"In an effort that would make George Orwell spin a few turns, Obama's Federal Communications Commission has named the act of sending researchers to monitor newsrooms and grill editors and reporters over their editorial choices the "Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs."
The Wall Street Journal reports:
The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about "the process by which stories are selected" and how often stations cover "critical information needs," along with "perceived station bias" and "perceived responsiveness to underserved populations."
How does the FCC plan to dig up all that information? First, the agency selected eight categories of "critical information" such as the "environment" and "economic opportunities," that it believes local newscasters should cover. It plans to ask station managers, news directors, journalists, television anchors and on-air reporters to tell the government about their "news philosophy" and how the station ensures that the community gets critical information.
The FCC also wants to wade into office politics. One question for reporters is: "Have you ever suggested coverage of what you consider a story with critical information for your customers that was rejected by management?" Follow-up questions ask for specifics about how editorial discretion is exercised, as well as the reasoning behind the decisions.
The WSJ points out that participating in the study is voluntary. But with the FCC holding your broadcast license over your head, " the FCC's queries may be hard for the broadcasters to ignore."......"
-Note that this program was dropped after a outcry - not from the mainstream media, but by Rush Limbaugh, other staunch conservatives, and in the blogosphere and social media
Last year, I recall a coworker stating that the Obama administration's targeting/spying of journalists of all types would be the death-knell for the cozy, hands-off relationship that Obama has enjoyed with the media.
I had no doubt that the media, after a brief flurry of obligatory and feigned outrage, would drop the matter. It turned out that this was exactly the case.
The vast majority of journalists are hyper-liberal at best. Journalism schools are combat zones for Centrists or Conservatives, and it is a case of either get bad grades or pretend to be one of them - if the student wants to get a job after college, that is.
What must be kept in mind is that, in Leftist thought, no amount or degree of abuse or oppression is wrong if it is for the cause. When cancer patients lose their doctors or coverage as a direct result of Obamacare, if others lose their jobs from either the same or from minimum-wage hikes, or if the freedom of the press is directly violated, Leftist thinking mandates that all is well as long it helps to pave the way for the Socialist future. The effects may not be pleasant, but they are needed to get the mission accomplished.
Leftist apologists are fond of glossing (if they admit to their existence at all) over the atrocities committed by and under Stalin by claiming that his moves were needed to clean the slate of recalcitrant kulaks and others who resisted his central planning. They argue that Russia was so far behind the times that only by making such moves (Conspicuously absent are any references to the enormous amount aid from Western Banks, the looting of Spanish "Republican" gold, and the US mega-support of materiel) could the USSR become a developed nation in a reasonable amount of time.
In short, Liberal/Progressive/ Leftist journalists will willingly of not happily endure any amount of governmental oppression of The Press as long it is for controlling what The People get to hear and read.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/02/22/media-silence-explained-soros-fingerprints-on-fcc-newsroom-probe?utm_source=contentsharing&utm_medium=linkexchange&utm_term=postion1&utm_content=media-silence-explained-soros-fingerprints-on-fcc-newsroom-probe&utm_campaign=foxnews
"The real mystery behind the FCC's now abandoned "study" to police American newsrooms is why the mainstream media refused to raise holy hell over it. While Obama's lapdogs refused to bark, it was conservative media who fought for newsroom independence and got the FCC to finally back down. Other than the media's natural obedience to Obama, the fact that the fingerprints of left-wing billionaire George Soros have been found on the FCC study might also help to explain the media's silence.
CNS News reports that for the first ten years of the last decade, Soros donated more than $52 million to numerous media outlets. In a world where the media is dying a slow, painful suicide (brought about by their own incompetence and corruption), that is no small amount of money. And you can bet that those media organizations that have not benefited from Soros' largesse would someday like to. So why antagonize him?
The media's hands-off policy with Soros is nothing new. While outlets such as Politico and NBC News obsess over every move made by the libertarian Koch brothers, Soros and his spider-web of influential left-wing political operations (Media Matters, Center for American Progress) almost never receive any kind of media scrutiny. A recent media study found that the ratio of references between Kochs' organizations and Soros' organizations, in news outlets that pose as objective, are literally hundreds to one. Politico actually has Ken Vogel, a former Soros employee, constantly harassing covering the Koch brothers.
The mainstream media not only shares Soros' hard-left vision, but also benefits or hopes to benefit from Soros' bottomless billionaire well of funding. And in return, even though Soros' Tides Foundation is many times larger than the Kochs, the media look the other way for Soros and turn the Kochs into America's bogeyman. Which brings me back to the FCC proposal to police America's newsrooms.
As enamored and protective as the media are of Obama, when the Administration was caught spying on journalists last year, his Media Palace Guards still squawked. But still, this attempted move by the FCC, which is probably the scariest move against the media by the federal government since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, resulted in almost uniform silence by the mainstream media. If alternative and conservative media hadn't been vocal, nothing would have stopped FCC from interrogating and intimidating the press.
