Tea Parties, Fraud, and the BP Fund: Something in Sacramento's Water?

June 28, 2010

   Just days after resigning as Chairman of the Tea Party Express,  Mark Williams, former KFBK radio talk show host, began encouraging people to file claims for the BP fund
which is being set up to provide financial assistance to those damaged by the Gulf oil spill.  He's not just encouraging residents of the Gulf or those who do business with Gulf Coast fisheries to file claims;  he is encouraging everyone in the country to file a claim against BP, and brags about having done so himself. 

    Williams asserts on his blog, MarkTalk.com, that in so filing, people are not stealing.  He writes,"You are only recouping some of your own money  that the Obama regime is
stealing from you to redistribute," and he cites fund administrator Ken Feinberg as telling people “we should '...all file a claim…' because specific criteria for valid claims has not yet been set."

     He further writes, "Let’s show the Marxists who occupy our government and their flying monkey supporters what life under socialism is really like when the productive stop producing and join the gravy train."

     So let me see if I get this right:  A multinational corporation drilling off our shore in international water causes a disastrous oil spill which imperils not only wildlife, but the opportunity for Gulf residents to earn a living.  The President of the U.S. puts political pressure on said oil company to pay not just for clean up, but for compensation for loss of business opportunity. 

     The BP fund, according to a conversation I had with Mr. Feinberg's office today, "is paid entirely by BP."  Even the administration of the fund is paid by the private corporation which caused the spill.  "There are no merits to the claim that U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill."

    So how can Williams in any way call the BP fund "socialism?" 

     There is one federal government agency which will likely use taxpayer dollars.  Again, according to Feinberg's office, "As with the 9/11 fund," (which Feinberg also administered,) "Mr. Feinberg will be working with the US Department of Justice Fraud Division to ensure there is no fraud in the fund."

     So in other words, it is Mark Williams who, by knowingly promoting ineligible people to apply for BP money, is costing taxpayers untold dollars to ferret out fraud.  So much for "conservative" fiscal responsibility.   And oh, yes, so much for a "conservative" talk show host
getting facts straight. 

     Funny, too, that Williams uses the tag line, "It's Not Right vs Left, It's Right vs Wrong."  Readers will have to make their own judgment about that.

     It's interesting to note that the state capital of California somehow launches national Right Wing voices.  Williams, Rush Limbaugh, NewsMax's and WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah, and the Tea Party Express all hail from Sacramento.  Must be something in the water, and not just in the Gulf.

    Glad my water comes from a well.

Communications Act Redux: A Chance for the States to Unite!

 June 10, 2010

Four Democratic leaders, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, West Virginia Sen. John D. Rockefeller, Virginia  Rep. Rick Boucher, and California Rep. Henry Waxman are taking aim this month at what I like to call Public Enemy Number One:  the 1996 Telecommunications Act.   It took that Act of Congress to allow the right wing's lies and vitriol to dominate every
radio market in this country, and it will take another Act of Congress to restore facts to our public airwaves and true debate to our kitchen tables.

True, much of the coming debate will center on new media issues of who can access high speed internet, (broadband,) and who can or cannot control access to content on the web (net neutrality.)  As digital television and the internet will merge into the same thing over the next
several years, it is critical for either the FCC or Congress to build a regulatory framework now.  The FCC is facing legal hurdles over its authority to regulate the internet, so it looks like Congress is stepping in.  

But old media issues need to be addressed as well.  At an FCC media ownership hearing in Seattle in 2007, citizens bemoaned the loss of their local radio stations.  The audience jeered FCC Chairman Kevin Martin when he said the FCC had no control over radio ownership.  But Martin was correct.  Modern day radio ownership went through a seismic shift with the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and there is little the FCC can do about it.  So any rewrite of the Act needs to correct the media ownership rules which have deeply damaged our democracy, and will otherwise haunt us for many election cycles.  

When the original 1934 Communications Act was written, one person, be it individual or corporation, was allowed to own only 6 radio stations nationwide.  Those ownership rules relaxed over the years, culminating with the 1996 rewrite, which allowed one person to own as many radio stations nationwide as they could buy, and as many as eight in one radio
market.

