Congress May Overturn FCC's Media Consolidation Plan 439
Spril writes "A congressional committee voted yesterday to prevent the FCC from allowing even more consolidation of the media industry. The original ruling was covered on Slashdot. The committee attached the pro-consumer proposal to a bill funding the Justice and State departments for 2004. But the Bush administration has threatened to veto the funding because they support ever-larger corporations owning ever-bigger chunks of the spectrum that theoretically belongs to the public. Clear Channel may need to cough up some more money for their lobbyists."
Call me cynical, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again, I might just be a cynic at the ripe old age of 25.
ahhhh.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I remember why I read slashdot, for the non-biased even-handed reporting. Now when are we going to see a mention of Fritz Hollings' membership in the democratic party?
Not a republican, dont agree with them, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice editorializing. Just tell us the story next time, okay?
That is not it, it is fundraising. (Score:5, Insightful)
Slant? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Slant? (Score:3, Insightful)
Consumers? Oh Christ I thought we were Citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a techie. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm waiting for the day... (Score:0, Insightful)
-russ
Re:I've pretty much ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I used to think NPR was the cleanest news source and I've even donated money to them. However, every news source must serve its master. NPR receives huge donations from biotech companies like Archer Daniels Midland ("The nature of what's to come" and "Supermarket to the world"). How can I trust NPR to give "fair and balanced" reporting about subjects like genetically engineered foods when they are ADM's bitch?
And then there was the whole fiasco about US Army psy-ops (i.e. propagandists) working as "interns" in NPR and CNN's news rooms.
Ironically, I still listen to NPR because, even though they are influenced (like every other news source), I find their subjects and spin the most appealing. I guess you have to pick your poison. Though I have been reading the BBC and Guardian UK news lately..
Re:I'm waiting for the day... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. But they also lobby congressmen to approve laws that take away your freedom to their advantage. And THAT's what he was taliking about.
more info... (Score:3, Insightful)
I heartily recommend their newsletter.
Re:What the fuck... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I've pretty much ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Canadian perspective (Score:2, Insightful)
The United States used to be a democracy, but it is less so now. This is only because of the recent apathy in the general population. Governments do whatever they want only when you allow them to.
There's nothing broken here (a right wing government, suppressive anti consumer legislation) that can't be undone once you get the people you want back into office.
I've been witness to this in Canada (both federally and provincially). Political parties that ruled wrecklessly can be made extinct if enough people are willing to make it their priority.
Re:Either party? Try the others... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I've pretty much ... (Score:1, Insightful)
I can see how a political scientist(tehehe, oxymoron) would be far from his expertise commenting on linguistics.
But a linguist of Chomsky's caliber has a deeper understanding of human nature from his expertise, and so can make political comments without leaving his area of expertise.
Regardless, Chomsky's area of expertise has nothing to do with systematic analysis of the media. Anyone can perform an analysis of the media using the scientific method; it requires no specific area of expertise.
Furthermore, the fact that anyone finds Chomsky's analysis way out there, dude is suprising to me, since his conclusions are quite obvious. The media does not exist to inform. Rather it exists to make a profit. So why wouldn't you expect most of the media to follow a capitalist agenda, marginalize accounts of atrocities by refugees, and not actively engage in investigative(read: expensive and costly) journalism?
Basically, Manufacturing Consent is nothing but stating the obvious.
Even Chomsky himself is not above his conclusions.
Partisan politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Text for those who don't want to clickI don't understand why there are so many Bush apologists from every camp, but I'd rather face facts that begin to pretend there are no differences between the two major parties regarding this issue.
Re:I've pretty much ... (Score:4, Insightful)
A liberal cheerleader? huh? I agree that they've gone from being stodgy and sometimes acceptable to sometimes sensationalist and completely bogus, but the only issues they are even remotely liberal on is when it comes to some minorities' civil rights. There is more liberal reporting in the Wall Street Journal and the Economist when it comes to anything else.
If I had to peg the NYT ideology I'd say it's conservative upper middle class. That's not the same as right wing christian ideology but it's still conservative.
Not that I care much about their ideology, the reporting has been so rotten over the last decade that it doesn't matter much. Except that it's still widely read since there is little else. (The Wash Post & the LA Times have been improving though, and the BBC website is marginaly acceptable for world news headlines.)
