Graphic adapted from Fox News
The communist inclinations of the Obama Administration are now fully exposed in a new effort to control media/public information by inserting government into the newsroom. So much for the First Amendment – expect jackboots any day now.
In a signed editorial opinion in opposition, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai writes in The Wall Street Journal that the agency will soon be studying ‘perceived station bias’ and ask about coverage choices.
Pai wrote: “News organizations often disagree about what Americans need to know. MSNBC, for example, apparently believes that traffic in Fort Lee, N.J., is the crisis of our time. Fox News, on the other hand, chooses to cover the September 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi more heavily than other networks. The American people, for their part, disagree about what they want to watch.
“But everyone should agree on this: The government has no place pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.
“Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission, where I am a commissioner, does not agree. Last May the FCC proposed an initiative to thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country. With its “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” or CIN, the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run. A field test in Columbia, S.C., is scheduled to begin this spring. (Emphasis added.)
“The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about “the process by which stories are selected” and how often stations cover “critical information needs,” along with “perceived station bias” and “perceived responsiveness to under-served populations.”
“How does the FCC plan to dig up all that information? First, the agency selected eight categories of “critical information” such as the “environment” and “economic opportunities,” that it believes local newscasters should cover. It plans to ask station managers, news directors, journalists, television anchors and on-air reporters to tell the government about their “news philosophy” and how the station ensures that the community gets critical information,” Pai wrote.
This is a blatant attempt to control coverage. It is illegal according to the First Amendment to the U.S Constitution and by all standards an attempt to institutionalize totalitarian control over information – hello communism – this is not going to be good for America.
Click here for more from The Wall Street Journal.
Media may object before they are awakened in the middle of the night for an “informal” chat or “inquisition” by authority, but can the free spirit of a people survive “Nineteen Eighty Four” in 2014?
The Fox News Headline: Critics want FCC media study thrown on ‘trash heap,’ skeptical of changes, click for the story.