In '96, a handful of radio companies were laying in wait for the bill to be signed.  By the time the ink from President Clinton's pen had dried, companies like Clear Channel pounced on the radio market, buying up virtually every 50,000 watt, 25,000 watt, 15,000 watt, 10,000 watt, and 5,000 watt station in the entire nation, leaving only tiny, 1,000 watt unprofitable stations to their competitors.   Those corporate persons then programmed their AM stations with a pro-corporate political agenda.  In 2004, according to a study by Free Press and the Center for American Progress, 90% of talk radio was conservative, and much of the country could not get even one minute of the opposing viewpoint on their airwaves.

Plus, the corporate giants programmed their FM stations with homogenized music designed to satisfy shareholders, not artists or listeners.  

Fourteen years later, the effects of the Act are clear:  The 1996 Telecommunications Act is the reason why Rush Limbaugh and company dominate the public airwaves and the political discussion.  It is the reason why Bill Clinton was impeached, why John Kerry was swiftboated,
why George Bush was elected and why the Tea Parties have flourished.  It is the reason why we as a nation are so polarized, why we shout at each other rather than debate with each other, and why we as a culture are growing accepting of hate radio which incites violence.  

It is why local bands can no longer get on the air, and why midwesterners can no longer get tornado alerts.  It affects the quality of our news, our information, and the health and public safety of our communities.   

It is why local people have no say over the content provided by the very radio stations licensed to serve their interest, the public interest.      

In short, the 1996 Telecommunications Act has worn away the very fabric of America.   It is time to restore discourse to the America the founding fathers envisioned.  

(Note: the swiftboating of John Kerry during the 2004 election was what inspired me to make a film on these topics for Public Interest Pictures, Broadcast Blues.  Perhaps not coincidentally, Sen. Kerry is one of the four senators leading the rewrite of the Act.)

See Broadcast Blues Today!

BROADCAST BLUES  

is now available to view for free on You Tube! 

https://youtu.be/peVN7_LZYPM

See the award winning documentary film that is sparking a national grassroots broadcast media reform movement!  (scroll down for trailer)

This 2009 documentary sounded the alarm about purposeful misinformation and its negative effect on our Democracy.  Truly prescient as now seen through the lens of the Trump presidency, Broadcast Blues not only educates us as to why Fake News rules, but encourages people to ACT!


Media Policy - laws and rules which act to the detriment of We the People - is the real problem. Terrible media policy is killing people in this country. Literally. And it is killing our democracy, too. Corporate financed lawmakers have stacked the media policy deck against We the People.

Until now. We the People are Taking the Media Back!


Learn your rights as the owners of our public airwaves by watching Broadcast Blues and reading SueWilsonReports.com.   

Then take real action at Media Action Center, which in 2017 cost Entercom $13.5 million by stripping its license to broadcast in Sacramento.     
  
The film is still available in high quality DVDs. Get your personally signed Director's cut of BroadcastBlues below to help fund our work.

Buy one, or more to raise funds at screenings!

Single DVD $14.95 USD Four DVDs $49.95 USD Ten DVDs $99.95 USD

If you prefer to pay by check, please email me directly at SueWilsonReports@gmail.com .

Listen to the Broadcast Blues Theme Song - performed by the "Don't Tell Clear Channel Band" - for FREE!

Thank you SO MUCH for helping restore our publicly owned airwaves to their true owners, We the People. 
__________________________________


"You've Got a Hit Movie!" ... Melinda Baran, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival Founder

A Funny Thing Happened at Stanford's FCC Hearing

                                                                                                                                        May 24, 2010

Last Friday, the Federal Communications Commission held a hearing about Media Ownership at Stanford University.  It is part of an ongoing requirement that every three years, the FCC take public comment about who owns licenses to broadcast,  what rules license holders should follow, where underserved communities lie, how to balance business needs with the needs of the democracy, and why the public interest is paramount.

Yawn.  Who cares?

Compared to the FCC ownership hearings of 2007, not many.  Those hearings had FCC Commissioners as headliners;  Friday's biggest star was the Chief of the FCC's Media Bureau, (a happy coincidence for me. More on that later.)

Hearings in 2007 overflowed with several hundred angry citizens, demanding the right to solid information to protect our democracy.  The 2010 Stanford hearing attracted only about 200 people throughout the course of the day, and mainly featured representatives of media reform groups Free Press, the Media Alliance, Prometheus Radio, Davis Media, and news gatherers from Poor Magazine.

