Bump and update: Wish I could get away with this

posted by The Vidiot @ 5:40 PM Permalink

Updated post: (by the Sailor)

Senator Says Media Study Suppressed

Last week, Boxer released a draft of an FCC study that showed locally owned stations air more news than local stations controlled by outside owners. A lawyer with the FCC told The Associated Press last week that FCC managers ordered the destruction of that report; the lawyer is no longer with the agency.

"I want to assure you that I too am concerned about what happened to these two draft reports," Martin stated in a letter sent Monday evening to Boxer. "I have asked the inspector general of the FCC to conduct an investigation into what happened to these draft documents and will cooperate fully with him."

Martin added that he was not chairman at the time the reports were drafted, and that neither he nor his staff had seen them.

He's shocked, shocked I tell you, especially since

Martin joined the commission in July 2001 and became chairman in March 2005.

But I digress:

In June 2003, the commission voted to loosen rules in virtually all areas of media ownership, including cross-ownership limits on radio and television stations.
[...]
The report states that from March 1996 through March 2003, the number of commercial radio stations on the air rose 5.9 percent while the number of station owners fell 35 percent.
[...]
[The FCC] decided to eliminate its existing system of measuring radio markets and use one favored by Arbitron, a private firm best known for measuring ratings. The commission decided not to force broadcasters to divest stations in markets where the new boundaries would push the broadcast companies over the limit.

So the FCC decided to break the law by changing the rules, and when that wasn't good enough they just deep sixed the reports.
But there is hope:

Also on Monday, the FCC extended the period allowed for public comment on the ownership proceeding by a month, from Sept. 22 to Oct. 23. A public hearing is scheduled for Oct. 3 in Los Angeles.

The corporations who own the media don't care about anything but profit. When a multitude of independent outlets report on the news we may not get 'the truth', but at least we get to see different viewpoints, and the biases hopefully cancel out.

If you live in the area, like skippy and SteveAudio do, go to the FCC meeting Oct. 3 in Los Angeles.

If you don't live in LA, write the FCC, our airwaves are too important to leave to the government or, even worse, a few multinational corporations.
Here is the contact info.



Original post (by The Vidiot):
if I don't like what a report says, I just toss it.

Excerpt: The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says.

Thanks guys.