I don't give a f*ck. (Score:5, Insightful)
Once upon a time, folks finished out their evening singing around a piano or playing parolor games instead of stearing mindlessly into the hypnotizing blue light of the boob tube telling them what to think about and how to think about it.
Take a walk around your neighborhood some night and look at all the houses around 10pm. Seriously, go do it. It's surreal. All you'll see is the eerie blue glow in each and every house. The living rooms without curtains drawn will let you see that every house is now filled with overweight listless expressionless creatures plopped down on overstuffed furniture with their mouths half open. It's like the aliens came down to earth and took over our minds with glowing blue mind control devices. BUT WE DID IT TO OURSELVES!
Re:Piling on... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, but Bush's attitude after being elected is no surprise. It was always fairly obvious he didn't really earn his position. If he didn't earn his way then who did? Big business maybe? Special interests of the monied kind? This guy somehow feels conned, but only because he didn't pay attention to the obvious warning signs("Strategery", "Major League Asshole", lower GPA than befitting a President, etc.). Slick Willy was one, but at least he spent most of his life prepping to become a public servant. However disgraceful his corporate giveaways may have been, at least it was plausible he was going to fight for the interests of all the American people.
On a side, but related note, do you expect a person to agree with every single policy a president supports even after they helped vote him in office??
Nope. It never happens. But, like I said above, it seemed fairly obvious this guy didn't make it as far as he did fighting for the little guy.
Quit being so struthious.
Oh shit, where's the dictionary? It seems to me that people who voted for Bush and are surprised at his favoritism towards big money have been behaving rather struthiously (Did me use fancy word good?).
BTW: I voted, as well and bitch I will. I think W is a sucky Prez. Worse than that, I feel like he doesn't give one tex-mex turd about myself or others in this country that don't have a lot of dough. I don't believe he possesses the passion or wisdom required of a President and therefore don't believe he is actually passionate about 'his' agenda. This can only lead me to believe that he doesn't actually set or stand by his agenda. I also think this was pretty obvious from the get-go, necessitating the "Amen" post above.
xoxoxoxo
L5
Re:Isn't that the wrong choice...? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not just a radio thing, either. The city I live in, only has one cable TV company. Do you really think that's because no other entrepreneurs thought they could successfully compete with Comcast? Shyeeeah, right. It's the law: there can be only one.
We should either legally permit free market competition, or we should admit to ourselves that the media is part of government. Calling the present situation a free market, is just self-deceiving.
Re:Isn't that the wrong choice...? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure that the reason you only have one cable company in your town is because of some law passed... Cable infrastructure is very expensive to install and so few companies can afford to build it.
And even if there was a law, it's better probably to have a regulated monopoly and something on tv, other than 6 channels and a rooftop antenna, right?:) Thanks for your response.
Re:That is not it, it is fundraising. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I'm waiting for the day... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're so off-base it's not even funny. Comparing socialism and democracy is not legitimate, because socailism is an ECONOMIC system, and democracy is a POLITICAL system.
The opposites of socialism maybe capitalism, or anarchy.
Democracy on the other hand, can be contrasted with totalitarianism, or police state.
For example, it's widely recognized that many European countries are socialist democracies.
The US is somewhere between capitalism and socialism.. since we do regulate trade, and break up monopolies (sometimes), but don't have state-run companies (like in France, Germany, or China).
Companies don't take away freedoms, they persuade you to buy their product. If you don't like the deal they offer, you turn around and walk out. Only in the minds of regulators can a company monopolize an entire market.
Hmm... what would you call your local power company? Or how about Microsoft? They are monopolies, one is a regulated, natural monopoly, the other is not, and is coercive. (figuring out which one is which is left as an exercise to the reader). Both do exist thanx to the government, and are not going away anytime soon.
Welcome to the not-so-free-as-you-think market.
democracy is not equivalent to capitalism (Score:3, Insightful)
democracy and dictatorship/monarchy are opposite ends of another axis.
A state can be totalitarian and capitalist (fascism):
"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt
A state can be totalitarian and socialist (communism)
A state can be democratic and capitalist.
A state can be socalist and capitalist.
A state can be anywhere inbetween the two axis. The U.S. has both capitalist policies and socialist policies.