But many media activists in 2007 thought their battle was against the Bush Administration's FCC.  In truth, many of the powers to be at the FCC remain the same as.with the Obama Administration.  And the issues raised back then by activists have not yet been resolved, and have in many ways worsened.

But the activists in this crowd got it.  The ever popular Raging Grannies encapsulated the mood of the 2010 crowd best with their rendition of "Corporations Must Not Rule" (sung to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic:)

When a faceless corporation is our only source of news
And big brother at a distance can control what we can view
We're in trouble and it threatens fairness and democracy
Corporations Must Not Rule!

The conversation has shifted some since the 2007 hearings, but it still goes back to the effects of increasing consolidation of media ownership.  In 2007, media activists tried to prevent newspapers and TV stations from having the same owners, fearing that shared news organizations would simply cut journalists in order to increase profits.  Three years later, the activists have lost ground in that battle, and now are seeing their greatest fears realized:  journalists, the gumshoe reporters that hold government accountable to We the People, are being fired in record numbers. 

The corporate ownership argument is that the internet is providing platforms for multiple journalists to do their work.  The reality, as pointed out by panelist James Hamilton, Professor at Duke University, is that when news consumers surf the web, they still seek out the same well known mainstream news sources they have always known.  So the opportunity for breakout investigative journalism is relatively small, while the need for maintaining strong journalism in traditional media, both broadcast and newspapers, is essential for our democracy.

Panelist James Joyce, President of Communication Workers of America, cited his organization's research about the direct effect of what happens when local TV stations are allowed to have "shared services agreements"   Half of those stations newsrooms are typically shut down, resulting in fewer reporters and one less point of view about the local community.    

He also cited the troublesome new development of "Local News Sharing," where various TV local newrooms share one crew to report on a given local story.  Again, this is a way to cut station costs.  Cutting newsroom staffs by 50% saves a lot of money;  but it is important to realize that stations are earning 20-30% profits.  Shareholders are thrilled, especially in this economy; but is the public interest really being served?

Remember, broadcasters are licensed to "serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity."  If they do not do so, they can and should have their licenses stripped away.  It's a rule that both the corporate owners and the FCC prefer to ignore.

But James Joyce tied the decline of newsrooms to the issue of licensing.  Shared service agreements allows one local station to take over operation of a second local station, effectively transfering a broadcast license to a competitor without having ever having to file with the FCC.

So licensing and ownership are inherently tied together.

Which brings me to my own testimony at the Stanford hearing.  

For many months, I have been covering the FCC response to the trial of Sacramento's Entercom radio station, KDND, which a jury found liable for sponsoring a reckless water drinking contest that resulted in the 2007 death of 28 year old wife and mother, Jennifer Strange.  The attorney for the family asked that the station's license be revoked; the FCC responded it would look into the matter, but never acted, and instead has since rewarded Entercom with 14 more station licenses.  Entercom's 2008 Annual Report states that all six of its Sacramento licenses are being challenged, but advises investors, that based on past FCC actions, they are confident that they will maintain their licenses.  

In other words, a corporation that owns a broadcast station can act so recklessly that they believe they can kill someone and still maintain their license to broadcast to millions.  

I brought up this issue quite forcefully at the Stanford hearing, in front of William Lake and William Freedman, the very people who run the media bureau, the same people who actually control license challenges. This is the same bureau which responded to my Freedom of Information Act request on the issue of license challenges, saying that they had no idea how many challenges are pending in front of them, nor do they remember the last time they actually took a station's license away.  

Here's where it gets interesting:  Immediately following the hearing, I was interviewing Mr. Lake on camera, and took the opportunity to ask about the these license challenges, (formally called "petitions to deny licenses.")  After just two questions, which an uncomfortable Mr. Lake struggled to answer, the Bureaus' Public Relations person, Janice Wise, cut me off.  "Questions,"  she said, "must be restricted to the topic of this hearing."  

So somehow, the Obama FCC Media Bureau, which decides which corporations get to own broadcast licenses, does not see a relationship between media ownership and broadcast licensing.   

The national conversation around station licensing is to make broadcast stations once again renew their licenses every three years, rather than eight, as is the rule today.  But eight years or three, if the FCC abjectly fails to hold stations liable for reckless actions,  it is just an agency in the pocket of the corporations it is supposed to oversee.  

