Media Diversity

Editor's Note: Earlier today, CNN suspended contributor Roland Martin for some tweets he made regarding the David Beckham underwear ad that ran during the Super Bowl. Martin was the target of a pressure campaign from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). What follows after the page break is NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell's statement.

Editor's Note: What follows is a statement Mr. Bozell released earlier today regarding the FCC's decision yesterday to remove the so-called Fairness Doctrine from the regulation books.

The FCC deserves a one-handed round of applause for this move. Years ago, striking the Censorship Doctrine – and that's exactly what the Fairness Doctrine was – would have actually meant something.

But since the FCC started playing with policies of ‘localism,’ ‘media diversity’ and a nebulous requirement to ‘serve the public interest,’ with yet another unelected and unconfirmed "Diversity Czar" to implement these proposed regulations, the spirit of the Censorship Doctrine has remained very much alive. The path to censor radio airwaves is being paved through the back door.

The left and its media allies have systematically reduced Tea Party members to caricatures, calling them everything from "bigots" to "racists" to "terrorists," hoping to make something stick. The latest installment is a rewrite of the famous story tale "Alice in Wonderland," in which their "Mad Hatter" leader is none other than GOP presidential contender Michele Bachmann.

TBTM Media, the authors of "Going Rouge: The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring & Activity Book" have unveiled their latest attack on conservatives with, "Malice in Wonderland: A Tea Party Fable," in which they proudly claim that they have rewritten the Lewis Carroll classic to reflect "a bizarro world populated by Tea Party crazies!"

"The FCC gave the coup de grace to the fairness doctrine Monday as the commission axed more than 80 media industry rules," Politico's Brooks Boliek reported this afternoon:

"It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more."

-John Adams, July 3rd, 1776

Seems like a lot of fuss over a document written to form a political agreement between some loosely unified colonies more than 200 years ago.

When Adams wrote that, a nation had been created, yes, but it had yet to win any significant victories in its war against the most powerful military in the world. Many states were nearly bankrupt and it wasn't certain they'd hang together. And for all its noble ideas about equality, the Declaration did nothing to end slavery, which Adams called "as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest of happiness."

It’s a “news”` outlet dedicated to coverage of the Middle East, but it ignores ongoing atrocities against Israeli civilians. Its Arab language sibling threw a lavish birthday party for a terrorist who infamously murdered a Jewish family, and its reporting during the Iraq War was called “vicious, inaccurate, and inexcusable” by the U.S. Secretary of Defense. The list of op-ed contributors to its website reads like a Who’s Who of left-wing and Muslim anti-Americanism.

It’s Al Jezeera English, and liberals and the U.S. media want to give it prestigious awards and greater access to the U.S. cable news market.

An 8.9 magnitude earthquake hit Japan March 11 and the ensuing Tsunami wave delivered a devastating blow to the people, resources and economy of the U.S. ally. At this writing, a nuclear power plant there is on the verge of meltdown. As can be expected, it took a few days for the world and the American media to comprehend the complexity and gravity of the situation.

But two things were very predictable in the aftermath of a natural disaster. First, Americans have responded generously, having rallied financial, physical, emotional and spiritual support for the Japanese. Second, the network news refuses to recognize the impact that churches, faith-based groups and small non-profits have in the recovery effort.

Is Rush Limbaugh’s fear of a state-run media coming to fruition?

Hillary Clinton spent the morning on C-Span defending the State Department’s need for funding, because she feels private media in the U.S. has fallen woefully behind the likes of Al-Jazeera, the Chinese, and Russia. 

Via Business Insider, Clinton said:

"Al Jazeera is winning. The Chinese have opened up a global English language and multi-language television network, the Russians have opened up an English language network. I've seen it in a couple of countries and it's quite instructive."

Has she watched MSNBC or CNN lately?  The coupon book in the local newspaper is far more informative than the American media.

More perplexing is that Clinton seems to be blurring the line between popular media and the need to disseminate information via her State Department.  Essentially, because the Republicans want to slash the State Department budget in half, efforts to spread U.S. propaganda through new media will suffer.  Without money, her department cannot spread information to Arabic and Farsi language audiences.  This apparently, is the fault of Republicans cutting spending, and a private American media that can no longer compete.  Enter the state-run media.

(Video below the fold)

Is Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps trying to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine through what he calls a "public value test" for broadcasters? The short answer is no, and Copps is adamant about that point. He points out that while the Fairness Doctrine regulated political speech by mandating equal time for all views on a given topic, the "public value test" will only require that broadcasters serve the "public interest", whatever that may be.

