POWER GRAB: Competition, diversity, and localism: Back door to the Fairness Doctrine?
Keep an eye to the actions of the Obama administration and its new FCC "Chief Diversity Officer", Mark Lloyd.
At first glance the title might confuse, but make no mistake -- Obama tapped Mark Lloyd to explore the
credo pillar of "diversity" inside the FCC. But exactly does "diversity" mean?
On its face it's innocuous, but the pillars of competition, diversity, and localism are stated as a mission
of the FCC on the FCC's "localism" page. Atop the page is the following
(see the page |
view the PDF):
The purpose of Localism Proceedings is to gather information from consumers, industry,
civic organizations, and others on broadcasters' service to their local communities.
Along with competition and diversity, promoting localism is a key goal of the Commission's
media ownership rules.
Localism refers to control of stations and programming resting in local communities;
more specifically, it's a discouragement of national or syndicated control or programming.
But how does the concept of localism tie into diversity, and how do they infer a push
back toward the days of the Fairness Doctrine?
Mark Lloyd spelled this out himself in a paper he wrote for the Center For American
Progress called Forget the Fairness Doctrine
(read the article |
view the PDF),
in which he makes the following remarks:
- "That report demonstrated the failure of the supposed "free market" regulation of the
U.S. radio industry to address the public-interest needs of listeners. Our analysis
revealed that conservative talk radio dominates the airwaves of our country — to the
detriment of informed public discourse and the First Amendment."
- "In our report, we call for ownership rules that we think will create greater
local diversity of programming, news, and commentary. And we call for more localism by
putting teeth into the licensing rules. But we do not call for a return to the Fairness
Doctrine."
- "The Fairness Doctrine never by itself fostered coverage of important issues in a
way that spoke to the diversity of interests in local communities across our country."
- "The other part of our proposal that gets the dittoheads upset is our suggestion
that the commercial radio station owners either play by the rules or pay. In other words,
if they don't want to be subject to local criticism of how they are meeting their
license obligations, they should pay to support public broadcasters who will operate
on behalf of the local community. Commercial broadcasters want to be trustees of
public property but without responsibility."
Lloyd's views are clear; it's his mission to impede broadcast content as the free market
has established it, to do so in the names of "localism" and "diversity" not because he's
fundamentally against the Fairness Doctrine but because he doesn't feel the Fairness
Doctrine goes FAR ENOUGH, and to force private broadcasters who want to air national
or syndicated programming to pay substantial fees that will, of course, discourage the
practice, but the money from which will also funnel back into local PUBLIC broadcasts.
And Mark Lloyd is now working inside the FCC in a power position. Watch this administration,
and be prepared to stand up.
- HQ staff
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Coming This Week:
The basic principles for which we stand -- can you disagree?
The people surrounding the Congress
Central government as a necessary evil ...our view
The history of the federal income tax
Why slippery slope theory is REAL
Our read of the Constitution
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