FCC Orders Anti-Monopoly Report Destroyed 273
jagger writes "According to an article on MSNBC a report, written by two economists in the FCC's Media Bureau, showed local ownership of television stations adds almost five and one-half minutes of total news to broadcasts and more than three minutes of 'on-location' news. The conclusion is at odds with FCC arguments made when it voted in 2003 to increase the number of television stations a company could own in a single market. Senior managers at the agency ordered that 'every last piece' of the report be destroyed."
And? (Score:3, Insightful)
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot isn't "Surprises for Nerds". But living down to abyssmal expectations when handling telecomm policy is important news. Especially when the Republican Congress is facing losing reelection in only 7 weeks, on November 7, 2006. It's your chance to surprise them for a change.
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
100% Flamebait
I quote Bush saying it's his job to keep expectations low. I point out that "news" isn't necessarily "surprises". I point out that the news here is Bush living down to low expectations.
Then I point out that we can do something about it in 7 weeks by voting.
Which part do the TrollMods mod down as "Flamebait"? Of course it's the part about voting, which scares the hell out of them. All these Republican TrollMods have is power abuse. No surprises, not even disappointing, not really news.
Take it away from their elected versions Tuesday, November 7.
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not professional, but Slashdot isn't a professional board. It's not even a geek board - it's a nerd board, and nerds are known for socially inappropriate behavior, like blurting out the truth.
As for metamoderation, it's a joke. I post those rebuttals to moderations so metamod'ers will have more context to judge whether the mod is un/fair. But I don't see any real dampening. It winds up being just a battle of my post frequency karma vs their team of downmod points. That seems to at least allow my free speech to fill the vacuum of their supression. Which seems more American, anyway, or at least familiar to me, a New Yorker.
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The truth is that the assault on our sensibilities comes from all sides. The Republican leadership uses the FUD of terrorism to scare us into supporting draconian suspensions of civil rights, while the Democratic leadership uses FUD about everything else to call our attention away from terrorism. Neither side is telling the truth.
With the GOP having control of the largest political target in the nati
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All your crap about how Democrats are somehow pulling my strings, the strings of the media and the government - what are you talking about? Every charge I make against Bush is specific, substantiated, and true. You think Karl Rove is some kind of coatcheck girl at the White House? He's the stringpuller, t
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A question: if Republicans lose that election, then do you think that whoever wins them will be any different ? I'm not trying to flamebait, I'm honestly curious on whether Americans (I'm not one) think that elections make a difference.
Re:So? (Score:5, Interesting)
Your
I remember what the country was like before Republicans controlled the government. It was better. Right now, it's bad in a way few would have imagined before. Unless maybe they were Republicans.
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
Government-sponsored disability / unemployment schemes predate Roosevelt by
As you say, Roosevelt introduced SS to the USA in the 1930s as part of his "new Deal" programs - which, initially, only protected unionised industrial workers. When social security really took off was after WWII - mostly as a sop to placate unemployed returned servicemen; you don't really want a few million trained, experienced, and armed militia getting upset with you...
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
So since only Bush and Cheney are staring at being executed for treason, and then only hanged, we're faced with a different choice in a couple of months. Do you want to unacceptably bad Republicans, or the acceptably not so great Democrats? The real choice is obvious.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, our elections don't let us choose "the good one", just "the better" (or "not the worse"). That's one reason why I often talk about Instant Runoff Voting [wikipedia.org] (IRV), or "proportional voting". And why I often say how the parties (politicspeak for "conspiracies") are the worst defect in our system. Until we can vote in a way where everyone's votes count, not just the winners, we don't really have democracy.
But we have something that's acceptably not so great, and we can use it to make it better, even good. Saying "they're all the same", when they're not, just none good enough, makes it impossible to use what we've got to get what we want.
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That's not how this are normally done 'round here.
Memory hole (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Memory hole (Score:5, Informative)
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KFG
What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
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poli: many
tics: small blood sucking creatures.
politics
Its time to kick the bad guys out and put our bad guys in!
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How come when Democrats have problems, no one defends them with "the Republicans are just as bad", even though Republicans, especially the ones we're dealing with now, are so much worse?
