Comments of Sue Wilson and Media Action Center - 2022 Quadrennial Review of Media Ownership Rules

Over the past few years, Sue Wilson through the Media Action Center has received anecdotal complaints from TV viewers in small to mid-sized Television markets nationwide. Viewers say when they turn the channel from a local news program on one station to a local news program on a different station, they see exactly the same news duplicated on both channels. 

This appears to happen when one company has licenses for more than one TV station in the same market, and also when one company has Shared Service Agreements and Joint Sales Agreements with two to three TV stations within the same market. It commonly occurs with Top Four Duopoly stations. In some of those markets, it appears that only one newsroom is servicing entire communities.

Media Democracy advocates have been warning for decades that a single corporation could dominate all local news and information in Anytown, USA. It appears that dystopian threat to democracy is now becoming a reality. It is vital to our very democracy that we develop sufficient data to determine exactly what is occurring – now while we can still stem the tide.

Please see the entire comment and suggestions here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQSna7JmTQKsO2aOGk7hwgNDqn-8PYg-VuKHFaCHnX928WxC8yRigZPyeROOVIUFPH8leX4l0QSPmTw/pub

Why is Alex Jones Still on Our Public Airwaves?

Parents of Sandy Hook victims awarded $965M in second trial against radio hoaxster, but FCC has taken no action against his broadcast lies...

 originally published at the BradBlog October 14, 2022

On Wednesday, a jury in Waterbury, Connecticut awarded parents of schoolchildren slain by a gunman's bullets an extraordinary $965 million in damages because far-right propagandist, conspiracy theorist and huckster Alex Jones publicly defamed them. He did so on U.S. radio stations which are licensed by the federal government to serve in the public interest. (The jury's award on Wednesday follows a $49 million award to Sandy Hook parents in a separate case decided in Texas on August 5.)

Jones and guests on his InfoWars show, broadcast as a radio program over our public airwaves and over the Internet, falsely and repeatedly claimed the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was a hoax. He told millions of listeners no children were shot; that grieving parents were actually paid "crisis actors"; that the entire shooting, which took the lives of 20 first-graders and six adults, was staged by gun opponents to somehow further their agenda.

As determined by both the Texas and Connecticut cases, these radio broadcasts caused some of Jones' deranged listeners to threaten the grieving parents' lives. According to court documents, Leonard Pozner, whose six-year old son Noah was killed, received threatening voicemails: "You gonna die. Death is coming to you real soon." Pozner and his wife relocated seven times to avoid harassment based on Jones' remarks. Each time they moved, Jones' followers published their new addresses online. "Sometimes I lie awake at night worrying that despite our efforts at security, a determined conspiracy fanatic might gain entry to our home," said Noah's mother, Veronique De La Rosa.

Why is Jones allowed to use our publicly-owned radio airwaves to spread these dangerous lies? To encourage his listeners to cause direct harm to innocent individuals who have already suffered more grief than we can imagine? It should be against the law. It already, kind of, is...

During the Connecticut case, Francine Wheeler, mother of slain six-year-old Ben, told of an encounter at a conference for women who had lost children to shootings. Another mother who had lost her son asked about the photo on Wheeler's necklace. Wheeler said, "That's my son Ben. He died in his first-grade classroom at Sandy Hook School." The other woman replied, "What? You are lying. That didn't happen."

Scarlett Lewis, mother of six-year old slain Jesse Lewis, confronted Jones during the first defamation trial against Jones in Texas. "You're still on your show today trying to say that I'm, implying that I'm an actress, that I am 'deep state.' … Truth, truth is so vital to our world. Truth is what we base our reality on, and we have to agree on that to have a civil society. Sandy Hook is a hard truth. … But I've, since that day, dedicated my life to keeping kids safe. … And having a quarter of Americans doubt that Sandy Hook happened or doubt the facts around Sandy Hook is not conducive to keeping our kids safe. It's not."

Local radio stations broadcast Jones' lies into communities throughout the United States. But let's be clear: We the People own the airwaves over which radio is broadcast, and all U.S. radio stations are legally required --- as a condition of their licenses --- to "serve the public interest." Is it in our collective interest for radio stations to cause continuing harm to Sandy Hook parents who lost their precious children? It is not. Now is our time to act.

Once upon a time, the Sandy Hook parents could have defended themselves directly on the air by demanding the simple right to respond to Jones' personal attacks, but the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) withdrew the Personal Attack Rule in 2000. So, today, the parents' only recourse was to hire lawyers and spend years in litigation. (It is long past time for the FCC to restore our right to respond.)

Jones is also in clear violation of the FCC's rule against airing hoaxes on radio or TV. The Code of Federal Regulations (47 C.F.R. § 73.1217) prohibits broadcast licensees or permittees from broadcasting false information concerning a crime or a catastrophe if: (1) the licensee knows this information is false; (2) it is foreseeable that broadcast of the information will cause substantial public harm; and (3) broadcast of the information does, in fact, directly cause substantial public harm.

Radio station management certainly knew the harm and, if they didn't at first, they certainly know now. They are complicit in the damage caused to Sandy Hook parents. Yet no one in power holds them accountable. The FCC, which has received letters from local listeners demanding it enforce the hoax rule, stands mute.