Copps is correct in a narrow sense. The federal government will not be policing political opinions. It will simply be ensuring that content meets a standard for public value.

What Copps fails to grasp is that "public value" is such a subjective term that it is almost unavoidable for political factors to play into a determination of whether or not certain content satisfies the definition. In other words, there is not official regulation of political speech, but such speech will almost surely be regulated indirectly.

Media Research Center Vice President of Business and Culture Dan Gainor appeared on Fox Business Channel’s ‘Varney & Co’ Nov. 19 to discuss Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s stated wish to shut down both Fox News and MSNBC.

The West Virginia Democrat recently said, “There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to Fox and to MSNBC: ‘Out. Off. End. Goodbye.’ It would be a big favor to political discourse.”

Video below the fold

On Monday's "Morning Joe," co-host Joe Scarborough cast Fox News as an unabashedly conservative network while trumpeting his own show as a neutral voice of sanity in a polarized news environment. "In this world of Balkanized cable news outlets...it is kind of nice being Switzerland," he gloated, asserting the neutrality of his "Morning Joe" program.

"This show is a safe house where people can come and talk whether they are on the right or the left," Scarborough described his MSNBC morning show. "But there aren't many places left like that outside these three hours."

"Morning Joe" by-and-large leaves guests the freedom to express their own opinion. But Scarborough's assumption leaves out the fact that an overwhelming number of liberal guests and analysts appear on the show. Jon Meacham of Newsweek, former MSNBC host Donny Deutsch, and Tina Brown of The Daily Beast are three of many liberals who appear regularly on "Morning Joe."

In contrast, a far-right conservative appearing on "Morning Joe" is rare. MSNBC analyst Pat Buchanan is one of the few conservative voices appearing regularly on the show. RedState's Erik Erickson appears infrequently and contributors from publications like National Review appear rarely if ever.
 

If Anne Applebaum is to be believed, the existence of primary sources is in and of itself the reason the dead-trees should be kept around. She writes for Slate:

I didn't think it was possible, but Julian Assange has now done it: By releasing 92,000 documents full of Afghanistan intelligence onto the laptops of an unsuspecting public, the founder of Wikileaks has finally made an ironclad case for the mainstream media. If you were under the impression that we don't need news organizations, editors, or reporters with more than 10 minutes' experience anymore, then think again. The notion that the Internet can replace traditional news-gathering has just been revealed to be a myth.

Ironically, that passage shows one of the key problems with the mainstream media: they don't know anything. The Afghanistan documents collected by Wikileaks are not "intelligence," but field reports from regular combat units and special forces. Also, the notion that Wikileaks is some kind of news organization when it is really an online repository of documents-i.e. sources instead of reportage-shows the kind of unfamiliarity with basic facts that people like Applebaum, in the mainstream media, wrongly attribute to Wikipedia and ignore in themselves.

Time magazine's Michael Scherer, who has been revealed by the Daily Caller as expressing a deep dislike of Fox News, has the power to really annoy them.

"Ailes understands," Scherer said in an email on the much-maligned JournoList, "that his job is to build a tribal identity, not a news organization. You can't hurt Fox by saying it gets it wrong . . ." Though Scherer clearly has a bone to pick with the channel, he and Time have vehemently denied claims that he would silence Fox News.

Ironically, according to Politics Daily's Matt Lewis, Scherer "may actually be in a position to hurt Fox" by denying the cable network the front-row seat in the White House briefing room left vacant by Helen Thomas. Scherer sits on the Board of Directors of the White House Correspondents' Association, which controls access to White House press conferences.

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan wrote in a 1996 article entitled "Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine" that "redistribution of speech" is not "itself an illegitimate end" for government. 

As first reported by Matt Cover at the Media Research Center's news wing CNSNews.com, Kagan offers up this gem:

"If there is an ‘overabundance' of an idea in the absence of direct governmental action -- which there well might be when compared with some ideal state of public debate -- then action disfavoring that idea might ‘un-skew,' rather than skew, public discourse."

So if talk radio suffers from an "overabundance" of conservative voices, government action to "un-skew" this particular public discourse is just fine by her. 

Hello so-called "Fairness" Doctrine.  Not to mention Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd's liberally "skewed" interpretations of FCC "media diversity" and "localism" rules.

