The FCC is doing something unusual. Instead of
acting like footsoldiers
for
href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/19/opinion/main3385282.shtml">corporate
America,
they are imposing fines on a broadcaster for pushing State-paid
propaganda.
href="http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6492542.html">FCC
Pushes Ahead with ‘No Child Left Behind’ Fines
Sonshine, Sinclair Broadcast Group Fined for Airing The
Right Side with Armstrong Williams, America's Black Forum, Respectively
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/18/2007 3:10:00 PM
The Federal Communications Commission
issued its first fines for a station airing Armstrong
Williams’ Department of Education-paid-for plugs for its
“No Child Left Behind” initiative. Station-owner
Sinclair Broadcast Group doesn’t plan to pay the fine and
said it will take the commission to court.
The revelation of those payments caused a firestorm of criticism and a
dressing-down of the DOE, and it led to payola complaints by Free Press
at the FCC.
Remember the story?
href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-06-williams-whitehouse_x.htm"
rel="tag">Armstrong Williams is a journalist, who
was paid by
the US government to promote their education agenda.
What does this mean? Is the US government giving up on the
idea of propaganda? Have they pretty much finished their
agenda, and now have no need to unduly influence journalists?
Or is it that they now have enough journalists who will do it
for free, so they no longer have to pay them?
No, none of that. It is that
href="http://roxanne.typepad.com/rantrave/2007/09/i-never-forget.html">certain
media
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/business/media/03murdoch.html">moguls
have found ways to profit directly from propaganda, so the need for
taxpayer funding is obsolete.
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We enter an interesting time, with a different sort of lame-duckism. One of the signs is the number of administration appointees who just now see the need to "move on to other things". Another is the items like this one, where federal agencies are beginning to stand up against administration policies, knowing that they are going to get away with it, because those still in power sense their reduced effectiveness, and are not going to stick their necks out.
And things will get even more interesting -- we've got a long way to go to Nov., 2008.