What might explain the media's silence is the looming specter of George Soros. History already proves the media has been reluctant to cross him. Apparently, even the idea of Soviet-style monitors looking over their shoulder couldn’t change that. CNS News helps to explain why:
Two schools were working with FCC on the project, according to Byron York of The Washington Examiner. The University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Communication and Democracy, were tasked by the FCC with coming up with criteria for what information is "critical" for Americans to have. The FCC study would have covered newspapers, websites, radio and television, according to The Washington Post.
On top of the 1st Amendment problems with this proposal, the schools involved have strong ties to liberal billionaire George Soros' Open Society Foundations and have gotten more than $1.8 million from since 2000.........."
.
Last year, I recall a coworker stating that the Obama administration's targeting/spying of journalists of all types would be the death-knell for the cozy, hands-off relationship that Obama has enjoyed with the media.
I had no doubt that the media, after a brief flurry of obligatory and feigned outrage, would drop the matter. It turned out that this was exactly the case.
The vast majority of journalists are hyper-liberal at best. Journalism schools are combat zones for Centrists or Conservatives, and it is a case of either get bad grades or pretend to be one of them - if the student wants to get a job after college, that is.
What must be kept in mind is that, in Leftist thought, no amount or degree of abuse or oppression is wrong if it is for the cause. When cancer patients lose their doctors or coverage as a direct result of Obamacare, if others lose their jobs from either the same or from minimum-wage hikes, or if the freedom of the press is directly violated, Leftist thinking mandates that all is well as long it helps to pave the way for the Socialist future. The effects may not be pleasant, but they are needed to get the mission accomplished.
Leftist apologists are fond of glossing (if they admit to their existence at all) over the atrocities committed by and under Stalin by claiming that his moves were needed to clean the slate of recalcitrant kulaks and others who resisted his central planning. They argue that Russia was so far behind the times that only by making such moves (Conspicuously absent are any references to the enormous amount aid from Western Banks, the looting of Spanish "Republican" gold, and the US mega-support of materiel) could the USSR become a developed nation in a reasonable amount of time.
In short, Liberal/Progressive/ Leftist journalists will willingly of not happily endure any amount of governmental oppression of The Press as long it is for controlling what The People get to hear and read.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/02/22/media-silence-explained-soros-fingerprints-on-fcc-newsroom-probe?utm_source=contentsharing&utm_medium=linkexchange&utm_term=postion1&utm_content=media-silence-explained-soros-fingerprints-on-fcc-newsroom-probe&utm_campaign=foxnews
"The real mystery behind the FCC's now abandoned "study" to police American newsrooms is why the mainstream media refused to raise holy hell over it. While Obama's lapdogs refused to bark, it was conservative media who fought for newsroom independence and got the FCC to finally back down. Other than the media's natural obedience to Obama, the fact that the fingerprints of left-wing billionaire George Soros have been found on the FCC study might also help to explain the media's silence.
CNS News reports that for the first ten years of the last decade, Soros donated more than $52 million to numerous media outlets. In a world where the media is dying a slow, painful suicide (brought about by their own incompetence and corruption), that is no small amount of money. And you can bet that those media organizations that have not benefited from Soros' largesse would someday like to. So why antagonize him?
The media's hands-off policy with Soros is nothing new. While outlets such as Politico and NBC News obsess over every move made by the libertarian Koch brothers, Soros and his spider-web of influential left-wing political operations (Media Matters, Center for American Progress) almost never receive any kind of media scrutiny. A recent media study found that the ratio of references between Kochs' organizations and Soros' organizations, in news outlets that pose as objective, are literally hundreds to one. Politico actually has Ken Vogel, a former Soros employee, constantly harassing covering the Koch brothers.
The mainstream media not only shares Soros' hard-left vision, but also benefits or hopes to benefit from Soros' bottomless billionaire well of funding. And in return, even though Soros' Tides Foundation is many times larger than the Kochs, the media look the other way for Soros and turn the Kochs into America's bogeyman. Which brings me back to the FCC proposal to police America's newsrooms.
As enamored and protective as the media are of Obama, when the Administration was caught spying on journalists last year, his Media Palace Guards still squawked. But still, this attempted move by the FCC, which is probably the scariest move against the media by the federal government since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, resulted in almost uniform silence by the mainstream media. If alternative and conservative media hadn't been vocal, nothing would have stopped FCC from interrogating and intimidating the press.
What might explain the media's silence is the looming specter of George Soros. History already proves the media has been reluctant to cross him. Apparently, even the idea of Soviet-style monitors looking over their shoulder couldn’t change that. CNS News helps to explain why:
Two schools were working with FCC on the project, according to Byron York of The Washington Examiner. The University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Communication and Democracy, were tasked by the FCC with coming up with criteria for what information is "critical" for Americans to have. The FCC study would have covered newspapers, websites, radio and television, according to The Washington Post.
On top of the 1st Amendment problems with this proposal, the schools involved have strong ties to liberal billionaire George Soros' Open Society Foundations and have gotten more than $1.8 million from since 2000.........."
.
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