If you ran the FCC...

[ColbertWatcher]

...what would you do to fix the mess designed/left by the GOP?

[anonymous171]

1. Restore competition by reregulating the industry.

[Bucky]

2. 1) Require community service programming 2) restore the one-outlet-per-media-market rule

3) require local majority-ownership of broadcast media. 4) restore the fairness doctrine 5) require free air time for all state and federal candidates for stations with greater than 10% market share per market.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

3. Bill Clinton

started fucking it up. The GOP just finished it. Gotta give credit where it's due.
http://www.mallasch.com/journalism/article.php?sid=610

[Zodiak]

4. No, it started when Reagan got rid of the fariness doctrine in 1987

...and the job was finished by Clinton and made indellible by *.

Personally, we should strip many companies of their licenses after a review of their behavior during the last ten years. Then give those licenses to those that can demonstrate that they can be trusted.

Then regulate the hell out of the whole industry so this does not happen again.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

5. Oh!

thanks for that.

:)

[ColbertWatcher]

7. Damn right. n/t

[AndyTiedye]

6. BRING BACK THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE!! And Let There Be Low-Power Community Stations

[ColbertWatcher]

8. Yup, screw this satellite crap.

Local control needs to make a come back!

[QueenOfCalifornia]

11. The fairness doctrine

sucks.

Ask anybody who is a talk radio personality. Really. Call a show and ask them what they think of it. I have never heard one yet say it is a great deal.

To be forced to discuss the good things Bush has done on a left leaning station is so lame that I can't even tell you how bad it is.

Total violation of the first amendment.

That is all.

:D

[Writer]

15. The Fairness Doctrine has become the scapegoat for the condition of today's journalism.

And it is completely errant to believe that reintroducing it will solve any of our problems.

a) It never was fully vetted by the US Supreme Court for its constitutionality. Only a portion of it - the ability for one to get an equal opportunity to respond to a personal attack on a broadcast station - was upheld by the Red Lion case. Otherwise, there is no constitutional support for the provision.

b) It only pertained - as the entire 1934 Communications Act pertains - to broadcast stations only. It never applied to cable.

c) It indeed did chance an infringement on journalists' First Amendment rights.

d) No issue only contains two or three opinions that can be equally displayed in a news story. Typically, several nuanced opinions exist.


Also, we need to stop believing the myth that deregulation translates immediately into conservative bias in news stories. We liberals have done ourselves a terrible disservice by marrying ourselves to this idea, as doing so has narrowed our view of the media, limiting our ability to effectively advocate news organizations. (We should be spending our time pushing for democratic reforms instead of accusing them of bias simply based on corporate ownership.) Ultimately, what deregulation has brought to our news organizations is a change in perspective: that they no longer view us as citizens, but as consumers. Therefore, our basest tastes are reflected in our news, as opposed to our needs as democrats.

[ColbertWatcher]

17. I would support anything that protects fairness.

Any attempt to curtail fairness does not get my support.

The Fairness Doctrine, while technically flawed is (in my opinion) similar to the FISA court.

If you can't work within its guidelines, you really should find another line of work.

[Writer]

23. What is "fairness" though?

I'm assuming you mean 50% liberal, 50% conservative?

Or do you mean a strive toward objectivity?

[ColbertWatcher]

24. Fairness, like pornography, is something you know when you see it. n/t

[Writer]

28. But who is to be the judge of that?

[ColbertWatcher]

29. If pornography can be quantified, so can fairness. n/t

[NorthCarolina]

18. That's the ticket, bring back the fairness doctrine

eom

[wvbygod]

34. There can be no fairness doctrine

What's next? Requiring when you speak to more than one person to be forced to discuss all sides
of any subject you happen upon?

There is no way you can honestly force people to talk about something they are not interested in.
The whole idea is just plain crazy and reeks of speech control.

[mwooldri]

9. Well what would I know? I'm just a Brit ...

... media is a whole different ball game in the UK anyway but the question is "If you ran the FCC"...

