FCC Diversity Czar and his plans.
 

Nearly every country in the world has some sort of government-sponsored or operated broadcasting entity, usually radio, often television. The BBC and CBC come to mind immediately.

I spotted this: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/52435

The FCC Diversity Czar wants to have "...private broadcasting companies pay licensing fees equal to their total operating costs to allow public broadcasting outlets to spend the same on their operations as the private companies do."

Okay, sounds expensive to me. DAMN expensive. Especially since he wants "...to make sure they focused on “diverse views” and government activities.

“Local public broadcasters and regional and national communications operations should be required to encourage and broadcast diverse views and programs,”... “These programs should include coverage of all local, state and federal government meetings, as well as daily news and public issues programming.

“In addition, educational programs for children and adults, and diverse, independent personal and cultural expression should be encouraged".

Apparently this guy forgot about Voice of America.

I mean, my God, our taxes are already being spent on this to the tune of billions of dollars yearly, yet the vast majority of Americans have no clue that VOA exists at all... because it's all aimed at OVERSEAS audiences.

Why doesn't the government just simply rebroadcast our own Voice Of America programming, both on radio and television, domestically? Either buy a low-rated radio or TV station in each market from Clear Channel, or set up a national low-power network, AND save the nation's private broadcasters from having to fund it?

Or.. is that all too common-sense?

Sounds expensive to you?! Damn, I make my living at a TV station. I sure hope this isn't accurate or it doesn't come to pass. Times are tough for over the air broadcast. With the economy in the tank, advertisers aren't spending like they used to. We're all already laying people off and cutting everywhere we can.

Broadcasters use public air waves and we do have a responsibility. I happen to think there should be a reasonable amount of regulation of content. Things that are blatantly untrue, misleading or biased commentary masquerading as news should be kept in check. I think we should hear from all sides, not just the guys with the most money. But I don't think dinging the broadcasters to make it happen is fair.

I'm not sure what CNS news is, but I can't find a lot of information on this anywhere else. I'm hoping it's right-wing propaganda. If it's accurate and there is any chance of it happening I'll be sure to hear about it as it would kill my industry. I'm sure we would fight it. I'll let you know if I hear anything.

I'd appreciate that, Ed. I thought of you as soon as I read the article, remembering that you were in broadcasting.

I mean, come on. A license fee to operate equal to a station's operation costs?? Right off the bat, that would put hundreds of stations out of business. I had to read this a couple of times to make sure I wasn't hallucinating!

Oh, I think I see:

"Lloyd presented the idea in his 2006 book, Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America, published by the University of Illinois Press."

This isn't policy. This is something he wrote several years ago. This is being portrayed as something it's not. I'm sure it's true that he wrote it and he might think that in a perfect world that's how it should be. Shoot, (I'm a liberal, so all I know how to do is malign poor Sarah Palin, sooo) Sarah Palin may think that everyone should speak in tongues and that would make it a better country. But it is stretching things to suggest that she wants to make that policy. Misleading at best.

Very true, Ed, and I agree with you that yes he wrote it and that's what he would like in a perfect world.

But now this guy is a Czar at the FCC. I'm thinking that now he may have some pull in DC, and perhaps at least a piece or two of this book may come to fruition... especially the stuff I mentioned and quoted. Never say never, right?

Yeah, I'm with ya. Not the guy I'd like in there. But not as bad as that article would make him out to be.

Take care,

Ed

I think it should be a felony if it marketed as news.

When Martin was head of the Funny Cookie Company he allowed more and more concentration of TV broadcasting into fewer and fewer hands. Some Republicam appointee was put in as head of the CPB and did his level best to screw up that organization. Some of us support PBS because we value it as an alternative to NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX and ABC.

Then of course there was the brilliant plan for HDTV, calling on every station, pulic or private, to ante up for some very expensive new transmitters, cameras, etc. I do not doubt that the NAB was lobbied pretty hard by manufacurers of the same to impose DTV on us all. Mind you Verizon and AT&T lobbied pretty hard as well because they wanted the bandwidth.

The broadcast spectrum is the property of the citizens, yet most stations take a free ride.

You know, I've wondered about that very issue.

I agree that blatant lies should definitely be kept in check. But how?

We trust(?) news agencies who tell us what's going on. They add their biases, cleverly edit content, etc, but basically it's pretty rare to have any stories checked for accuracy before they're presented to the public for their consumption. How can this be done?

I remember reading a story where a classroom full of high school students was discussing freedom of the press. When told that it was indeed the law of the land as the First Amendment of the constitution, almost two-thirds of the students did not believe it and said that these freedoms went too far, and that the government should have oversight of what gets printed or distributed.

The problem with verifying news or other info is "who would do the verifying?"