And the Media Bureau appears to act independently of whichever party is in the White House.

Do not forget, We the People have the right to challenge station licenses.  We need to do so often, and publicly.  We need to remind the real Washington media establishment who they are working for:  us.


See more on these issues my blog, www.SueWilsonReports.com , and a recent McClatchy Newspapers Sacramento Bee article.  

Update: FCC apologizes to Sue Wilson

In the four years of making Broadcast Blues, I found that the Federal Communications Commission, the federal agency tasked with oversight of the broadcast airwaves, was completely ignoring the public. The key thread of the film surrounds the public's petitions to deny station licenses.  (Most people don't know that we own the airwaves, and we can petition to have a station's license taken away.)  At one point, an FCC media rep told me they do not keep track of these petitions, and had no idea when the last station's license was removed.   (Not recently, obviously.) 
 
That forced me into filing a Freedom of Information Act Request with the FCC in July, 2007, to discover how many petitions to deny licenses have been filed in recent years, and to discover when the last petition to remove a license was successful.  The FCC never answered (They are required by law to respond within 20 business days.)  Four months later, I complained about it in person to the FCC Commissioners at a formal hearing in Seattle, Washington, and handed a copy to the FCC personnel attending the hearing.   Still no reply.
 
But after one public showing of Broadcast Blues in Sacramento, the public rose up with letters to the FCC, asking why citizens have to sue the government to make it do its job.  The FCC responded that they had never received a FOIA request from me.  Unfortunately for them, I had sent the request via certified mail to two members of the FCC, and had signatures to prove it.
 
Now the FCC is apologizing, and asking that I resubmit the FOIA request.  I have done so.   How long will it take to get the information?  I am not holding my breath.

Update:

The FCC finally did respond to me in writing.  It turns out their rep was correct:  The FCC has no records of how many station licenses are currently being challenged, nor do they have records of the last time a license was taken away.

Denying stations' licenses to broadcast is the next battleground.  See the story, "A Funny Thing Happened at the Stanford FCC Hearing."
  

The High School and The End

April 17, 2010

I wrote a piece that is appearing in today's Sacramento Bee about why KDND 107.9 The End's license to broadcast should be taken away.  See it here.

I have been reading comments on the SacBee site;  so far, they generally follow the post-trial public opinion that Jennifer Strange was dumb and responsible for her own death.  They miss the fact that Jennifer Strange, with no college education, was earning nearly $60,000 a year in the medical field.  She was no dummy.  And they miss the fact that the jury who actually heard the case unanimously and quickly decided that Mrs. Strange would not have died had it not been for that contest, and that of the twelve jurors, only two thought she had some (not full) responsibility for her death;  ten said she had no responsibility whatsoever.

Somehow, people today seem to think that a corporation which invites (lures?) people into a contest so they can increase their own profits are not to be held responsible when their own contest goes awry, to the point of killing someone.   These people cite personal responsibility; let's not forget, corporations are "persons" too;  where's their personal responsibility?

I am reminded of the Roald Dahl short story "Man from the South."   It's the story of a man who makes a bet with a second man to light a cigarette lighter ten times in a row.  If the second man succeeds, the first will give him his car.  If he fails, the first man will cut off one of the second man's fingers. 


So what if a radio station sponsored a contest like that?  Not too many people know you can die from drinking too much water, but any fool knows what having your finger cut off would mean.   So would it be okay for a radio station to put on a contest like that?  You know it would be a ratings bonanza, and ratings mean advertising dollars.  Why not just allow corporations to prey on stupid people and make a fortune doing it?  After all, they're not killing anybody.


Part of the answer is radio stations are licensed to serve the public interest.  Clearly, a contest like that does not serve the public.  Neither did The End's water drinking contest. 
 

L.A. Puts the Public Back into the Public Interest

March 11, 2010

Broadcasters are licensed to serve the public interest.   If a radio or TV station does not serve the public interest, the FCC can take its license to broadcast away, and give the opportunity to make millions using the public airwaves to someone else.  

Yes, we the people do have some power over what is broadcast in our own communities, at least in theory.  But in fact, as shown in my film, Public Interest Pictures' Broadcast Blues, petitions to deny stations' licenses languish for years, and the FCC has no record of the last time any station's license has been pulled.  Even the case of a TV station that a court ruled deliberately distorted the news didn't meet the FCC threshold of not "serving the public interest." 

