CBSUNIVERSE--Hey, CBS. Don't think I didn't notice you wouldn't cover the Senate vote (94-2) yesterday stripping the White House and AG Gonzales of the ability to fill vacant US Attorney posts without consulting them in Congress first. Why do you suck so badly at reporting the news? It's obvious why you're number three: people are noticing the disconnect in your reporting (and what goes unreported, like this vote) against news on the internet. Not even Katie Couric (or the public's irrational emotional-connection with her) is going to save your plummeting-ratings. But take-heart--it's an historic opportunity to have a real news department again, one that doesn't turn-a-profit. Yes, 60 Minutes ruined the news, I saw the Frontline series. The series is extraordinary and should be watched by all Americans.
The only thing that can fix this is law. There has to be a rollback of all the laws since Reagan that have allowed the deregulation of the FCC and the airwaves that are owned by the public, collectively. We can also fix our elections by making all political campaigning-ads for all legitimately-registered candidates FREE from any charges. That's right, the media's owners have neglected their public-responsibilities, and so did Congress during Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. A good start would be to make the Fairness Doctrine a law. But that can only be a start. There can no-longer be media conglomerates in a free society, but much of our news can be nationalized like in Canada and the UK. As we now know, things are completely totalitarian in Canada, eh. I was there man, I saw it. It's like East Germany in Toronto, trust me.
To their credit, Democrats in Congress attempted real reforms in the FCC in 1988 and 1993, but it was scuppered by a number of conservative incumbents and the GOP. You know, some of the same people who want to prolong the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they have something in-common with CBS: they all protect the president, to their eternal shame. History will not be kind to those who protected George W. Bush, and the judgements are already coming-in from the scholars. But all of this is why you're number three. Soon, nobody will watch CBS for news, and all those advertising dollars will be gone. Katie will also be gone, but that's life. We, the public, can put you all out to pasture if we have to. All we have to do is ignore you, stop-buying many of the products of your advertisers--or simply get our news from Europe and the rest of the world if we have to. Either way, reforms are coming, and they're going to stick. The party is over.
Matt, the environment in which the original Fairness Doctrine emerged simply no longer exists. The irony is that supporters of this revamped Fairness Doctrine claim that it will result in more diverse voices on the airwaves by lowering the number of media outlets that one company is permitted to own in a single market, yet in practice, placing limits on the station ownership has been shown to have the exact opposite effect. If corporations are forced to sell off certain stations, the majority of those properties will find themselves unable to compete against cable, satellite, radio, and the Internet for the advertising dollars on which they rely. And without the necessary income, these stations will eventually fail, resulting in less competition and ultimately a more homogenized media, neither of which is in the best interests of the public. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I do some consulting work with the NAB.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the transparency. You're misrepresenting the Fairness Doctrine, it's not related to ownership of media, it's about having fair and equal time for opposing viewpoints. Also, you ignored the point I was making about nationalizing the news media--you appear to be unable to think outside of the market box.
ReplyDeleteI'm suggesting jettisoning the context. You seem to want things to stay the same. What we currently have in-place is what you describe as the outcome of reinstating concentration of media ownership restrictions. That's just more conservative "market-based" conventional wisdom.
Here's the definition of what the Fairness Doctrine was from 1949-1986: again, to provide fair and equal time for different/opposing viewpoints, as well as regulating the public service performance of stations and their ownership. Under this, Fox News would be gone, because they represent the viewpoints of the GOP, Roger Aisles, and Rupert Murdoch, without any real diversity of opinion. The same can be said for all major media-outlets today. Your model isn't work, while I would contend that the Republic was safer under a substantial Fairness Doctrine--we actually had real footage from Vietnam, what do we have from Iraq with the concentration of ownership today? I strongly disagree. Thanks for the comment, I'm just unconvinced, as are millions.
PS: Thanks for ignoring all the main-points of the piece, it must have taken a lot of effort. But that must be common at the National Association of Broadcasters. You're not biased. Not at all. Naw.
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