FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The Federal Communications Commission has suppressed reports documenting the negative impact of media consolidation, even as the FCC trumpeted reports that reflect favorably on Commission members’ deregulation campaign. The scandal emerged on September 12, when Sen. Barbara Boxer (D.-Calif.) produced a leaked copy of a 2004 FCC report as she questioned current FCC chair Kevin […]
This week on CounterSpin: Despite the recent significant decision by Congress to pass legislation that recognizes some forms of detainee abuse as torture, the media is focused on all the wrong things. Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights joins the show to discuss the situation. Also on the program: Hannah Sassaman of Prometheus Radio Project about the FCC and its habitual suppression of research on media ownership.
Following pressure from FAIR and others, Federal Communications Commission Chair Kevin Martin has ordered an inspector general investigation (AP, 9/19/06) into the suppression of two FCC media ownership reports. One report, highlighted in FAIR’s September 15 Action Alert, found in 2004 that local television ownership increases local news content by nearly five-and-a-half minutes and total […]
(NOTE: Please see the Activism Update regarding this alert.) A 2004 Federal Communications Commission study that showed locally owned television stations provide more local news than others was ordered destroyed by FCC officials, and only came to light this week when a copy was leaked to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D.-Calif.). Three years ago, then-FCC chair […]
The FCC’s anti-indecency campaign and censorship. Also this week: 35 years ago Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon papers, which exposed the U.S. government’s disregard for the human cost of the Vietnam War. Today Ellsberg joins CounterSpin to talk about two important current whistleblower stories the media is neglecting.
Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies on Bush’s inauguration speech. Also: Michael Powell’s announced departure as FCC chair leaves an opening for George Bush to appoint a new FCC chair in March. Bob McChesney joins to discuss Michael Powell and the future of the FCC.
A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a…frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others…. It is the right […]
More this week on Haiti and how US involvement has shaped the current crisis. Also on CounterSpin: what’s at stake following the FCC’s recent decision to relax media ownership restrictions?
Over the protests of hundreds of thousands of Americans, a range of public interest advocacy groups and two dissenting Democratic commissioners, the FCC on June 2 voted to repeal or weaken some of the few remaining checks on the dominance of big media companies. Attention now moves to Congress, as a number of lawmakers attempt […]
The FCC’s plan to alter or eliminate media ownership limits has been getting increased media attention in the past week. Since a FAIR action alert (5/20/03) drew attention to the lack of coverage on the broadcast networks, CBS Evening News (5/29/03) aired a report focusing on the threat to local TV news posed by the […]
A majority of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) intends to ratify a sweeping plan to weaken or eliminate rules that limit the size and power of media companies. Among other things, the FCC’s three Republican commissioners hope to revoke the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule, which prevents a company from owning a newspaper and a TV station […]
Media outlets are the lifeblood of the body politic. Extensive circulation of ideas, information, analysis and debate must exist — not just once in a while, but all the time — or the consequences are severe, even catastrophic. You can gauge our society’s political and social health by checking some vital media signs: Scrutinize the […]
FAIR FACT SHEET: The FCC & Media Democracy SPEAK OUT FOR MEDIA DEMOCRACY What if you woke up tomorrow to find that Yosemite National Park had been turned over to Chevron? Or that the Everglades were now under the watchful eye of DuPont? Most people would agree: Giving corporations nearly unlimited control over a precious […]
FAIR values the opportunity to comment on the rules currently under consideration in the FCC’s 2002 Biennial Review. Unfortunately, the complicated and technical nature of the FCC’s public comment procedure does not encourage–and some would argue actually discourages–significant participation from the public, the citizens whose interests the FCC is supposed to safeguard. In addition, the […]
The review of media ownership rules underway at the Federal Communications Commission will have an enormous impact on the future of broadcasting and on media diversity. The FCC is considering repealing or altering a number of key rules that limit media consolidation. But you wouldn’t know any of this from watching network television news. Media […]
If the Bush administration lets large media conglomerates and local telephone companies have their way, the Internet as we know it—that free-flowing, democratic, uncensored information superhighway—could soon be a thing of the past. The Internet itself is not going away. Rather, technological advances, changes to the rules governing its use and the continued consolidation of […]
The Federal Communications Commission is moving to eliminate one of the few remaining vestiges of public interest regulation on media concentration– the rules that limit the percentage of the national audience that a single cable company can reach. If existing rules limiting a single company to 30 percent of the national market are abandoned, the […]
Just two days after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the FCC moved to eliminate some of the last remaining restraints on media concentration. With all eyes elsewhere, the FCC voted unanimously to “review” regulations that limit the percentage of the national audience that a single cable company can […]
Just two days after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the FCC began to eliminate the last remaining shreds of regulation on media concentration. With all eyes elsewhere, the FCC voted unanimously to “review” laws that prohibit the same company from owning both a newspaper and a TV station […]
When a regulator’s appointment is hosannaed by the corporations he is supposed to be regulating, the public should be concerned. When the person charged with defending the public interest in telecommunications acknowledges that he has “no idea” (Columbia Journalism Review, 7-8/01) what the public interest is, telegraphs his willingness to eliminate virtually every remaining check […]
