Tag Archives: FCC

When WOKE Takes Over

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about a change in the information collected by the government from broadcasters.

The article reports:

The Biden Administration is so concerned about preserving democracy and the norms that underlie it that they are, once again, ignoring Supreme Court precedents in order to do the right thing no matter how many Constitutional limits they have to blow through. 

…This time the issue is collecting DEI information from broadcasters, which has been tried before and found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court–twice.

We have this story via an FCC commissioner who dissented from the decision. He was previously the General Counsel of the FCC, so he knows of what he speaks better than almost anybody. 

…There is one and only one reason for the FCC to require broadcasters to publish their DEI-related employment stats, and it has everything to do with making broadcasters vulnerable to pressure from activist groups pushing them to change the racial and gender balance of their employees. 

The point is to outsource what the government can’t do to pressure groups: impose de facto quotas.

The Court has twice rejected similar attempts by the FCC, but they seem to believe that in this case, the third time is the charm. 

The FCC claims that there is no evidence that forcing broadcasters to disclose this presumptively private information will have any impact. 

The article concludes:

Government grants go to nonprofits with Left-wing agendas, pushing for things the government cannot. It is the outsourcing of the cultural revolution in the way that post-9/11 intelligence and even military operations were outsourced to private contractors. 

It’s legally dubious, morally wrong, and over the long term it has been pretty damn effective. 

There is no plausible reason for forcing companies to release private employment data legally protected under privacy provisions except to give ammunition to outside pressure groups. 

Unfortunately, it’s no surprise that our benevolent betters are fine with tearing up the Constitution. They have been working at it for years now. 

I remember what happened in California when names of donors to a conservative cause were released–their homes were picketed and some were put out of business. The requesting of this information by the FCC is illegal and needs to end immediately.

What An Incredible Coincidence

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On Wednesday The Daily Caller reported that Gigi Sohn, who is President Biden’s nominee to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC, made an interesting deal with some broadcasters after being nominated for the position.

The article reports:

Sohn previously worked as a director of Locast, a streaming service that transmitted local television broadcasts on the internet. The company was shut down in October 2021 after broadcasters sued and a judge ruled the service was in violation of copyright law. Locast entered into a settlement agreement with broadcasters requiring the service to pay $32 million in damages.

Biden nominated Sohn to an empty commissioner position at the FCC, which is tasked with regulating the broadcast industry, in late October; however, one day after she was nominated, Sohn signed a confidential agreement with broadcasters cutting the amount of damages Locast would pay to around $700,000, according to a copy of the agreement seen by Bloomberg Law.

The agreement also released Sohn and other enjoined parties in the lawsuit from liability, Bloomberg Law reported.

The article also notes:

Sohn’s involvement with Locast was the subject of several questions from lawmakers during her nomination hearing, including those from Republican Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee; however, the confidential agreement between Locast and broadcasters was not addressed in Sohn’s hearing. When asked where the money came from “for the payment of the $32 million settlement in connection with the Locast case,” Sohn did not correct Wicker in her written responses to reflect the current amount owed.

After obtaining a copy of the confidential settlement agreement, Wicker demanded a second hearing on Jan. 18 to address Sohn’s “future financial liability to a number of companies regulated by the FCC” and clear up any ethical doubt, Politico reported.

Wicker’s request for a second hearing on Sohn’s nomination results from the discrepancies between Sohn’s testimony during her December 2021 hearing and the details of her Locast settlement, according to a Senate aide familiar with the matter.

Sohn has also reportedly been negotiating a recusal deal with Senate Commerce Democrats that would attempt to avoid thorny issues, according to Fox Business. These negotiations have not been made public.

Are there any honest people in Washington?

Big Brother Has Plans To Get Bigger

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On February 10, The Wall Street Journal posted an article by Ajit Pai about a proposed Federal Communications Commission (FCC) initiative.

The article reports:

Last May the FCC proposed an initiative to thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country. With its “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” or CIN, the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run. A field test in Columbia, S.C., is scheduled to begin this spring.

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.”

The FCC has a list of questions for station managers, news directors, journalists, television anchors and on-air reporters. Those questions deal with the ‘news philosophy’ of the station and how the station ensures that the community gets crucial information. Answering the questions is supposedly voluntary, but the FCC is in charge of renewing the station’s license every eight years, so it is in the station’s best interest to answer the questions.

The article also reports:

The FCC says the study is merely an objective fact-finding mission. The results will inform a report that the FCC must submit to Congress every three years on eliminating barriers to entry for entrepreneurs and small businesses in the communications industry.

This claim is peculiar. How can the news judgments made by editors and station managers impede small businesses from entering the broadcast industry? And why does the CIN study include newspapers when the FCC has no authority to regulate print media?

The bottom line here is that this is a really bad idea. It is an interference with the free press, which used to be considered unconstitutional.

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When The Government Tries To Decide Who Prospers Nobody Prospers

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Today’s Daily Caller posted an article showing how the Obama Administration interfered in the market on behalf of the company LightSquared.

The article deals with the delay of permits to GlobalStar after an earthquake in Italy impacted its supply chain.

The article reports:

During the months while GlobalStar’s request languished in the FCC’s slow-moving bureaucracy, the agency was helping to finalize the sale of SkyTerra to Harbinger. That company would ultimately become LightSquared.

On Feb. 26, 2010, one week before the FCC acknowledged GlobalStar’s request, Harbinger and the FCC agreed on conditions that would forbid LightSquared from selling to Verizon and AT&T any spectrum it would later acquire.

The delay allowed LightSquared to move forward while GlobalStar waited.

Who profited by this delay? The article reports:

Also during those late spring months in 2010, several advocacy groups funded by left-wing billionaire George Soros were advocating for the adoption of “open-access” Internet rules. Soros’ Open Society Institute has donated more than $1 million to the four organizations that comprise the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition. He is reported to have invested $200 million personally in Harbinger.

It’s time to bring back an honest free market. The Obama Administration is obviously not playing by the rules.

 

 

 

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