Go: Movement
Vern: Green
Ment: Thinking
OK, "vern" doesn't mean "green", but it's no sillier than your version.
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I'm not a member of any party. Who have you voted for in the past few elections? Then tell me you don't favor one party over another.
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Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sorry bub, but you're wrong. If *You* take an action then *You* are responsible.
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Seriously, though, you bring Clinton up as if that's some sort of defense. All it proves is that he was a tool too.
Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Earlier this year in regards to the broadcast flags hearings, 2 dems (Stevens & Inouye) stood up and basically said that "having no broadcast flag is a terrible thing content providers will stop providing, so we have to pass this as soon as possible". Which repub Sununu later said (I'll directly quote it because it is so good):
"The suggestion is that if we don't do this, it will stifle creativity. Well...we have now an unprecedented wave of creativity and product and content development...new business models, and new methodologies for distributing this content. The history of government mandates is that it always restricts innovation...why would we think that this one special time, we're going to impose a statutory government mandate on technology, and it will actually encourage innovation?"
The problem I see is everybody tries to pin *everything* on Bush, you trip on a crack and it's his fault, etc. Critize him for the correct things, and you will get people to listen, the witch hunt for trying to tie anything & everything to him is a problem because now people are tuning out because "the sky is falling" has been called and attributed to him too many times. I try to keep a little more of an open mind where I can then actually say "Bush is an ass because of this" and directly point to it, rather than say basically everything is his fault.
Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Two points:
1) Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina): Proposed the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act [wikipedia.org], an onerous and horrific bill had it been passed. IOW: There are many Democrats on the side of media monopolies too.
2) President Bush is responsible for setting policy, and that includes FCC policy. However, that does not mean that President Bush had anything to do with the decision to destroy this document. In all likelihood, he didn't even know it existed. However, the President is still responsible for what happens under his watch as the policymaker. Boards of directors still hold CEOs accountable for serious mismanagement or criminal conduct by their staff, even if the CEO may not have been directly involved.
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And quit selecting specific facts out of context in order to misrepresent the obvious. It's both disingenuous and easily refuted.
Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Funny)
It is all Clinton's and Democrats' fault, since they (Clinton and the Democrats) currently control the White House, the Congress, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. Republicans have no say whatsoever. As you know, Clinton took the funding away from FEMA before Katrina, appointed college dropouts to edit scientific reports on global warming, and even appointed this hack to head FCC.
Remember that Republicans have no power to subpoena anyone and launch an investigation into anything since they are the minority party, be it
-Iraq (damn Clinton got us there by getting CIA to lie about WMDs there),
-9/11 (Monica distracted Clinton from reading 'Bin Laden determined to attack the U.S.' memo in August '01),
-gas prices (damn Democrats get donations from the oil companies),
-unemployment or healthcare (ditto),
-record deficit (damn liberals love their Big-Spending Government),
-illegal wiretapping (damn Clinton has no respect for the Constitution by spying on his oponents)
-tax cuts at the time of war (fucking Democrats setting us up for tax hike in the future)
-letting North Korea develop nukes (that's 9/11 Windows' fault there, not just Clinton's)
-letting $4,000,000,000 in cash literally disappear after taking over Iraq's Food-for-oil accounts (Democrats paying off their terror buddies for 9/11?)
-or taking bribes from Abramoff (50 Democrats took bribes vs 1 Republican)
-election finance reforms (currently the Democrats have 500% more money than the Republicans to spend on elections, somehow)
Please remember that since Republicans do not have the majority in either House or Senate, they are powerless to bring any laws to vote, hold an oversight hearing, subpoena any witnesses, or launch any investigations.
This is why we should vote Republican this November to restore checks and balances to our Government.
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Which, on the topic of the OP - IMO it should have been flamebait, troll, or off-topic - it adds nothing to the discussion at hand, is begging for negative reactions, or is purposefully taking a point of view
Re:What a surprise (Score:4, Informative)
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I'll admit that I wasn
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If he was Libertarian, the FCC wouldn't have gone ape shit over Janet Jackson or fined Howard Stern for reading a transcript of an Oprah show discussing "tossing the salad"...for which she of course was not fined. So he looks more like your typical big business, high horse riding moralist Republican.
Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Informative)
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FWIW, the Chief of the Media Bureau at the time appears to have been Ken Ferree [smrh.com].
Oblig 1984 (Score:5, Funny)
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FOIA (Score:5, Interesting)
The FCC is kinda frightening. It does a lot of good, but it does a lot of harm as well. It's on my top 3 list of government agencies to not piss off.
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(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
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good? (Score:2)
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Re:FOIA (Score:5, Insightful)
* managing the spectrum. Not what goes over the airwaves, but who gets to use them for what purpose. (You don't want your local HAM interfering with TV or emergency services frequencies)
* regulating the crap out of telcos, preventing much telco rapage (they're doing this less and less, regretably)
* certifying electronic shit so it doesn't interfere with your other electronic shit
Those are pretty much the good things. The bad things are
* trying to be the thought police (nipplegate!)
* being big and slow and bureaucratic (we want more free-for-all spectrum weeeeh ultrawideband weeeh)
* failing to regulate industries despite huge whopping monopoly abuse (media ownership, ADSL/net neutrality, etc.)
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The FCC rejected long-distance telephone service competition in 1968, banned Americans from buying their own non-Bell telephones in 1956, dragged its feet in the 1970s when considering whether video telephones would be allowed and did not grant modern cellular telephone licenses until 1981--about four decades after Bell Labs invented the technology. Along the way, the FCC has pr
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For the people... how quaint. (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that this report was ordered to be destroyed only goes to show that someone's best interests other than the public's are being defended here. How far will this sort of thing go? How much are people going to take before they push back, or are we pretty much screwed to slide down this slope to a place where we have no voice and no control? I sure hope not.
So.. where's the link to these documents! (Score:5, Interesting)
So.. who has em!.. where's the link people ; ).. don't let me down!
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Sorry... Balls to put it online if they piss her off.
(Bit of a hippocrite---Her position on handgun control for instance. Vocal anti gun shill... but _She_ packs a concealed weapon...)
QUICK! (Score:2, Funny)
FCC Operator: "Bill Clinton? Why do you want to talk to that no good lying sonovabitch with a cunt for a wife and who likes to get blown by fat ugly chicks who look nothing like Ann Coulter"?
FCC Head: "Because I hear he knows of good paper shredding services. I've got some hot docs here that need to be completely and totally destroyed before they make it out to the public".
FCC Operator: "Ahhh... all is clear to me now boss. Sure thing sweetie".
FCC Head: "
Report and response are online (Score:5, Informative)
The draft report [fcc.gov] and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's response to Senator Boxer [fcc.gov] are linked on the
FCC's website [fcc.gov].
What a shame that now... (Score:2)
On thousands of slashdotter's hard drives around the world.
Re:Report and response are online (Score:4, Informative)
Is it government policy to author a document using a computer, print it out, then scan it, then convert the scanned image to PDF? I can marginally justify something obstuse like this if we need to capture the signature, but these documents are not signed. Hey, I think I'm the first person to point out a wasteful government policy! Go me!
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It should be for redacted documents (see first page). And probably for any text they want to bury by making it unsearchable. Instead some agencies think they can electronically redact by drawing black rectangles atop non-graphical text, as repeatedly reported on slashdot.
Really mature response by these guys (Score:2)
So what? (Score:2)
If people WANT to watch local news there WILL be local news, tehre is no need for a law.
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Wait, what?
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they're so cute when they get worked up (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't she precious. Gonna push for an investigation. How cute.
Listen, hon, the horse left that barn behind a long time ago. Congress has made itself pretty much irrelevant. President breaks the law? They just pass a new law making whatever it was legal. They threaten to actually do their jobs and enforce some oversight? President claims he can do whatever he wants anyway. (When there was some talk about the USA PATRIOT act not getting renewed, Bush just came right out and said he could do whatever he wanted anyway as C and C. Rather than challenge that assertion, they just passed the law.)
And they gave away the store long ago with these agencies. Agencies like the FCC enact and enforce regulations without all that pesky oversight and due process they have to deal with down in congress. Better yet, agency heads don't have to worry about elections. Regulations are so much easier than laws.