Here is a list of some of the socialist ones:
socialized armed forces
socialized water
socialized police
socialized fired department
social(ized) security
medicare
road building/maintanance
public waste and water treatment
public schools
I think the real problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, since you seem to be of the liberal persuasion and therefore may be likely to hop on and say that only liberals get the censor treatment and/or the media is highly conservative slanted let me point out one of my favourite examples: Some time ago, over a year, teh exact date escapes me there was a shooting on a university campus. The gunman was later aprehended. This was the extent of most of hte national coverage. They told you it happened, who the shooter was, who was shot, where it happened, and that the guy was caught.
Well all the major outlets omitted a major peice of the story and that was HOW the gunman was apprehended. What happened was teo students went ot their cars, got their guns, and faced off with teh unman and forced him to surrender (without shooting him). These weren't off duty cops, just normal students that had guns in their cars. So why was such an imortant fact left out by most publications? Not only is it relivant and interesting, it is a good human side to teh story and a good hero story, which papers love. I mean, they report when someone is shot by cops after a chase, or kills themselves, why not report this ending? Well the reason is that, by and large, most papers are very anti-gun (I've worked at a few).
The inital story casts guns in a bad light, one was taken on to a school, sacred ground, and used to kill people in cold blood. However the second part casts guns in a good light, they were used to help stop further killing. So that part got left out. Probably not even intentionally, I doubt the editor ordered the reporter to cut it. I am guessing it was simply ignored by the staff without really thinking about it.
So because of both deliberate pushing of views and agendas and unconcious decsions because of views, media outlets present their own slanted view, some more than others. What is important to recognise is that it happens, and happens all different ways. If you start getting teh persecution complex and feeling like your position is the down trodden one, then you get to ignoring teh omissions that they make teh otehr way, which are equally important.
Better than just writing (Score:3, Insightful)
please mod this up... (Score:5, Insightful)
We are not money-spending machines, and that is not our sole duty to our country - we are humans who live here, and this country is *our* country, as it says in our constitution...
Re:democracy is not equivalent to capitalism (Score:2, Insightful)
Not exactly; Fascism tends more towards each of those however. Capitalism is based on the idea of laissez faire; Totalitarianism is based on total control of everything. Obviously those two are contradictory.
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt
A private Power cannot easily become as powerful as the government through the free market. They will need an army that rivals that of the government, and even if they do try to spend the money on an army it probably wont sit too well with the stock holders(less profit for a while, and huge risk when the company goes up against the government; besides the shareholders are people too, and I dont think they want the corporation to rule every aspect of their lives).
A state can be socalist and capitalist.
You just contradicted what you said earlier.
Re:I almost forgot (Score:3, Insightful)
You do realise that if everyone blocked TV ads with Tivo, you'd have to:
1) Pay for that station
2) Pay more than currently for that station
3) Have ads delivered to you in another way
, right? Companies pay for adverts on TV because they think people watch them, not just for the novelty of it. If ad response rates go down, they aint gonna pay anymore.
Re:Is the democracy in the USA dead? (Score:2, Insightful)
2/3 of the population in this country disagreed with the impeachment.
Re:please mod this up... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I've pretty much ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The government of the United States was elected by the people. If you have a problem with the government, you have a problem with the Americans, since they put it in power. The government is acting under _their_ authority. And, notably, polls show most citizens support the actions of the government so far.
So, please spare us the rhetoric, and stop justifying your anti-American-ness by saying "just the government! Not you individual
Frankly, I think most American
Thanks!
-Erwos
Re:Isn't that the wrong choice...? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A revolutionary thought. (Score:3, Insightful)
Simpsons
King of the Hill
Futurama
(hmm.. all cartoons..)
Farscape (now reduced to once a week, Sundays at FRELLING MIDNIGHT)
I used to watch TV news all the time but now I get it from NPR or off the net. The TV news is way too right-wing biased, and the white house press corps is way too chickenshit to do their job anymore.
Equating "Media" & "Voice of People" Is Bogus (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand this obsession with equating the "media" with "the voice of the people".
First, there is no "people". We're just 300 million indviduals. Most of the time when someone starts emoting about "the people", he means "the people who agree with me".
Second, a media outlet reflects the views of its owners and the people who create the content. That's the way it has always been and that's the way it will remain. The "media" has never impartially reflected the views of every citizen, because that's impossible.
Third, I don't have much use for ClearChannel, but I wouldn't say business has "hijacked" airwaves owned by the public. Airwaves are uselss without a studio and a transmitter. Someone will always own those, What's the difference between a station owned by a business and a stationed owned by soething or someone else? Nothing, as far as I can see. The salient point is that they're owned.