Two Useful Idiots and the Man Who's Using Them In light of our recent look at Venezuelan thug dictator Hugo Chavez and the FCC Diversity Czar Lloyds who love him, we now bring you this. 

The intrepid Steve Forbes took last Wednesday to FoxNews.com to analyze Chavez vis a vis a report by the Organization for the American States (OAS).  Forbes writes about:

(A) new and discouraging, but not unsurprising (OAS) report about the troubling anti-democratic trend in Venezuela, as Hugo Chavez continues to crack down on those who oppose him - be they in the judiciary, opposition parties or the media. The OAS's 300 page report by jurists and civil rights activists from Antigua, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and the United States points out the increasing role that violence and murder have played in Chavez's consolidation of his power, including the documented killing of journalists.

Again, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd has praised Chavez for taking "very seriously the media in his country." Again we ask, is the above what Lloyd has in mind?

More from Forbes:

Is this what Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd meant when he said (on camera) Venezuelan thug dictator Hugo Chavez (take that, Sean Penn) had begun "to take very seriously the media in his country"- while praising Chavez's "incredible...democratic revolution?"

The Associated Press (AP) late Friday night reported "Chavez criticizes US as arrests stir concern."  Which plays down the lede in the headline, but gets right into it in the story itself.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday defended the arrest of a major TV channel owner, calling him a criminal and denying the government is carrying out an assault on press freedom.

The back-to-back arrests this week of two government opponents - including the owner of Venezuela's only remaining anti-Chavez TV channel - have drawn accusations that Chavez is growing increasingly intolerant and authoritarian as his popular support has slipped.

Opposition leaders and human rights groups condemned Thursday's arrest of Globovision's owner Guillermo Zuloaga, who was detained at an airport and released hours later after a judge issued an order barring him from leaving the country.

Zuloaga is accused of spreading false information and insulting the president at an Inter American Press Association meeting in Aruba last weekend, Attorney General Luisa Ortega said.

As the piece indicates, this is but the latest example of Chavez taking "very seriously the media in his country," in Lloyd parlance.  Which is woefully at odds with freedoms of speech and the press.  Which is fine with Lloyd, because so's he.

The guy has an hour-long television show that isn't the highest-rated program on cable television, but does fairly well considering the circumstances. Yet, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who has expressed his own "unhinged" anger about the Supreme Court ruling that corporations have a free speech right to participate in elections, says there is a deficiency of anger about the ruling.

Olbermann, on the Jan. 22 "Countdown," launched into another one of his abbreviated tirades, or what he calls is a "Quick Comment" and blasted his colleagues in the media for not being as "enlightened" as he thinks they should be.

"I worked full-time in sports for about 20 years and I've worked full- time in news for about 10 years," Olbermann said. "And after yesterday, I must finally say aloud what I have long thought but have been reluctant to voice. The average person in the American news industry appears to be about one-fifth as plugged into the world he or she covers, as does the average person in the American sports industry.

During George W.'s administration, liberals loved to wail over the supposed--but never demonstrated--suppression of free speech.  

But now we have the spectacle of a member of the Dem majority warning a leading representative of Fox News to stop celebrating his network's success--under threat of reinstitution of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine." On last evening's Factor, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, invoking the possibility of the return of the 'Fairness Doctrine,' warned O'Reilly to stop "crowing" about Fox's success.

O'Reilly had been questioning Kucinich about the collapse of the liberal media as reflected in the demise of Air America and Fox's crushing of CNN and MSNBC during this past Tuesday's election night coverage by margins of five and six-to-one.

TVNewser has a transcript par excellence, for your reading pleasure.  In sum, Mika Brzezinski has gone off the Big Media reservation again, in a good way. Let’s just say she unwittingly (?) offers praise for a cable news network with much better ratings.

In an interview for her new book, Brzezinski spoke with Julie Menin about the partisan nature of today’s American media:

BRZEZINSKI: "I've worked in the mainstream media for all the networks and I will say what people aren't saying. It's got a liberal world view. There are great people working at the networks, and they're mostly Democrats, ok? They try really hard to be objective, really hard and they do a great job at it, but the balance is not there within the objective mainstream media. It's not, it is not and I'm not sure how we fix that. I hate the polarizing extremes that we're seeing on cable where there's these sort of ‘Think my way or you’re evil’ kind of subliminal message or cartoonish type characters on the right and the left.

Interesting enough – but even more piquing is Brzezinski’s solution to the problem of a partisan media:

UPDATE (below the fold): Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity referenced the video from this post on his January 20th show.