It used to be that stations had to prove they were serving the public interest every three years;  now they just send in a postcard to get rubberstamp approval every eight years.   It used to be that stations had to produce hours of local community programming to satisfy their license requirements;  now, most claim they serve the public by producing local news.  And local TV news is key:  Pew reports 68% of people say local TV news is their primary news source.  So is local TV news serving the public interest? 

Today's USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center report entitled "LOCAL TV NEWS IN THE LOS ANGELES MEDIA MARKET: Are Stations Serving the Public Interest?" co authored by Center Director Martin Kaplan, PhD and Seton Hall's Matthew Hale, PhD, quantifies the answer.  The big news from the report is that only about half of the news is news at all.  Of a typical local news half hour, just 15 minutes 44 seconds deal with real news (the remainder of time is made up of teases for other programs, advertisements, and sports and weather.)  And roughly half of that is not local news. 

The report documents what most of us intuitively know:  if it bleeds it leads.  One in three lead stories involve crime: common crime, celebrity crime, crime in Los Angeles, or crime anywhere else.  Crime stories fill an average of 2 minutes 50 seconds in a given newscast.  Oddball stories at 2:26 and entertainment at 2:02 are a close second and third.  Stories that actually inform the local community about issues of civic importance add up to just four minutes daily;  local government coverage – including budget, law enforcement, education, layoffs, new ordinances, voting procedures, personnel changes, city and county government actions on health care, transportation and immigration – get a whopping 22 seconds.

So.  Back to the public interest.

Certainly people enjoy stories about sports, about entertainment, about the guy who gets stuck in a washing machine.  Yet hours of profit making programming already cover those topics.   Those kinds of stories are quick and cheap and easy to produce, as opposed to sending a reporter to sort through City Hall meetings.

But if TV news doesn't tell us what we really need to know about what's happening at City Hall, who will?  The study also compares TV news to LA Times coverage; the Times comes out better, but not much better.  But there is a big difference:  anybody can start a newspaper.  Yes, you may need more money than God, but by God, you can do it.    Nobody can just start a new TV station;  the frequencies, even in this digital age, are scarce, and the FCC has already licensed their use to others.  You might be able to buy one of the stations if you're rich and lucky, but there is zero opportunity to start one anew. 

That's why it is so important that these stations, which in 2002 were profiting as much as 46% according to the FCC, put some of that profit back into serving the community.  Local groups understand that, and came out in force today to support the findings of the study.  Says California Common Cause Executive Director Kathay Feng, “Our city is on the brink of bankruptcy, social services are being watered down, but we receive so little coverage from local TV stations,” "The concentration of ownership of local television stations has resulted in a massive failure of local TV being responsive to the needs of the communities they are supposed to serve,” says Tapia Martinez-Russ, co-founder of the Los Angeles Media Reform Group.    

“There is serious cause for concern here,” says Manatt, Phelps & Phillips attorney George Kieffer, a member of the Los Angeles Civic Alliance. 

Kieffer says that he expects the civic community now to begin to weigh in on license renewals based on the degree of local hard news coverage.  That means people filing petitions to deny or revoke stations' licenses. These petitions represent the only means the public has to hold local stations accountable to the public interest.  The FCC has ignored them for too long.

 But these local groups have a big ally;  FCC Commissioner Michael Copps stood along side the report's authors in L.A. to lend his support.  Copps, long a hero of media reform advocates says the FCC license renewal process is today “a paper tiger.” Copps says “every time a media company comes in to renew a license, it should have to prove it is serving the public interest."

It's time to give that tiger some teeth.

Brad Friedman, the New York Times, and the Need for News Quality Standards

February 24, 2010

I met Brad Friedman in January 2008 at a journalism conference in Santa Cruz, California, where I was promoting the idea of a Good Housekeeping-style "seal of approval" for journalists.  The idea, now promoted at Ceasespin.org as a “News Quality Rating System,” is to provide online readers with some measure of bloggers' accountability to ethical journalistic standards.   Not all writers are journalists, and not all journalists are created equal, and I thought then (as I still do today,) that it would be helpful for people to cut though the chafe to the wheat of genuine news reporting.