It is possible that the FCC might act if Commission leadership were fully in place. Currently, the seat of one Democratic FCC Commissioner is vacant; Senate leader Chuck Schumer has not yet brought Biden nominee Gigi Sohn up for a confirmation vote. It looks like he is waiting for November election results. If the Senate picks up at least two more Democratic Senators, Sohn's nomination is likely to be approved.

Here is what really works: Local people who understand they are the legal owners of local radio airwaves are putting public pressure on offending radio stations. In areas where Jones used to broadcast, people sent letters, made phone calls and even personal visits to radio station management to demand our right to facts over our public airwaves. Some have written op-eds or letters to editors about this issue. As a result, many radio stations voluntarily took Jones off the air. We salute both the stations and the active citizens who made it happen.

But about 25 other stations resist. Some are in key swing states. Media Action Center has developed an action to help people protest Jones' continuing hoax(es). It includes a list of stations believed to be airing Jones, a letter for people to send to the FCC, and another letter to send to station management.

The Alex Jones fabrications over Sandy Hook brings the debate over mis- and disinformation to the forefront of society. Everyone is asking what we can do about it. Start by complaining to the managers of the airwaves we legally own. If they refuse, let's pull their licenses. It is in the peoples' power to do so - if we act.

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What the FCC can do to Right the Disinformation Wrongs

 October 11, 2021

Thank you to Jen Senko, author of the new book The Brainwashing of My Dad and the documentary of the same name, for promoting the work of my activist arm, the Media Action Center, on Thom Hartmann's radio show today. Thom was asking about we can do about the disinformation problem in this country. 

On October 4, through the Media Action Center, I filed an official Comment to the FCC's Quadrennial Review. In that, I make several specific recommendations about what the FCC can do; without their leadership, all is lost. The Congress also can pass laws. Please see the full report on the Media Action Center website or in pdf form here:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yQk5O8PYr8wDy3hWSbkYEN61JWtf7WJ1/view

What follows is my opening statement and specific rules the Federal Communications Commission should pass. I encourage my readers to read the entire document as it encompasses more than ten years of my research into the topic of disinformation.

OPENING STATEMENT TO THE FCC:

The events of January 6, 2021 were entirely foreseeable and, and for those of us watching media policy, predictable. In the arena of public opinion, current Federal Communications Commission rules to govern broadcast radio licensees have been rewarding far-right authoritarian ideologies for a generation, and in practice, preventing any real debate over the air to counter politically motivated lies and disinformation. This problem is compounded by too few radio licensees in any one market, restricting local competition. Looking forward, new FCC rules could well allow one politically motivated TV station group to control all the local news content in TV and radio stations and newspapers in single towns all over the country. With our national debate now pivoting to preventing disinformation, we all realize that FCC media rules really do matter to the very foundation of our country. The FCC has an opportunity now to consider the true impact its rules have on the competition of ideas and information, and rise to this occasion to protect not only industry profits, but also Democracy principles. This paper seeks to provide relevant history, data, and a road map to a better tomorrow.   

 

Recommendations:

1.       Restore the opportunity to respond to both personal and political attacks on our publicly owned airwaves. If a radio or TV broadcaster attacks someone personally, that person must have the right to respond, to defend himself or herself on the same program where they have been attacked.  If a radio or TV show spends hours promoting one political viewpoint, a competitor of opposing views should have the right to respond in that same time slot. This common sense rule change ensures fair competition not only between business competitors but also in the debate so crucial to Democracy.

 

2.     Using proceeds from the $48 million Sinclair fine, reinstate a 21^st Century version of the “FCC Office of Plans and Policy's Working Paper Series.”  As we have learned, the Federal Communications Commission abandoned its former practice of supporting data driven studies. The agency now relies on underfunded non-profit organizations and independent journalists to counter studies funded by the well-heeled broadcast industry. This creates an anti-competitive advantage for industry. Industry has the further benefit of obtaining actual data from the FCC for its reports – because the industry is providing its own data – which is largely unavailable to the public. Is the data industry is providing to the Commission even correct?  Armchair studies suggest it is not, but well-funded studies will provide the facts so crucial to preserving our Democracy in these tenuous times.                                       

3.       Get a current snapshot of Local TV industry operations   Study individual TV markets to determine how many station groups are currently operating within a single community. Determine how many Network stations within that market each group currently controls, how many non-network stations each group controls. Determine whether station groups are operating within the guidelines established by law or whether they are creating shell operations to hide the control of more than their allotted share of licenses to broadcast in every community.

 

4.       Ensure competition for Local News   Determine on a market by market basis whether station groups are providing different local news stories on each of their TV stations in a single community, or whether they are merely duplicating local news stories on their multiple TV stations. Collaborate with willing local level groups to monitor the airwaves in their own communities across the USA. Using this data, develop guidelines so every community has competition in the realm of news and information.

 

5.       Rewrite Radio licensee ownership caps   Limit the total numbers of radio licenses to a single radio group to four in a single market, thereby creating opportunities for more station groups to compete. Balance the scale of station Size so each station can have at least one high wattage station.                                                         

 

6.      Expand the number of five FCC Commissioners to seven to include two Public Interest Commissioners.   These public interest Commissioners will provide the Commission needed insight from real communities outside the Beltway to better serve the public in the Commission’s decision-making process.