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The Word of the Day is: Context.

First, as to the video at right.  Its context is the May 9, 2009 White House Correspondents Association Dinner.  At which White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel uttered the following:

"When you think about the First Amendment...you think it's highly overrated."

Emanuel said this to an unidentified entertainment reporter (I did not toil too strenuously to ascertain his identity).  But said scribe seemed a little bewildered by Emanuel's assertion, despite the obvious mirth in Rahm's face as he delivers the line - at the Correspondents' Dinner.  The irony appears to escape the man with the microphone.

But given how the Administration has gone on to handle all things First Amendment, perhaps this journalist is not humor-addled, but prescient.  Let us now place Emanuel's remark into the proper Administrative context. 

Fox News Channel and radio talk show host Glenn Beck has quickly risen to be one the most prominent targets of the Left.  Radio Talk King Rush Limbaugh is Liberal Enemy #1; there's a strong case to be made that Beck is now running second.

One of the myriad feeble way's the Left attempts to deal with Beck - or any conservative - is to dismiss him or her as a liar, without any facts to back up said claim and often in the face of overwhelming evidence provided by the conservative in question.

Beck is spending this week on his FNC show revisiting the copious reams of evidence he compiled over the course of the last year - as he laid waste to one liberal nostrum and public official (Czar, if you will) after another. 

And who did Beck choose to have bat lead off in his "Let's Hammer Home the Truth" week?

How Do You Know Mark Lloyd is Lying?
Editor's Note: MRC President and NewsBusters.org Publisher Brent Bozell earlier today issued a statement on this. 

Mark Lloyd, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s Chief Diversity Officer, made an appearance outside the confines of the communications Bat Cave yesterday.  He keynoted a morning panel discussion entitled Social Media, Net Neutrality, and Future of Journalism for the liberal group (and FCC "Diversity" Committee member) Media Access Project.

I highlight his emergence because his boss, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, has declined to make Lloyd available for interviews, saying he as Chair speaks for the FCC and his staff.  (A position which I think is completely fair and appropriate.)  So it is rare to see him out and about.

Lloyd in fact began his talk by stating "The views I express today are my own. I do not speak for the Federal Communications Commission."  Which is also fine.

What wasn't fine was his deep delving into untruths when he later attempted to defend himself against what he claimed were "exaggerations and distortions" of a wide range of his thoughts, positions and policy prescriptions, from what he called a "right-wing smear campaign."

In old school parlance, Lloyd lied.  Quite a bit.  And how do we know this?

Yesterday in a speech for the Media Access Project, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd claimed to refute numerous what he called “exaggerations and distortions” of a wide range of his thoughts, positions and policy prescriptions from what he called a “right-wing smear campaign.”  What Lloyd did was offer numerous falsehoods and denials about things that are undeniably true. 

For example, Lloyd has insisted that a "right-wing smear campaign" was "distorting [his] views about the First Amendment" when in fact, in his 2006 book "Prologue to a Farce," Lloyd plainly made clear his view that the freedoms of speech and press were "all too often an exaggeration" and that "the purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance."

In response to Lloyd's lies, Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell released a statement today [click here for the full press release]:

For the dog-bites-man news category: Joe Scarborough had a moment of intellectual schizophrenia today.

On MSNBC's Morning Joe, co-host Willie Geist and Politico.com executive editor Jim VandeHei were discussing a Politico story about internal political pressures at National Public Radio (NPR).  Apparently, NPR's top political correspondent Mara Liasson was asked by NPR executives to reconsider her appearances on Fox News, for concerns over Fox's perceived political bias.

Scarborough pointed out the obvious:

A powerful Democratic lawmaker has stated his willingness to intervene on the behalf of the federal government in the nation's news sector. Insisting that the newspaper business is vital to democracy, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., suggested that the government "resolve" the problems in the industry, potentially though misguided federal bailouts.

At a workshop on the future of journalism at the Federal Trade Commission, Waxman, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, suggested the federal government secure "public funding for quality journalism as a means to preserve a critical mass of resources and assets devoted to public media."

Though Waxman raised other options, he devoted more of his address to public funding for newspapers than any other avenue for preserving the medium. Newspaper bailouts could, he stated, "preserve and maintain key functions of modern journalism ... by cushioning the economic squeeze publishers are facing."

We wrote Monday of Leftist, George Soros-funded "media reform" outfit Free Press, and their extensive relationships with people currently in power at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and in the White House - up to and including President Barack Obama.