What are they gonna do about it now? What did they do when all those energy executives lied to them? What did they do when all those baseball players lied to them? Mrs. Boxer and her colleagues are gonna do whatever they think they need to do to get reelected. Nothing more. They're certainly not going to do anything to anyone at the FCC.
Re:they're so cute when they get worked up (Score:5, Informative)
Recall that the Republican-controlled Senate and House made itself irrelevant under a Republican president--so blame the Republicans. Contrast that to how the Republican Senate and House acted during the Clinton adminstration.
Jamming With the FCC (Score:5, Insightful)
New phased array tech lets multiple transmitters share a frequency, but are distinguished by their spatial separation. So the FCC's central mission is coming to an end. A lot of their worst moves to sell off any public benefit and protection, and to merely regulate content on "obscenity" (or other culture war buzzwords) is mere desperate grabs for power.
I hope that phased array stations arrive well before the FCC can help the corporate broadcast cartel lock out entry to the media sphere. If we can make it past that dropping sword, we might be fairly home free.
Who controls the present controls the past. (Score:5, Insightful)
"No," said O'Brien.
He stepped across the room. There was a memory hole in the opposite wall. O'Brien lifted the grating. Unseen, the frail slip of paper was whirling away on the current of warm air; it was vanishing in a flash of flame. O'Brien turned away from the wall.
"Ashes," he said. "Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It does not exist. It never existed."
"But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I remember it. You remember it."
"I do not remember it," said O'Brien.
Duh, duh, duh.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, this is an argument for DRM - if this report had been DRMd (competently), there would probably be very few people with both the knowledge of the report and with the ability to circumvent the DRM so that if someone had wanted it gone, it likely would have been.
That's a good thing, right? [crickets chirping]
In proper Newspeak: (Score:5, Interesting)
RS
Who owns that report (Score:3)
FCC (Score:2)
Why does this administration hate research? (Score:4, Interesting)
This has got to be the most hand over the eyes administration in history. History books will not be kind. Especially when taxes must be raised in the future to cover the huge US debt or when there is only one entity controling all media. At some people it will be obvious what a terrible administration this is, right now it's not so clear.
That's silly... (joke) (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the report (Score:3, Informative)
Spread it around
Federal Corrupt Commision (Score:3, Insightful)
Welcome to the United States of Clear Channel and News Corp.
Re:The FCC was right to do so (Score:4, Funny)
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I think the problem is that your definition of "libertarian" is "social Darwinist nutjob," while the rest of us define it as "normal person who just wants to be left the fuck alone."
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If you were not serious, please disregard the rest of this response. But that's just hilarious! Why don't you compare the ratings of Nova and American Idol and see if your theory holds up? Wise observers of history would more likely note that unregulated free markets tend towards monopoly and exploitation.
You note that news, science, and educationa
Re:The FCC was right to do so (Score:5, Insightful)
Libertarians are quick to point out that monopolies are almost always government mandated. Well, duh. Of course they are. It's no accident either.
When corporations reach a considerable size, it only makes sense that the best way to ensure continued growth and desired stock performance is to manipulate some (or all) of public policy. Sure, great product ought to be enough, but what if something goes wrong? What if a competitor suddenly pulls the rug out from underneath you? Why not hedge your bets? Sound business planning really; a little insurance to cover those "unforseens."
To those at the very top of the market ladder (corporations, not people), fascism is a utopia, as long as its fascism they are in control of (or at least benefit from). It's perfect; reduces corporate risk to practically nothing. Fortunately, there are other pressures which, so far, in the US, have kept it relatively under control. But to many it seems like its slipping every day.
See, that's just the thing. You're afraid of Big Brother being a little too big and a little too controlling. What you have to understand is the megacorps want to be the nanny state, not so they can have some sort of Comic Book Evil totalitarian control over you, but to make sure you only buy products from them or their partners.
Re:The FCC was right to do so (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously, what color is the sky on your planet?
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can you see the difference?
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I think most Slashdotters believe in freedom and diversity of information. When the government censors culture, this restricts the freedom and diversity of information. When a small handful of big businesses own all the major media outlets, this also restricts the freedom and diversity of information.
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