{"id":33113,"date":"2018-04-15T19:45:53","date_gmt":"2018-04-15T23:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=33113"},"modified":"2018-04-15T19:45:53","modified_gmt":"2018-04-15T23:45:53","slug":"if-you-ever-doubted-that-free-speech-is-in-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=33113","title":{"rendered":"If You Ever Doubted That Free Speech Is In Danger"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Times<\/a> posted an article today about a request made to Federal Communications Commission<\/a> chairman Ajit Pai<\/a>\u00a0by Senate Democrats to investigate Sinclair Broadcasting Group<\/a> for \u201cnews distortion.” Yup. Right after they investigate CBS, NBC, ABC, and The New York Times<\/a> for ‘news distortion.’ The request was denied.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you for your letter requesting that the Commission investigate a broadcaster based on the content of its news coverage and promotion of that coverage,\u201d said Mr. Pai in his letter. \u201cIn light of my commitment to protecting the First Amendment<\/a> and freedom of the press, I must respectfully decline.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

His reply was dated April 12, the day after the request from 11 Senate Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders<\/a>, Vermont<\/a> Independent, who cited Sinclair<\/a>\u2019s proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media Company<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWe are concerned that if the Sinclair<\/a>-Tribune merger continues without a thorough review of these new facts, Sinclair<\/a>\u2019s practices of news distortion will proliferate to even more local stations, which Americans rely upon every day for fair and impartial news,\u201d said the Senate letter.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Signers, including Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, said they were \u201calarmed\u201d by Sinclair<\/a>\u2019s local anchors being required to read a promotional message last month about \u201cbiased and false news.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The promo touted the stations\u2019 commitment to balanced journalism and warned that \u201csome members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0In their letter, the senators said that such \u201cmust-run dictates from Sinclair<\/a> harm the freedom of the press guaranteed in the First Amendment by turning local journalists into mouthpieces for a corporate and political agenda.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. Pai responded that the FCC lacks the authority to yank broadcast licenses \u201cbased on the content of a particular newscast.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Up until about 1991, when Rush Limbaugh arrived on the national scene, the political left had a monopoly on news–the networks and the major newspapers. Their monopoly has been slowly slipping away from them since then. Needless to say, the mainstream media does not like the competition. They have been trying to put Fox News<\/a> out of business since it began by name calling and boycotting sponsors. This request is one of many examples of the need for the alternative media. It is also an example of the attack on free speech (further illustrated by what is happening on some of our college campuses).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Times posted an article today about a request made to Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai\u00a0by Senate Democrats to investigate Sinclair Broadcasting Group for \u201cnews distortion.” Yup. Right after they investigate CBS, NBC, ABC, and The New York … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1113,2205,9732,11606,8558],"class_list":["post-33113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-federal-communications-commission","tag-first-amendment","tag-senator-bernie-sanders","tag-sinclair-broadcasting-group","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33113"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33119,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33113\/revisions\/33119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}