With current FCC Chief Diversity Officer ("Diversity Czar") Mark Lloyd and the Leftist, George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, Free Press co-authored the 2007 report The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.  Which calls for the FCC to enforce exceedingly broad (we would say warped) new definitions of the media diversity and localism FCC broadcast license requirements. These new definitions and their enactment are intended to force conservative and Christian talk show hosts off the air, to be replaced by those of a Leftist bent.

Free Press developed then-presidential candidate Obama's communications policies portfolio.  Now-President Obama's FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski hired Free Press Press Secretary Jen Howard to serve in the same capacity for the FCC. And Marxist 9-11 "Truther" Van Jones - who was President Obama's "Green Jobs Czar" until his multi-layered, anti-American and paranoid past came to light, forcing him to resign - was a Free Press Board member until 2008.

We also mentioned Free Press's co-founder, college professor and avowed Marxist Robert McChesney. (Some fairly interesting video quotes from him at right; inordinately interesting print quotes from him below the fold.)  If you have not yet already had enough Marxism and Marxists, please - read on (warning - there's a Reverend Jeremiah Wright on-video sighting beneath as well).

Robert McChesney, Enemy of Free Speech

The broader public is finally being introduced to Leftist "media reform" outfit Free Press and its co-founder, avowed Marxist Robert McChesney. (I appeared on the October 7, 2009 edition of the Glenn Beck television show to discuss one and all.)

Founded in 2002, McChesney's Free Press seeks to transform the media landscape - on radio, television and the internet - via (amongst other ways) sweeping rules changes at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Changes that would dramatically decrease private ownership of the means of news and information delivery, with the federal government assuming an ever greater replacement role.

One intended effect of this shift away from free market media to government-owned media is to diminish what Free Press sees as the inherently right-wing slant of the news that results from corporate ownership. (Have they watched NBC, ABC or CBS - ever?). And in their warped view of the media landscape, conservative and Christian talk radio (which is not news but self-identified opinion) is the most egregious example of this alleged corporatist taint.

Free Press has spent the last seven years developing policy prescriptions and working with like-minded policy and public officials that would make this hoped-for transformational change a reality. And their allies are now in place and in power - at the FCC and in the White House.

A new report on the state of the newspaper industry in Argentina has found that federal appropriations for newspapers have resulted in less coverage of government corruption. This study goes to the heart of the 'newspaper bailout' debate in this country, and demonstrates the danger of supporting the news media with government funds (h/t Mark Tapscott).

Many liberal media commentators have called for direct federal subsidies for ailing newspapers, arguing that federally-supported news media are essential to democracy. The most prominent group in this camp is Free Press, founded by liberal media guru--and avowed socialist--Robert McChesney (incidentally, McChesney has avidly defended Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's crackdown on opposition media outlets in the country).

CNN’s Carol Costello began a new series on political talk radio on Monday’s American Morning, suggesting it was unfairly dominated by conservatives, and brought on a liberal psychiatrist who theorized that Rush Limbaugh has an audience because he’s “operating like the bully, and if you’re on the playground...you want to be...under the bully’s wing and go along with him and get...some power by proxy.”

The correspondent’s report, which aired just before the bottom of the 7 am Eastern hour, was the first installment in a “special series on talk radio,” according to anchor John Roberts. Costello zeroed in on the listeners and why the format “can capture people for such long periods of time.” A graphic on the screen during her report heralded “anger on the air: what listeners don’t know about talk radio.” [MP3 audio available here]

Towards the end of her report, the CNN correspondent played a sound bite from radical left-wing host Randi Rhodes, who speculated that “the reason they don’t passionately listen to liberal talk radio is access” (Costello outrageously downplayed Rhodes’s political leanings by describing her as someone whom “many consider a liberal talker”). The “liberal talker” noted that apparently, “ninety-one percent of talk radio is conservative.” Costello continued that “according to Talkers magazine, liberal talkers fill just nine percent of the nation’s news talk radio on the commercial dial. Change that, Rhodes says, and liberal listeners would listen just as much.”

The 91 percent figure actually came from a 2007 report titled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio,” written by two liberal organizations- Center for American Progress and Free Press. However, the report, which was co-authored by current FCC “chief diversity officer” Mark Lloyd, “suffers from a number of structural flaws,” as a 2008 special report by MRC’s Culture and Media Institute pointed out. The CMI report continued that “the CAP report’s greatest flaw is ignoring noncommercial talk radio,” such as NPR’s many public radio affiliates.