For more than 30 years, publishing companies have been buying up local newspapers. The result is homogenized, shitty news that serves corporate interests and rarely asks questions of the idiots who run our federal government. Tomorrow, the FCC will make the situation a lot worse when they remove the rule that bars companies from buying radio and TV stations in the same town. Hopefully we can get the media down to just one source and rename the country Murdochistan.

Martin wants to lift the so-called cross-ownership ban in the top 20 U.S. markets and allow such combinations in smaller markets if the FCC determines that they would be in the public interest.

Who is Martin? Well, he is Republican. Shall I go on, or is that enough? Okay, Kevin Martin is also a member of the Bush cult.

Before joining the FCC, Martin was a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. He served on the Bush-Cheney Transition Team and was Deputy General Counsel for the Bush campaign.

Most people expected this battle to be fought next year, after public hearings and debate. But those people forgot that the Bush administration is about destroying democracy, not participating in it. Two other Democrat FCC commissioners called for long-pending reviews to make sure that the media serves local communities and encourages ownership by women and minorities. The Republicans, however, want white guys to be richer and the population to be dumber and they want it to happen now.

Martin announced in October that he wanted to put these new rules in place and scheduled a couple of public hearings at the last minute. He gave the public a generous seven days notice. The hearings did not go well, especially the nine and ½ hour meeting in Seattle.

Take a moment to soak in how stereotypical Martin looks. Where the fuck do they find these angry, pasty white, little creeps? Im starting to think they peel off of Karl Roves body, slither away to do their own damage to the country and will later return to the mother Rove, with which they will merge in time for The Rapture.

As far as the video, I cant really disagree with the guy who said this:

Running this hearing with five days notice and then trying to jam media consolidation through by mid-December to me is damning evidence of the total abuse of the process itself that you're up to some kind of no-good. If this is a legitimate issue, then it deserves and demands a legitimate public process to determine the outcome. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for not respecting the democracy you live in.

Or the Republican who said this:

I'm a Republican and I'm a capitalist, but some areas of our private sector must be regulated. Freedom of information is too important. We must be proactive in protecting that fundamental freedom.

Martin has presented three bullshit reasons why his new media rules must go through: Newspapers are in trouble financially, the rules would only affect 20 large markets and that the rules would ensure competition, localism and diversity.

The last one is obviously from the Karl Rove handbook called, Say the exact opposite of what is true. Also, newspapers average profit margin was 17% and a loophole could allow these rules to affect every market. So, Martin is a liar as well as an awful human being.

Adding to the deceit is Martins cooking of reports. Martin selects reports that favor his position and ignores those that differ, much like Bush did in the lead up to Iraq. How did that turn out? Martin even took an outside firms report as the truth over the FCCs own internal report. He also neglected to inform his fellow Democratic FCC commissioners of his proposals until the very last minutes, tying thier hands.

McDowell and Adelstein complained that they did not receive the FCC's own data from Martin until the night before the meeting. Adelstein accused Martin of suppressing the information in an attempt "to cook the books."

Congress appears against this action, both Republicans and Democrats. They should punish Mr. Martin severely and it is easy to do. Pass a bill that prohibits any FCC commissioner from going to work for any media company for 10 years after leaving the FCC, because this fucker is a self serving douchebag who plans on getting rich after he puts these rules in place.

Our media is a joke, a national embarrassment. Feel free to call your Senator and House Representative to voice your displeasure. This is a very, very big deal.

Renshai

Minneapolis, MN

February 2006

DEC 17, 2007 09:29 AM

Bush said this was his plan before he ran the first time, and has been slowly implementing all of this time. Now that he is running out of time, he is trying to push as much through as possible before he leaves office. He figures with everything else that is going on, no one will notice or care about an issue that a lot of people don't understand the implications or damage it will cause.

Coyotemike

USA

May 2006

DEC 17, 2007 09:38 AM

It is good to see members of Congress from both sides of the aisle agreeing on something. It is good that the people are starting to stand up and say "No More!"

But it pisses me off to no end that it took THIS issue to start communication. Illegal war? Partisan fighting. Health care for kids? Partisan fighting. Torture and invasion of privacy? Partisan fighting. But fuck with TV and the two sides got nothin but lovin for each other.

This does back up one thing I often tell people: You want real news, watch PBS. There will be no stories about Paris Hilton there.

zarth

Seattle, WA

December 2004

DEC 17, 2007 09:44 AM

coyotemike said:
This does back up one thing I often tell people: You want real news, watch PBS. There will be no stories about Paris Hilton there.

Which is why the Right has been going after PBS for years. After all, reality has a well-known liberal bias.