Friedman, the venerable investigative reporter at Bradblog.com, bristled a bit at the concept.  It seemed like a good idea, overall, but he said, "Why just bloggers like me?  Why not the New York Times?"  I had to admit that he was right.  

What I didn't know was that he was prescient.

In recent days, a battle has escalated between blogger Friedman and NY Times public editor Clark Hoyt, over the "paper of record's" reporting on the now infamous story by James O'Keefe, purporting to reveal that ACORN employees had advised O'Keefe, dressed like a pimp, with his pretend girlfriend, Hannah Giles, posing as a prostitute, how to avoid paying taxes on her night time income.  

Two problems with that story.  Friedman's careful examination of the transcript of the unedited ACORN video showed the non-profit's employees had actually advised Giles she had to pay her taxes.  

The second, more ingrained in the American psyche (thanks to You Tube) was of a ridiculously pimped out O'Keefe strolling into ACORN offices, promoting the idea that ACORN dealt with people in like get ups everyday.   But that image was a creation of careful video editing;  O'Keefe actually dressed like an everyday college student for the hidden camera set up.  His partner in pseudo journalism Giles admitted as much on videotape,  and O'Keefe's erstwhile employer Andrew Breitbart was also forced to so admit last week at CPAC.

But the New York Times refuses to correct its coverage about the pimp costume, even though it has called O'Keefe's reporting unethical.  In a letter to Bradblog, Public Editor Hoyt says, "the story says O’Keefe dressed up as a pimp and trained his hidden camera on Acorn counselors. It does not say he did those two things at the same time."

A blog comment on this brought a smile to my face.   "Just because I write 'I got drunk and took my kids for a car ride' doesn't mean I did them at the same time." No, no, of course not.  Why would anyone think that?

Now Hoyt accuses Friedman of having a political agenda, and at the same time, a petition has cropped up online asking the Times to correct its reporting.  

It's fun to watch.

But it does bring back the idea of the benefit of some kind of metric for readers to understand journalistic standards.   On a scale of one to five, I'll give Bradblog five stars, the New York Times two, and O'Keefe...  well, maybe a jail term.

  

Boycotting Beck on Fox "News" - an Issue of Credibility

 February 16, 2010

     What started as a Twitter campaign by a lone law school student in Madison Wisconsin has morphed into Glenn Beck's worst nightmare:  advertisers are dropping him like flies, and his show in the UK does not have even one advertiser.   Still, thanks to the power of News Corporation, the show goes on.

     It started on July 2, 2009, when Angelo Carusone began a campaign called StopBeck.com , Tweeting his followers to pressure companies to stop advertising on Beck's FOX News TV program.  It was a maverick journey, but not for long:  on July 28, 2009, Beck told his legion of viewers,  Obama "has a deep seated hatred of white people."  That's when Color of Change, the largest African American online political organization in the country used its muscle to target Beck with its own campaign.  To date, 285,000 people have signed onto the CC campaign's petiton to call on advertisers to drop Beck.  

     Within three months, Fox News' Glenn Beck Show had lost 80 advertisers; that number has now grown to 116.    The only advertisers remaining on Fox News in the US are purveyors of gold, Rupert Murdoch owned organizations like the Wall Street Journal, the State of Utah, and ironically, Murdoch's Direct TV competitor, Dish TV. 

     StopBeck's Carusone then took it a step further, targeting UK sponsors of the Glenn Beck Show in the United Kingdom.  Brits apparently take their sponsorship PR seriously; for the past six days running, not a single company has purchased ads on the Glenn Beck Show.  Instead, Rupert Murdoch's Sky News now runs in timeslots previously sold to advertisers. 

     Fox still shows no sign of abandoning their populist hero; how shareholders will react to lower earning reports remains to be seen.

     Beck's cable TV ratings, in the US at least, continue to rise.  His FOX News viewership of 617,000 (as of Friday Feb 12, according to mediabistro.com,) is second on cable only to Bill O'Reilly's 713,000. 

     While StopBeck and Color of Change tout victories over Beck in TV land, Beck's radio show continues to thrive unabetted.  Carusone is trying to boycott companies that advertise on Beck's radio program, which garners 9 million listeners, nearly 15 times his TV audience, but is finding the terrain more difficult.  Whereas companies like Best Western and Kraft are senstive to their logo being visibly associated with Beck on FOX News, "radio sponsors have a right wing agenda going in and don’t really care" about a negative association, says Carusone. 

