Comcast Buys FCC? or Business as Usual

I received this rather humorous, hyperventilating email from some group called “Freepress.net.”

Outrageous!

FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker is leaving the FCC to become a lobbyist for Comcast – just four months after she voted to approve the Comcast-NBC merger.

This is nothing new under the sun and has, in fact, been going on for years.  It’s called “The Payoff.”  Conflict of interest?  On the surface, it sure seems that way, but perhaps there is some other innocent explanation for this move.   I can’t, for the life of me, think of what that might be, but I’m sure somebody will come up with something.

The email continues with a plea to call some congressman to investigate the FCC.  Perhaps I have grown a little cynical but I have my doubts about the effectiveness of such an effort.

In spite of my cynicism, as their motivations seem to be in the right place, I applaud Free Press for their efforts.  Other like-minded groups need to keep the pressure on and keep this in the spotlight.  Naturally, NBC and other networks have uttered not a peep about it.  The public blindly goes along while big business and wall street banksters continue their efforts to return to Feudalism.

Soon, one company will own the entire country.  Everyone will shop at the company store, Wal-something or another, live in company housing, go to the company medical clinic and worship at the company church.

The answer, of course, is independent voices, independent investigations, in-depth reporting, in short, everything that is currently missing from the media landscape today.  That, and some kind of electric shock or something to get people off of their fat asses and care about something.

Update: Several people have taken notice; The New York Times, TIME magazine, and The Daily Show.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Well, That Was Fast – Comcast/NBC Merger
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

More like this please.

Rants

Keeping Public Radio Public has a good one.

And the lame-stream press — how dare they be called the “liberal media”! — only parrot the script prepared by the puppet masters, as corporate “largesse” and control has turned the media into toothless old watchdogs. They make good company for the regulatory agencies once charged with protecting the public from the excesses of corporate greed. They’re good dogs now, too.

Exactly why independent media outlets are not just a nice feature of a democracy.  If one were to read the entire constitution of the United States, a theme, loosely known as “checks and balances” becomes apparent.  You could also call that theme “Trust Not.”  I recommend anyone who is interested in freedom read the Federalist Papers.  Even with the watered-down press, US Congress has a 9% (Rasmussen, April 2011) approval rating.  Surely, the public understands that something is amiss and needs to be fixed.

While the internet and new media are great, it is too easy to mess with the internet.  True independent media needs to have independent distribution, and not be beholden to corporate ISPs, search engines, data centers, and so forth.  Radio fits that bill, to the extent that it is not broadcasting homogenized safe, automated, faceless music formats programmed from afar or content from  The Borg-like collective of NPR.  Independent radio still exists in small pockets scattered here and there.  Where it exists, it often thrives in spite of corporate conglomerates.

Of course, consolidation has reduced the radio business to a shell of its former self.  The FCC has no interest in reigning in those corporations, or, so it seems, enforcing many of its own existing regulations.  Money talks, screw the public.

What is the answer?  Get involved. Don’t buy into the lies.  Use your God-given senses and do some research.  Draw your own conclusions.  Make noise.  Confront the corporatists with the facts.  Use every means possible to get the word out.  Write your representative or senator (after you register to vote).  Talk to co-workers, friends, family people on the street, etc.  It’s time, in fact, it’s now or never.

The FCC is studying the state of Journalism

The FCC has drafted a Notification of Inquiry (NOI) examining the state of media journalism in America. Why?  No harm can come from this, right?  Let us read a little further:

A major issue the report details is the possibility of “behavioral rules” for broadcasters, according to the official. Behavioral rules might include guidelines that broadcasts serve the public interest.

Bringing back Cold War-era guidelines mandating that broadcasters do “non-entertainment” programming is another idea being examined, according to the official.

From CNSNews.com

Doh! Now that most radio stations have fired their news departments, the government wants news.  Frankly, I think it is a dumb idea.  The hands of time can’t be turned back so there is no use trying.

There are radio stations out there that provide good local and national news, most NPR stations for example.  There are also a few commercial stations still doing it.  Those that can make money on it will and that is the way it should be.

I listen to the local NPR station’s (WAMC) program called “The Media Project.”  It is an interesting show where a Television news anchor, a local newspaper editor and the radio station president talk about media issues.  Often, it turns into a lament about how the internet news sources are cutting into their own audience because the internet is “free.”  The newspaper editor in particular often feels that he is shouldering the burden (by paying the reporter’s salaries) of gathering the news and the free-loading internet people who write blogs, like this one, merely leach off of the newspaper’s hard work.  And he has a point.

So charge for it.  I’d pay a $3-5 per month fee to have full online access to a good local paper.  I think many other people would too.  When they started giving away their content is when they got into trouble and that is their own fault.  This would be a good formula:

  1. Media outlets (newspapers, TV stations, Radio stations, Cable companies, etc) get together to come up with a policy for online content.
  2. A good example would be, limited free access to national stories and front page items and advertisements.  Charge a nominal subscription fee for locally generated content and full access.  Charge a higher fee for content without advertising (except classifieds).
  3. Create a website that is laid out like a newspaper.  Keep all the sections the same and make it very easy to navigate around in.

Some newspapers, like the New York Times, are already doing things like this.  The reality is that online media is here to stay.  Those legacy media outlets that want to survive are going to have to figure out a way to compete and make money online.