"Fairness Doctrine" (Censorship) now expanded to include the internet

Quote :

Senior FCC staff working for acting Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps held meetings last week with policy and legislative advisers to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman to discuss ways the committee can create openings for the FCC to put in place a form of the "Fairness Doctrine" without actually calling it such.

Waxman is also interested, say sources, in looking at how the Internet is being used for content and free speech purposes. "It's all about diversity in media," says a House Energy staffer, familiar with the meetings. "Does one radio station or one station group control four of the five most powerful outlets in one community? Do four stations in one region carry Rush Limbaugh, and nothing else during the same time slot? Does one heavily trafficked Internet site present one side of an issue and not link to sites that present alternative views? These are some of the questions the chairman is thinking about right now, and we are going to have an FCC that will finally have the people in place to answer them."

Waxman and his staff are also thinking about creating congressionally mandated advisory boards to police both radio and TV programming:


One idea Waxman's committee staff is looking at is a congressionally mandated policy that would require all TV and radio stations to have in place "advisory boards" that would act as watchdogs to ensure "community needs and opinions" are given fair treatment. Reports from those advisory boards would be used for license renewals and summaries would be reviewed at least annually by FCC staff.

What about policing internet content? According to The Prowler, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is already looking into this.


The House Energy and Commerce Committee is also looking at how it can put in place policies that would allow it greater oversight of the Internet. "Internet radio is becoming a big deal, and we're seeing that some web sites are able to control traffic and information, while other sites that may be of interest or use to citizens get limited traffic because of the way the people search and look for information," says on committee staffer. "We're at very early stages on this, but the chairman has made it clear that oversight of the Internet is one of his top priorities."

Source

Incoming China-like censorship to USA based ISPs & websites

I'm not really sure I get what the problem they're trying to fix is.. Anyone able to explain, or translate that stuff into more easily understood english? lol.

Unless the Fairness Doctrine gets renewed - which from early polling it's not going to - the bill in general, much less revisions like this nutjob is proposing are pointless.

It's supposed to expire later this year, and really had no teeth other than a polite recommendation.

And basically Phelkis, I don't think being outside of the state's you'd get a good view on how wacky our news media is - two of the more popular outlets (Fox and MSNBC - one Con, one Lib) have a tendency to run stories excessively with little sourcing and then if they're found to be false run very little "retraction" coverage - leading most folks to believe that the retraction never occurred. [Both have even gone as far as to refer to their "news" programs as entertainment, not news in court cases to get around any discipline for inaccuracies]

So basically if it expanded to the internet, the blogosphere would start to be accountable for the stories they run - which are frequently just rumors, and incorrect. Although as the Lewinsky issue and a few other have shown over the years, there is that valuable 1% that jumpstarts something real.

It's a mixed bag really - anything that labels itself "news" should have a certain accuracy rating it's required to maintain. That's sensible - anything else should be labeled as entertainment (as Fox and MSNBC have done although quietly) - that's the only censorship I could personally approve of. No stupid fines, no banning content - just simply a text bar (or an occasional message during a radio program) that identifies the accuracy ratings of the given media source. (Something like the BBB for news, a clear tally included researchers who analyze each and give reports on the specific inaccuracies)

Entertaining "news" with some embellishment is fine, it's just got to have be identified as such with something to encourage the news purveyors to aim for complete accuracy. Right now "early stories" are such a big selling point, and inaccuracy is such a non-penalty that nearly everyone runs an early partial story, filling in the blanks, rather than reporting it accurately.