FCC Lifts 32-Year Old Consolidation Ban, Allows Broadcasters To Own Newspapers

AP:

The Federal Communications Commission, overturning a 32-year-old ban, voted Tuesday to allow broadcasters in the nation's 20 largest media markets to also own a newspaper.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin was joined by his two Republican colleagues in favor of the proposal, while the commission's two Democrats voted against it.

Martin pushed the vote through despite intense pressure from House and Senate members on Capitol Hill to delay it. The chairman, however, has the support of the White House, which has pledged to turn back any congressional action that seeks to undo the agency vote.

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[BPCentrisAmerican]

In the House the worthless Republicans did what they always do, make silly statements, while the Dems asked hard questions Martin could not assure,

Even Senate Republicans asked tough questions for which Martin was woefully unprepared. Ted Stevens asked him to wait 90 days to get his stuff together, but the little prick defiant even to Senate Republicans, who was never appointed in the 1st place remained rigid on the 12-18th vote. I e-mailed my representatives, including Martin, we the people pay his salary and he told us to basically go f##k ourselves. Remember strength though numbers. Martin dose not own our media, he is not a Supreme Court Judge and can be dismissed. This little whore threatened a network because 200,000 thousand odd evangelicals signed a form letter to band Saving Private Ryan as well as an excellent documentary on 9-1, because both films did not meet the Family Research Council’s approval. The Family Research Council gets a response and the rest of us gets the big f##k you. The Congress can cut the FCC’s budget as well as Martin. Don't bitch on a blog, fight this.

This is my e-mail to him,
To: fcc.govfcc.gov

Subject: I hope you’re proud of yourself

I hope you’re proud of yourself; you struck another blow against American Democracy. I hope the job waiting for you is worth it, I heard Murdock pays well. The one bright spot is you will be gone in a year and America will be a better off for it.

Sincerely
BP

[Harrier]

This country is ging to hell in a hand basket. There is no longer anything that will be printed that wil be invesgative or anything that will go against corporations. Allwe will hear will be media advertisements made to look like news stories

[wesinohio]

Several years ago I was visiting a network TV news discussion program where the topic was media consolidation - I don't think it was Fox News. First of all, most or all of the network employees on the show recused themselves from participating in the debate because of the conflict of interest, and the only person I remember talking was a young woman who was filled with talking points, a lawyerly young woman who used the lawyer's trick of characterizing the opposition as insipient fools, and employing phrases like "it's ludicrous to force a station to have higher costs, when they can lower their costs by consolidating their operations", and punctuating that statement with derisive sneers and laughter - in the style of Fox News.

So when the first assertion made in a debate is filled with such slander, then the response is often muddied into trying to respond to an insult while making one's main point. It divides and dilutes the presentation of the rebuttal. I have noticed that tactic being used often in lawyers' remarks to news media about various litigation, and by lawyers in other venues as well.

I think my best rebuttal might be that it is not the goverment's business to ensure the profitability of private media companies, but rather it is its responsibility to preserve market pluralism.

It's quite clear that the goal of the FCC Chairman, as brazen and unbelievable as it is, is to limit and control the distribution of information through centralized government power; that casts the FCC as our new Ministry of Information, in the same tradition as many other authoritarian governments.

[Ginzaman]

How much did Murdoch pay Martin?

[levibatgirl]

With the media supposedly being so slanted and "liberal" we have no outraged trolls.

Hmmm.

[RS]

Rupert Murdoch = Joseph Goebbels II

[lornejl]

Newspaper Headline ; Megga Ditto's !

[lentinelia]

This couldn't possibly have happened because Rupert Murdoch has bought the administration lock, stock and barrel - could it?

[lornejl]

" The media is the message "


http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html

[factanonverba]

This is a major policy mistake. Not much different than Hugo Chavez's Venezuela though perhaps more subtle but nonetheless an insidious attack on the diversity of opinion and the availability of actual facts.

facta non verba
San Francisco, CA

[lornejl]

Ask anyone you meet about this, friends, family, people walking down the street, no one knows, no one cares, thats how they can pull this off, an ignorant society.

[Danny]

What astounds me is that there was massive opposition to this from us, the people. Yet, this Kevin Martin was able to prevail. How? Why? Where are the Courts, where is justice, where is our democracy?

[spicegal]

This is one more step toward losing our democracy. The Rethuglicans know this action will benefit them in their pursuit of a permanent republican majority. There will be no more We The People, and these radical right wingers honestly don't care. It's all part of their economic shock therapy. In order to impose unpopular economic policies, they have to do it by force or propaganda. I'm sure they've ruled out a military coup, so the only other option is to control the media, and therefore the message. They don't care that a majority of Americans are against it, or that it both republicans and democrats objected. I'm sure our Founders are rolling in their graves.

[Elusive]

now it is time for support independent magazines people, the nation, mother jones, e magazine, you know what they are, only thing these big cooperations know about is MONEY-let us make some money for these independent magazines and show them what we can do!!!

[rh654]

Does anyone still read newspapers?