Free Speech Alliance (FSA)

"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:

We really shouldn’t get angry with the media for being obstinately silent and/or willfully ignorant when it comes to - amongst many, MANY other things - Democrats and Leftists breaking the law.

It’s like getting upset with a six-month old for behaving badly in public.  It’s what we get - we should not be vexed when we get it.

There's a new speech sheriff in the town of Fresno, California, and they want to silence conservative talk radio.  And they'll say or do whatever it takes to get it done.

New "community group" Citizens for Civility & Accountability in Media (CCAM) is super-peeved at Fresno, California radio station KMJ for having the temerity to broadcast (on their two stations) conservative talk radio hosts to whom people want to listen.

Because, you see, it's "hate speech" - according to CCAM.  And therefore, KMJ should "alter their programming" (read: change their content by silencing conservatives) "in order to curtail practices that we believe to be damaging to our social fabric and to civility in public discourse."

It would seem the residents of Fresno do not believe that Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and others on KMJ are "damaging to our social fabric and to civility in public discourse."  But that could not matter less to CCAM.

This local "community group" has organized a press conference for today at 11AM PT to publicly call on KMJ to dump these conservative hosts, who according to them:

Editor's Note: Video and audio available below the fold.

Los Locos Yet another liberal bemoans the unbridled free speech that resulted from President Ronald Reagan's 1987 call to no longer enforce the so-called "Fairness" Doctrine.

This time it's Phoenix, Arizona Democratic Mayor Phil Gordon.  (He is not the Phil Gordon who plays poker.  The latter seeks to relieve you only of your money, not of your First Amendment rights.)

Mayor Censor participated in a May 14 panel discussion put together by the George Soros-funded, John Podesta-run, Marxist Van Jones permanent job place-holding Center for American Progress entitled "When Federal Government Failure Leads to Local Upheaval-Arizona and Beyond." 

At which Mayor Censor designated the absence of the mis-named "Fairness" Doctrine and the free market radio choices made by the American people that resulted as in part contributing to the passage of Arizona law 1070, which calls on state law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws.

Says Mayor Censor:

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.

Equal Time for Equal Minds

Last Thursday, on his unwatched and unwatchable MSNBC television program, Equine Ed Schultz stepped into his Leftist Wayback Machine for a little retro-censorship. With the intent of bringing it back to the future.

Having first called for a reimposition of the alleged "Fairness" Doctrine the week prior on his unlistened to and unlistenable radio show, Schultz took his censorious intentions to his tens of viewers on the tube. (He is doing all of this after making fun of us in 2008 for concerning ourselves with the Doctrine's return.)

Schultz made his latest call for "fairness" by citing the patently absurd 2007 "report" The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio. Which was co-published by the George Soros-funded Leftist "think" tanks Center for American Progress and (the Marxist-founded) Free Press.

We have in fact dismantled this "report"for its deep-seated and inherent fraudulence. It asserts that talk radio is too conservative - and that we need oppressive government regulations aplenty to remedy the situation.

However, it cooked the books from the outset - excluding uber-liberal National Public Radio (NPR) from their analysis pool and then drawing their fraudulent conclusion.

It was co-authored by the Hugo Chavez-loving, "white people" need to be forced to "step down" "so someone else can have power" asserting Mark Lloyd - who is now the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s first ever "Chief Diversity Officer." Just one of the many honest brokers involved in this wholly dishonest endeavor.

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.

They Know Nuh-Think It was the 2008 Talkers magazine New Media Seminar - June 6 and 7 in New York City.  I was there to hob nob with the elite of talk radio. 

And Ed Schultz.

I was there also to curry support for our then latest effort to keep the radio airwaves free from tyrannical and censorious government regulation.  At that time it was against a return of the ridiculously mis-named "Fairness" Doctrine.  Given the talent pool in which I was swimming - those whose livelihoods would be destroyed by it's reinstatement - many were graciously willing to assist.

Not Ed Schultz.  

Word of my efforts made its way to him.  And he sought me out and approached me so as to ridicule us for fighting the good fight.  He rigidly insisted that no Democrat - no one in fact - was seeking a return of the Censorship Doctrine.

"Who talks to Nancy Pelosi more - you or me?" he angrily asked.  I replied "Have you talked to Nancy Pelosi - ever?"  Because if he had, once, ever, he had done so more than me.  (And more's the pity for him.)

He responded "Well I just spoke to her, and no one wants to see (the alleged "Fairness" Doctrine) brought back."

I tried to persuade him that there were plans in the works but he remained, as always, impervious to facts.

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

-------------------------------

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]:

Multi-Directional Censorship
(photo courtesy of)

The Wall Street Journal's intrepid and very good Amy Schatz has a piece today updating us on the progress of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s National Broadband Plan. 