     Color of Change campaign manager Dani McClain says that targeting the show on Fox News is important, precisely because it is Fox "News."  "Fox News says they are a news organization.  When people tune in, they should have the expectation of getting real news, not misinformation, distortion of truth and race baiting."  Executive Director James Rucker adds that this is an issue of credibility.  "When you have so many mainstream companies, from AT&T to Walmart, who don’t want to be affiliated with Beck, it strips Beck's ability to position himself as mainstream.  Could all these companies possibly be in the pocket of the left?"

Get the Message?

February 3, 2010 

Last Friday, many Americans witnessed a rare bit of political theater when President Obama addressed the GOP Retreat in Baltimore. By insisting that live TV cameras be allowed into the exchange, the President took his one opportunity to take control of his message in full view of the public, calling out the GOP on their lies and dirty tricks, and challenging them to tone down their rhetoric so Washington could focus on issues rather than the next election. Headlines burst from newspages: "Extraordinary!" "Remarkable!" "Historic!" The GOP instantly regretted their decision to allow cameras. It was a big moment for Obama to get his message out; but how many more will he get?

CSPAN, CNN, and MSNBC ran and reran the discussion.  But FOX News chose not to show the actual exchange at all, instead choosing to "characterize" it for their audience, editing an hour and twenty minutes into a few meaning-twisted soundbites, prompting Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman to confront FOX CEO Roger Ailes about his network's "deliberate misinformation" Sunday on ABC's This Week.

It is doubtful that FOX, the "most trusted news network" according to Public Policy Polling, will ever stop misinforming the public; doing so would interfere with the GOP message, and he who controls the message controls the masses.

Messaging is the new buzzword on Capitol Hill. For three days, the President has been using the bully pulpit to take his message to the people, first at the GOP retreat, next at a town hall in New Hampshire, today at the Senate Democratic Caucus.  He understands he must reach the American public with the facts.  Still, Fox News and more importantly, Talk Radio will not allow their audiences to hear the unvarnished truth.

“I just can’t understand how the President lost the message,” These the words of Cokie Roberts on ABC News’ This Week January 24. Before Christmas, Roberts, on the same program, said “I think if people understood what was in the healthcare bill, they would really like it. But the Democrats aren’t getting the message out."

As shown in Public Interest Pictures' media reform documentary Broadcast Blues, the reason Democrats have not succeeded in getting their message out is that the GOP, while complaining about a non-existent "liberal media," has for a generation created a Right wing media juggernaut which excludes facts and debate. And while Inside the Beltway pundits recognize the cheerleading power of cable TV's FOX, they have not yet recognized the messaging forest through the talk radio trees.

As Danny Goldberg, one time CEO of now defunct Air America Radio wrote for Alternet, the power of talk radio is the problem for Democrats and Democracy.

"One-hundred-thirty-eight million people commute to and from work in automobiles, where they have no access to computer or TV screens. For around a third of them, or 48 million, AM talk radio is their entertainment of choice. Of the top 10 AM talk radio shows, nine are hosted by extreme conservatives, giving the right wing a captive audience of around 40 million listeners a week—at least seven times greater than the combined audiences of Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. Talk radio's audience dwarfs that of every other category in the news political arena, including the network news and Sunday shows, NPR's public affairs shows and political Web sites." 

And what did talk radio listeners hear about the Obama/GOP exchange? King Rush bellowed, "Obama lies! He's delusional! This business that he 'inherited a $1.3 trillion budget deficit' is a lie. It's a lie through and through." (Except, of course, it isn't. Government statistics are clear. But who will the 15 million people who heard Rush's message, but not the President's, believe?)

Consider, also, that talk radio reaches into every corner of the country: every home, car, barber shop and garage can tune in to free AM radio and hear Rush and Glenn and Hannity and Savage. But few of those little corners get to hear Thom or Ed or Randi or any liberal perspective, the corporate radio owners see to that. And remember, these are places that, because of the digital transition, no longer get free TV. But they get free radio (just not free speech.)

Conservatives understand that new government policies could undermine their grip on the public airwaves, and are mounting attacks to maintain it. The right leaning Heritage Foundation recently put out a "National Survey on the Obama Agenda." Under the heading "Free Speech," they ask, in push poll fashion, "Do you believe that President Obama and/or Congress will take action to destroy conservative talk radio?" (As if a popular billion dollar industry could just go away.)

