Story from Investors Business Daily: The FCC has cooked up a plan to place researchers in U.S. newsrooms, supposedly to learn all about how editorial decisions are made. Any questions as to why the U.S. is falling in the free press rankings? As if illegal seizures of Associated Press phone records and the shadowy tailing of the mother of a Fox News reporter werent menacing enough, the Obama administration is going out of its way to institute a new intrusive surveillance of the press, as if the press wasnt supine enough. Ajit Pai, a commissioner with the Federal Communications Commission, warned this week in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that a plan to dispatch researchers into radio, television and even newspaper newsrooms called the Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs is still going forward, despite the grave danger it presented to the First Amendment. Pai warned that under the rationale of increasing minority representation in newsrooms, the FCC, which has the power to issue or not issue broadcasting licenses, would dispatch its researchers to newsrooms across America to seek their voluntary compliance about how news stories are decided, as well as wade into office politics looking for angry reporters whose story ideas were rejected as evidence of a shutout of minority views. Pai questioned if such a study could really be voluntary, given FCCs conflict of interest (and, he might have added, the Obama record of going after political opponents). The origin of the idea is a recrudescence of the Fairness Doctrine, inoperative since 1987 or so, to provide equal time to leftist points of view in broadcasting and other media that otherwise wouldnt have a willing audience in a free market. Its an idea so fraught with potential for abuse it ought to have news agencies screaming bloody murder. The very idea of Obama hipsters showing up in newsrooms, asking questions and judging if newspapers (over which they have no jurisdiction), radio and TV are sufficiently diverse is nothing short of thought control. But the reaction from the National Association of Broadcasters was mealy-mouthed. The FCC should reconsider qualitative sections of its study, it wrote. The FCC now says it will be closely reviewing the proposed research design to determine if an alternative approach is merited, as a result of Pais warning. Adweek actually reported that as a retreat. Its because of this dont-rock-the-boat attitude that Reporters Without Borders said the U.S. had one of the most significant declines in press freedom in the world last year, dropping 13 places to a wretched 46th in its newly released global ranking. If the FCC has its way, it can drop even further.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Feb 2014 12:53:15 +0000
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