With all that we have thus far seen, things look quite grim from a free speech, free market perspective.  The groundwork for government information totalitarianism - favored by people like Hugo Chavez-loving FCC "Diversity Czar" Mark Lloyd and Marxist "media reform"-outfit Free Press founder Robert McChesney - is being laid in the Plan being crafted by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

As we first reported, the Center for American Progress (at which Lloyd was then a Senior Fellow) and McChesney's Free Press co-authored the deeply flawed, anti-conservative and Christian talk radio "report" entitled The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.

But their shared disdain for free speech and the free market extend way beyond just this.   These "media reformers" seek to eradicate most or all private ownership of all information delivery - be it by radio, television or the internet - thereby leaving the federal government as sole purveyor. 

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.

Steve Waldman, the "founding soul of Beliefnet" and a former Newsweek reporter and US News & World Report editor is now spinning through the revolving door into the Obama FCC, reports Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today:

Steven Waldman, founder, editor and leading political blogger of Beliefnet.com, the nation's top Internet spirituality site, is leaving for a post in the Obama administration.

He's posted a farewell letter on his blog calling this "the most difficult (and surreal) post I've had to write" as he departs to become senior adviser to new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski.

Grossman's brief October 28 Faith & Reason blog post failed to mention Waldman's stint in the Clinton administration, but then again Waldman's Beliefnet blogger bio page also leaves out his work as senior advisor to the CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service -- the bureaucracy that runs AmeriCorps -- during the Clinton administration.

Media Research Center Communications Director and NewsBusters.org contributing editor appeared live in studio with Glenn Beck on his Fox News program yesterday where he discussed more damning information he's unearthed about FCC diversity czar Mark Lloyd: his ties to Marxist Hugo Chavez defender Robert McChesney. [MP3 audio available here]

McChesney's leftist group, ironically styled Free Press, co-authored with Lloyd and the liberal Center for American Progress a paper exploring "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio," which essentially serves as a treastise to justify "balancing" political talk radio via government regulation.

The news wing of the Media Research Center, CNSNews.com, yesterday reported that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) refused their request for an interview with Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd about his tremendously disturbing First Amendment and communications policy views. 

(Not to mention his affinity and admiration for Venezuelan dictatorial thug Hugo Chavez and his demand that "white people" "step down" "so someone else can have power.")

These are views which certainly deserve additional explanation from the man himself. We have analyzed his record at great length, but all of it from the outside looking in.  Some direct questions to - and answers from - Mr. Lloyd would be most helpful.

The FCC told CNSNews that it's their policy not to make staffers available to the media. And that is in fact fine; the FCC said its Commissioners are the front line officials and they themselves speak to the media, not those who work for them.

But Congress - and Congressional oversight - is a different story. And Congressman Greg Walden of Oregon agrees.  So too does FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.  During a September 17 convening of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, Congressman Walden - who is on said Subcommittee - asked Genachowski if Lloyd would be made available for questions (video at right).

One Giant Censorship Step Down For Personkind

Mark Lloyd is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s Chief Diversity Officer, a.k.a. the Diversity Czar. And he has in a recently discovered bit of archive audio goodness detailed his rather disturbing perspective on race, power and the American system.

(Audio located below the fold, courtesy of Breitbart.tv and Naked Emperor News)

This is of course in addition to Lloyd's rather disturbing perspective on the First Amendment.

"It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.

"[T]he purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance."

And Lloyd's rather disturbing perspective on Venezuelan Communist dictator Hugo Chavez's "incredible...democratic revolution." To go with Lloyd's bizarre admiration for the thuggishly fascistic manner in which "Chavez began to take very seriously the media in his country."

We have said repeatedly that Lloyd is a man myopically focused on race. What is revealed here is more than just that. Listening to excerpts of his offerings at a May 2005 Conference on Media Reform: Racial Justice reveals a man that finds great fault with our nation's power structure - as he defines and sees it. And in his racially-warped, finite pie worldview, too many white people sit alone in the too few spots atop the heap. They're "good white people," mind you, but ...

Yesterday, Media Research Center Director of Communications Seton Motley again appeared in studio with Glenn Beck to discuss the Obama FCC's drive to regulate talk radio out of existence.

Motley focused on the views of FCC diversity officer Mark Lloyd. Motley argued that, armed with FCC "localism" and "diversity" regulations, Lloyd could prove instrumental in working a back-door regulatory alternative to the so-called Fairness Doctrine.

Editor's Note: Audio for the video at right is available here.

We have written often about Mark Lloyd, who has since his July 29 appointment been reveling in the position created just for him, "Chief Diversity Officer" at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

As we have repeatedly stated, Chief Diversity Officer Lloyd is virulently anti-capitalist, almost myopically racially fixated and exuberantly pro-regulation.

(It will come as no surprise to those who follow the work of the Media Research Center to learn that Lloyd was also at one time, prior to attending law school, an Emmy Award-winning journalist and producer for among other outlets NBC and CNN.)   