But today, there is new evidence that the Obama administration does understand that talk radio is the road to the message. On his Organizing for America website, the President is asking people across the nation to research talk radio: to focus on three pre-identified radio shows, determine whether they are political, what language they are in, and whether they take callers.

What exactly will Obama do with that information? Restore aspects of the Fairness Doctrine? Rewrite the 1996 Telecommunications Act? This much is certain: he has broken through the right wing messaging juggernaut once; it is a safe bet he's on the road to do it again.

Hocus Pocus SCOTUS

January 29, 2010

     Note that the Supreme Court decision in Citizen's United V FEC is really a media reform issue.  

     In my film, Public Interest Pictures' Broadcast Blues, (which was generously funded in part by the Streisand Foundation, thanks Barbra!) I detail how 75% of politicians' time is spent fund raising, and how all that money goes into TV/Radio Advertising.  The SCOTUS decision will exacerbate that situation.   The winners are the broadcasters, who are licensed to serve the Public Interest, but who are earning as much as 46 percent profits.  The losers are the public, whose interest is being co-opted by Corporate Money and Corporate Media.

     So media reform is a new front in the battle to regain power for We the People. 

     Here's what is possible:

     With a stroke of his pen, Pres. Obama could tell the FCC to restore the Fairness Doctrine, which would require broadcasters to provide time to political candidates, and to give equal time to all of them. It wasn't until after the Fairness Doctrine was repealed under Reagan that money began to pour into TV and Radio coffers.  Some people don't like this idea because they think it infringes on Free Speech;  but let's be clear: Radio and TV speech is not free, it is owned and managed by a few corporations who solely decide which points of view to air.  (See my post here at Sue Wilson Reports for more on that issue.)

     Congress could also enact free airtime rules, or it could enact public financing rules. Either would take an act of Congress; any bets on that happening anytime soon?

     The single most important thing Congress must do is to repeal those sections of the 1996 Telecommunications Act which stack the deck against We the People.  

     President Obama made media an issue in his State of the Union address.  It is time for a revolution, this one to retake that which is ours:  the media that informs our democracy.

The Plame Case Could Be Reopened, IF...

January 13, 2010

In December, I reported that there was a possibility that the Valerie Plame case could be reopened, given the revelation of millions of missing White House emails that could shed new light on the outing of the covert CIA spy.  A spokesperson for Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago's US Attorneys' Office told me,   "the matter may only be opened for purpose of responding to congressional or other requests."  

But the Plame case is a federal case, and further investigation reveals steep hurdles to reopening the case which caused untold damage to our National Security.  

Most Federal crimes have a five year statute of limitations, but there are a few exceptions.  Had Cheney/Libby/Rove molested a child, they could still be held accountable.  Had they burned down the Plame/Wilson home, they could be held to account.  Had they fled to another country as Roman Polanski did, rather than hiding in some undisclosed location, they could be held accountable for their crimes at any time.

But perjury and obstruction of justice in a case involving the leaking of classified information?  Hide out for five years, and you can beat that rap.  

So the only hope to resurrect the Plame investigation appears to be hidden in the Wartime Exclusions section of Federal Code Title 18, Part II, Chapter 213: 


Sec. 3287. Wartime suspension of limitations

-STATUTE- When the United States is at war or Congress has enacted a specific authorization for the use of the Armed Forces, as described in section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1544(b)), the running of any statute of limitations applicable to any offense (1) involving fraud or attempted fraud against the United States or any agency thereof in any manner, whether by conspiracy or not, or (2) committed in connection with the acquisition, care, handling, custody, control or disposition of any real or personal property of the United States, or (3) committed in connection with the negotiation, procurement, award, performance, payment for, interim financing, cancelation, or other termination or settlement, of any contract, subcontract, or purchase order which is connected with or related to the prosecution of the war or directly connected with or related to the authorized use of the Armed Forces, or with any disposition of termination inventory by any war contractor or Government agency, shall be suspended until 5 years after the termination of hostilities as proclaimed by a Presidential proclamation, with notice to Congress, or by a concurrent resolution of Congress. 

So MAYBE, if a Congressperson were so inclined, he or she could request the case be reopened under this statute.  Guess we shall wait and see.