The U.S. Government plans to send Federal Communications Commission (FCC) agents into newsrooms across America to investigate how the media chooses stories to publish.
Critics say this is an attempt to influence, intimidate and control the media, because it is the FCC that issues licenses to stations.
The revelations came in the form of an article published in the Wall Street Journal written by a concerned FCC commissioner. It came shortly after Reporters without Borders released its annual World Press Freedom Index ranking the United States at number 46, dropping 14 places from number 32 since the report was published in 2013.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai revealed the program and expressed his concern that “the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run.” He believes the plan would end up “pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.”
The FCC “plans to ask station managers, news directors, journalists, television anchors and on-air reporters to tell the government about their “news philosophy” and how the station ensures that the community gets critical information.”
The FCC also wants “to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about “perceived station bias” and “perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.”
Would the FCC pressure stations if they have a “perceived bias?” If the way the IRS treated conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status is any indication, the answer would be yes. Stations with a perceived conservative bias may be pressured to adjust their philosophy to comply with FCC requirements.
Though participation in the intrusive investigations is voluntary, it is the FCC that issues licenses that must be renewed every eight years. The FCC is also expanding its regulatory power to include newspapers too, a jurisdiction it has never had before.
In the 1960s and 70s, the fairness doctrine required stations to air equal time for opposing opinions. While that law was repealed the new approach of the FCC appears to be another attempt to go down the same road to muzzling some opinions.
All this “poses a monumental danger to constitutionally protected free speech and freedom of the press,” which is one of the key elements of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Every major repressive regime in the modern era has begun with an attempt to control and intimidate the press. “Imagine a government monitor telling Fox News it needed to cover stories in the same way as MSNBC or Al Jazeera.”
Thomas Jefferson said, “our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”
Every principle of the U.S. Constitution shall be repudiated. See Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, page 451.