I'd do more competitive tendering of commercial radio and television licenses with public service and programming requirements being written into the licenses, as well as bidding money on the issuance/renewal of the license (but money not being the complete overriding factor). I'd also charge the FCC when considering license issuance/renewals to consider what's available in the marketplace of each broadcast station, ensuring that there is consumer variety of programs available to them.

This would mean that broadcasters would go on air with a specific mission, promise local programming and be enforced to deliver that programming on pain of losing their license. It'd also result in there being greater chances of being more balanced poltiical speech progamming, because the FCC would have to consider what's already out there before allowing another broadcaster on the air in a local market doing a "me too" approach. AM radio is a wasteland right now comprised of syndicated conservative talk radio, Christian religious programming, Spanish language programming - and if you're lucky sports talk. The highlight of the AM dial in my area is Radio Disney of all things.

Mark.

[Max_powers94]

10. nudity after 11pm

:)

[ColbertWatcher]

13. New FCC chair: Max_powers94! n/t

[baldguy]

12. Take away a few b'cast licenses.

Break up the media conglomerates.

Allow local low-power radio stations to exist.

Restore the Fairness Doctrine.

Require, as part of their community programming, that stations offer locally produced news and prohibit advertising during "news" programming.

[ColbertWatcher]

14. I like that no advertising rule during news shows. n/t

[Symarip]

16. Stop trying to define and redefine every ten minutes what 'decency' is (nt)

[Youphemism]

19. Revoke licenses for stations that boost volume during commercials. /nt

[mtnester]

21. Can my husband work with you on that?

It drives him nearly insane...me, I work in a noisy place so I know how to "shut my ears". He, sadly, does not. We even have a TV that TRIES to compensate for it, however, when you work it with a cable box from Time Warner, the cable box trumps the TV (WAIT, there is another thing, cable bx remotes and settings NEVER get to trump my own)


Bastids

[blogslut]

27. You know, that used to be against FCC regulations

I don't know when that changed but that was one of my mother's biggest pet peeves.

[onenote]

30. actually, it never was against the regs

The FCC has received complaints about loud television advertising since the 1950s. It has investigated the issue off and on since the early 60 and has always declined to take any formal action. The last inquiry was started in the late 70s and concluded in 1984, again without taking any action to adopt any rules.

[onenote]

35. now here's a weird coincidence: Anna Eshoo recently introduced the CALM Act

The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act. I just got emailed an article about it that is going to run in a trade magazine I read next week.

Cue the twilight zone music....

[Youphemism]

20. Oh, and replace the Emergency Broadcast shriek with Nine Inch Nails music. /nt

[crankychatter]

22. I'd put the Pacifica Radio team in charge of PBS and NPR - nt

[Lyric]

25. Make laws to break up the ClearChannel monstrosity.

More focus and fund for local broadcasting. Re-institute the Fairness Doctrine. And create a regulation that prohibits ALL advertising specifically geared toward reaching children, save for companies that are totally nonprofit.

[TahitiNut]

26. Prohibit corporations from owning corporations.

Require all corporate stock to be owned by human beings ... individually.

[ColbertWatcher]

32. I like the Green Bay Packers model...

...for TV stations and other utilities: the community owns it.

[Ysabel]

33. sorry i've been posting without reading all the comments today anyway YES...

[TahitiNut]

36. Yes, I do too. Cable systems should be municipally owned - available to companies.

That's the Ashland, Oregon, model. They have fiber-to-the-curb and cable TV companies can offer their service in competition with each other - Comcast, Cox, WOW, whatever. Likewise, internet service prooviders cna compete over the same cable system. It works!

One (just one of many) of the reasons the cable TV companies don't like it is because it'd likely make the 'proadcsters' subject to the same regulation as over-the-air broadcasters ... and that'd be in the PUBLIC INTEREST. (God forbid, huh?)

[Ysabel]

31. make television a public utility...

- (i got idea that from htuttle)...

-------------------

edit: typo...

[baldguy]

37. Takes shits like Michael Reagan off the air.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3448077