Slip sliding away....FCC wants to regulate local news content

This article may make me sound like one of those conspiracy theory nuts, but I’m going to say it anyway.

Anybody been watching the news lately?  I mean really digging in to what’s going on?  I don’t mean the latest escapades of the dancing stars, or the un-reality shows.   I’m talking about the stuff that really matters.  The stuff that will change your life.  I’m talking about the insidious stuff that’s going on in the sidebars of the news agencies while they keep us distracted with Kardashian boobs and Jolie lips.

Take for instance, this story on Fox News: FCC Proposed Media Regulations.  In short, the FCC proposes to set some sort of “public value test” to see if broadcasters are giving the public the warm fuzzy that the folks in Washington think we should have.   Under these guidelines, the broadcaster will be rated on how well it has met FEDERAL criteria on news delivery, diversity, whether or not they’ve had “community input meetings” and local programming requirements. If the broadcaster fails this test, he gets his license pulled, and no more broadcasting.  Do you see my problem with this?  How can you set FEDERAL guidelines for meeting LOCAL requirements?  Shouldn’t there be LOCAL guidelines for meeting local requirements?  How does anybody in Washington DC think that they know what the local requirements are in some little town hundreds or even thousands of miles away?  Do you want someone you’ve never met, sitting in an office half way across the country, deciding for you and your family what news  is “good” for you to see and what’s not?

Let me put it more bluntly.  This is an attempt, by our very own government, the supposed stalwart defender of freedom and democracy in all the world, to begin taking over all broadcast media outlets.  In short, Washington would have the power to enforce a “say what I tell you to say, and how I tell you to say it” set of rules and regulations or face being off the air.  Currently, these regulations would only affect the transmissions you get over the air, like when you’re listening to your radio or watching TV on an antenna.  Cable outlets and internet sites are not regulated by the FCC. Don’t think that matters much? It’s a first step boys and girls…there will be more to come.  If you regulate the media, you regulate the people.  Success with controlling broadcast media will lead to intrusions in cable and satellite media too.  Printed media is an endangered species anyway, so it wouldn’t take much to knock newspapers out of the game completely.