Day: 2/26/2009

The Fairness Doctrine Of The Undead

Posted by on February 26, 2009 at 7:16 pm. 1 Comments :

Never mind that President Obama has repeatedly stated his opposition to the Fairness Doctrine.

Never mind that no one in congress has drafted, introduced, or advocated a bill reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.

Never mind that almost every liberal organization, including the most prominent media reform group, Free Press, has come out against reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.

Never mind that it’s been 20 years since anyone has taken an official action in support of the Fairness Doctrine.

The Fairness Doctrine is presently the most serious threat to the United States short of Al Qaeda.

And now we can add an actual vote to prohibit the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine – an overwhelming vote by a Democratic Senate of 87-11 – to the list of things that we can ignore because hysterical right-wingers STILL believe that the Fairness Doctrine is lurking just around the next bend in the road, waiting to pounce on their loudmouthed radio ranters and deflower the virtue of America.

In a bill aimed at giving the District of Columbia a vote in the House of Representatives (along with a new seat for Utah), the Broadcasters Freedom Act was added as an amendment. The text of this legislation prohibits the FCC from reimposing the terms of the Fairness Doctrine. The margin of approval for the amendment should put to rest any discussion that Democrats are endeavoring to bring back the Doctrine. It should be put to rest, but it won’t be. Republicans are so wedded to the fear they seek to generate with this issue that they will embrace it with all their might rather than recognize that they are battling a phantom.

This is not so much a case of a zombie doctrine rising from the dead, as it is the GOP reanimating a corpse for their own exploitation. Rush Limbaugh began raving about the return of the Doctrine almost as soon as the Senate had voted to prohibit it. And he did it in typical racist Limbaugh fashion. He attempted to explain that completely unrelated media reform measures like local programming, and ownership diversity, were really just new disguises for the Doctrine. On diversity, he described why that wouldn’t work saying that it would be faked by corporate schemers who…

“…would go down to the barrios of Los Angeles, and they would pick somebody out, ‘Hey, you, Hector, over here,’ and they’d put Hector in charge of the company…”

In that brief citation, Limbaugh managed to double down his dumbness. First, he insulted Latinos by implying that they are all residents of barrios and none are qualified to run a business. Second, he admitted that companies are too corrupt to entrust with minor social contrivances like obeying the law – companies like the one that employs Limbaugh.

So now there has been a vote, and everyone is on the record. But the Fairness Fairies are clapping as hard as they can and they refuse to let this go. Obviously, this will never end. No matter how many spikes pierce the heart of the Fairness Doctrine, delusional conservatives will exhume the body and pretend that it still lives.

Fox Business Network Is On The Case

Posted by on February 26, 2009 at 3:10 pm. 2 Comments :

Last year the Fox Business Network filed a Freedom of Information Act request for Treasury Department documents related to the Toxic Assets Relief Program. After filing the request, FBN launched an advertising campaign promoting their tireless efforts on behalf of the American people.

I have no problem with the FOIA requests, in fact I support them. They are an important part of a transparent democracy, and news enterprises have always used them to provide a complete picture of what our government is doing on our behalf. They do it in the interests of journalism, not some disingenuous grandstanding as protectors of the people. It is unseemly for a network to puff itself up simply for doing its job. Bloomberg also has FOIA requests pending, but they aren’t banging the drum about it.

Now the puffery is ascending to new highs of absurdity. Fox News executive vice president Kevin Magee is patting himself and his network on the back for being champions of the people. He is engaging in a sustained campaign of self-flattery that he paradoxically says “is not a wild publicity stunt.”

Magee: “One of the ways that we want to differentiate ourselves is to tell our audience that we are trying to protect their interests. We think that’s a wide-open field. CNBC seems to always be the friend of the CEO and that’s fine, nothing wrong with that. It has served them well.”

This statement is a direct contradiction of what his boss said when FBN debuted:

Rupert Murdoch: “…a Fox channel would be ‘more business-friendly than CNBC.’ That channel ‘leap[s] on every scandal, or what they think is a scandal.'”

So it is FBN that has always sought to be “the friend of the CEO.” Now, in the midst of a Wall Street driven economic collapse, they want to pretend that they are the network of the people. What a crock! The truth is, they are engaging in pure self-promotion. FBN has tried to cultivate the image of being a business channel for Main Street, not Wall Street. But from the beginning, that pretense has been as phony as their “Fair and Balanced” sloganeering for Fox News.

On top of all of this, FBN wants to claim as their victory something that is not really a victory and with which they had little to do anyway. Documents referenced in the FOIA request have already begun flowing. Over 1,200 have been released, 300 of which were previously undisclosed. FBN’s attempt to take credit for this is plausible only if you completely forget that President Obama, on his first full day in office, issued an executive order requiring agencies in his administration to cooperate with FOIA requests. This explicitly reversed a Bush executive order that mandated withholding information if at all possible.

Emerging from the secrecy-obsessed world of George W. Bush may feel strange, but FBN should recognize that they haven’t moved any mountains. They are just in a new era of openness that makes news gathering a little easier. It is more than a little pathetic that somebody else loosened the top of the jelly jar and FBN thinks they’ve grown new muscles.

Meet Bill Sammon: The New Fox News DC Chief

Posted by on February 26, 2009 at 1:33 pm. 8 Comments :

The “Fair and Balanced” network, Fox News, has just promoted Bill Sammon to VP And Washington Managing Editor. Just so you know who will be heading up the political newsgathering for the so-called news network, here is a collection of his writings:

Bill Sammon Books
  • The Evangelical President: George Bush’s Struggle to Spread a Moral Democracy Throughout the World
  • At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election
  • Strategery: How George W. Bush Is Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats, and Confounding the Mainstream Media.
  • Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism from Inside the White House
  • Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, Media Bias and the Bush Haters

Bill Sammon is no less ideological or partisan than Bill O’Reilly. Now he will be in charge of all Washington news decisions. That means both establishing the tone and slant of stories they report, and determining what stories to refrain from reporting. He will also continue to appear on Fox News offering his opinions as a news analyst. Fox still hasn’t learned that opinions are not a part of the journalist’s responsibilities.

See the full contingent of Fox News authors here.