing problems with the Social Solutions proposal then. Before all this fake kerfuffle. It's in the letter. Your hair-on-fire blogwags are playing Shoot the Wounded.

Oh wait, that would require you actually reading a thread. What was I thinking...

Only an idiot would be reassured by a jackbooted thug telling him that he has no intention of bashing his head open.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

P: "It's always been that way".
Q: "Has not! You're lying!"
P: "OK, prove me wrong. Show an example."
(pregnant pause)
Q: "well ... uh... what was it about then?"

(this, after I've already made about 352 posts on what it was about, including right here on this page)

Except that I actually provided a link that shows you don't know what you are talking about, so you can now go back and pretend you never said it.

Bullshit. You provided nothing. I challenged you to come up with something I already know doesn't exist, but you're too much of a jackass to admit you fucked up. You've never done that even once, have you?

Excuse me, asswipe. Tell me something, if you have actually been in broadcasting for 25 years, why am I the one that actually explained what the Fairness Doctrine was all about? All you did was scream about how it doesn't do what it actually does, and then run around screaming about it not ever causing a station to lose its license. Since I never said it did, and in fact pointed out that it wasn't part of the renewal process, you didn't challenge me to anything, even if you now claim you knew it doesn't exist.

Yet you keep issuing a fucking challenge to people to prove that it happened. Does that mean you are using a straw man argument, because you are the only fucking idiot on this thread I have even seen raise the issue.

A challenge (or question) cannot be a strawman, dolt. A strawman requires an assertion. When I challenge you to prove something you assert, I do so because I already know you can't because you're wrong. Your failure to find such an example should demonstrate that even to you. But you'll never admit it.

A challenge cannot be a straw man? Why the fuck not? Wouldn't issuing a challenge to find something you just claimed you knew does not exist be a set up for attacking anyone that responded to that challenge by destroying whatever argument they use? OR did you think you were the only person that knows how to debate?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

{The Supreme Court proved willing to uphold the doctrine, eking out space for it alongside the First Amendment. In 1969's Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, journalist Fred Cook sued a Pennsylvania Christian Crusade radio program after a radio host attacked him on air. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court upheld Cook's right to an on-air response under the Fairness Doctrine, arguing that nothing in the First Amendment gives a broadcast license holder the exclusive right to the airwaves they operate on. But when Florida tried to hold newspapers to a similar standard in 1974's Miami Herald Publishing Co. V. Tornillo, the Supreme Court was less receptive. Justices agreed that newspapers — which don't require licenses or airwaves to operate — face theoretically unlimited competition, making the protection of the Fairness Doctrine unneeded.

Read more: A Brief History Of the Fairness Doctrine - TIME A Brief History Of the Fairness Doctrine - TIME}

pppffft. Your comparison is absolute bullshit. I've been stressing thoughout the thread (read it) that the FD has never had anything to do with print media. It was never part of the design, never part of the basis, and NO print media has ever been under any purview of the FCC, ever.

Yet you keep telling everyone that, because you have worked in broadcasting for an imaginary 25 years, you know for a fact that when the FCC was conducting a survey on the content of print media, and actually going to ask why print media made the editorial decisions it did, it was all part of the FCC's job, and that anyone who questions you on that point is an idiot.

 

[Pogo]

UW journalism center defends involvement in ‘inappropriate’ FCC study

By M.D. Kittle / February 25, 2014

OBAMA’S LOBBYIST: FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is a former lobbyist for big cable and wireless companies. His commission has been on the hot seat of late for a proposed Critical Information Needs study that critics say is just more government treading on First Amendment rights.

...

Even for a Democrat-controlled FCC serving in a Democrat administration that has been downright prickly about opposition to its agenda (See: Internal Revenue Service and AP phone records monitoring), the study screams of government intrusion.

Rieder rates the study as a “misguided plan to stick its unwelcome nose into newsrooms of America and explore how journalists are doing their jobs.” That’s a particularly troubling prospect for broadcast news outlets, which must go through the FCC licensure process to exist.

“How anyone even came up with this idea, let alone how it was put into motion, is hard to fathom,” Rieder wrote in a piece published Monday. “Not to go all (tea party) on you, but those questions are none of the government’s business. The last thing we need is journalism cops flooding into newsrooms to check up on how the sausage is being made. That’s particularly true when the journalism cops are dispatched by the outfit that grants licenses to television and radio stations.”

“Fortunately, the FCC, under heavy fire — particularly in the conservative media and on Capitol Hill — for this boneheaded, intrusive initiative, is now in full retreat mode,” he added.

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UW journalism center defends involvement in 'inappropriate' FCC study « Watchdog.org

Blogosphere goes Danth's Law?

Check that letter from Wheeler I linked a while back, Jizzhat. It's from two weeks ago and FCC was already acknowledging and addressing problems with the Social Solutions proposal then. Before all this fake kerfuffle. It's in the letter. Your hair-on-fire blogwags are playing Shoot the Wounded.

Oh wait, that would require you actually reading a thread. What was I thinking...

Only an idiot would be reassured by a jackbooted thug telling him that he has no intention of bashing his head open.

Uh......
Yeah OK.....