Lloyd is in fact a Saul Alinsky disciple.  In his 2006 book entitled Prologue to a Farce: Communication and Democracy in America, he calls for an all-out "confrontational movement" against private media.  He wants leftist activists - through incessant political pressure - and the government - through the creation of a totally untenable operating environment of fees, fines and regulations - to work together to force the commercial broadcasters out, to be replaced by  public broadcasters. 

And in his tome, Lloyd had this to say about the First Amendment:

Today Media Research Center (MRC) president and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell denounced the Obama administration for its plans to delve into the private sector for the purposes of researching and regulating the national news media.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced plans for a two-day workshop in December to examine the state of the news industry - which could lead to recommendations for legislation to regulate print, television, and even online media on everything from changes in anti-trust land copyright law to media tax breaks. Some of the proposals being pushed by opinion leaders include direct government funding of media outlets, while other ideas like relaxing anti-trust regulations would still need government approval.

Mr. Bozell issued the following statement in response:

Appearing on his program yesterday, Media Research Center's Seton Motley talked with Glenn Beck about the various regulations the FCC's new diversity czar Mark Lloyd wants to bring upon the terrestrial radio industry, particularly conservative-dominated talk radio.

GLENN BECK: When you read the new diversity officer, what is the most disturbing thing that you have seen? What are the things that he says that stick out to you?

SETON MOTLEY: Well, he's fundamentally opposed to virtually any private ownership of media.  [...]

BECK: Tell me exactly what his plan is.

MOTLEY: His plan is to use the nebulous FCC regulations of media diversity and localism to travel alternative routes to arrive at the same destination as the Fairness Doctrine, which is to shut you up by shutting you down. He wants to assault the radio industry to effect an ideological outcome...

You  can view the entire segment embedded above on the right.

"Diversity Czar" Lloyd: Regulating Conservative Stations Within an Inch of Their Lives

Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley has publicly released a letter he penned to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski regarding the July 29th announced appointment of new FCC Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd.

In the press release accompanying the missive, the Senator said he was "concerned with the appointment due to Lloyd’s writings on political talk radio and the Fairness Doctrine."

As the Senator's letter goes on to detail, there is very much more to fear from Lloyd than merely his views on the so-called "Fairness" Doctrine.  Lloyd's intentions on the enforcement of the FCC regulations known as "media diversity" and "localism" are no picnic either.

In advance of then-nominee Genachowski's June 16 Senate Commerce Committee confirmation hearing, my boss - Media Research Center President Brent Bozell - drafted and publicly released a list of questions that Genachowski should have been asked.

Sadly, with the exception of the most pro forma of queries about the mis-named "Fairness" Doctrine, he was not. 

Genachowski therefore remains a blank slate on his "media diversity" and "localism" enforcement intentions.  We are thusly left to think the worst about his appointment of Chief Diversity Officer Lloyd. The Chairman has to have read Lloyd's writings; his appointing him must mean Genachowski at least tacitly accepts Lloyd's views on the subjects at hand.

Which is frightening.

Seton Motley, the Media Research Center's Director of Communications, was on the Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck to discuss the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s new "Chief Diversity Officer," Mark Lloyd.

Chief Diversity Officer Lloyd is virulently anti-capitalist, almost myopically racially fixated and exuberantly pro-regulation.  He is a frightening guy to have having any power at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).  And yet that is exactly where he currently stands, astride the private radio industry he loathes like a Socialist Colossus.

It does not bode well for free speech on the radio airwaves, but as Seton says to Glenn during this appearance, "That's irrelevent to these people."

Media Research Center Director of Communications and NewsBusters contributor Seton Motley is scheduled to appear on today's Glenn Beck program on Fox News Channel.

His segment should air around 5:45 p.m. EDT.

Motley will discuss the views of FCC's new "chief diversity officer" Mark Lloyd and how his influence on regulatory policy could prove detrimental to free speech on America's radio airwaves.

As Motley noted recently, these are some statist policy initiatives Lloyd endorsed when he was a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress:

The International Sign of Censorship

Matt Cover at the Media Research Center's News Division, CNSNews.com, has a piece out today entitled "FCC’s Chief Diversity Officer Wants Private Broadcasters to Pay a Sum Equal to Their Total Operating Costs to Fund Public Broadcasting."

This is insane.  The "Chief Diversity Officer" in question, Mark Lloyd, is calling for the gross operating budget for every private radio station each year to be the fee (tax) they pay for their broadcast license for the year, with the monies going to the always liberal public stations.  With whom they then must compete for listeners.  

Chief Diversity Officer Lloyd is - from all we have read and are reading - virulently anti-capitalist, almost myopically racially fixated and exuberantly pro-regulation.  He is a frightening guy to have having any power at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).  And yet that is exactly where he currently stands, astride the private radio industry he loathes like a Socialist Colossus.

This excellent article by Cover is but the tip of the iceberg on this guy; there will be much more to follow as we continue to wade through his deeply disturbing writings. For instance, we have his farcical book on order.

When Vice President Joe Biden warned us to gird our loins, he apparently meant for us to do so in preparation for his Administration.