I both want to say this is bad, but also want to believe that like in Citizen Kane, owning a megaphone doesn't automatically equate to being able to control the narrative. But I'm also scared it does.
Just look at Queensland, Australia. The public discourse is basically owned by Murdoch, and the population is far more right-wing than the rest of the country.
Best case, this will make the media even more mediocre, as demonstrated by Clear Channel when the FCC killed the radio station ownership cap.
The worst case is more likely, unfortunately. Echo chambers will get louder and influence their believers even more. Information will be replaced with entertainment and propaganda. In other words, more of the worst of what we have now.
You have a non-partisan read on what happened here, then? I mean, sorry: this is an inherently political news story and discussing it without reference to politics just isn't going to be productive.
The FCC's mandate is to regulate communication, how is radio communication ownership outside of its jurisdiction?
Radio and television are extremely relevant to most Americans. It's only those of us in our Bay Area-Chicago-New York bubbles that think they aren't. Decreasing market share does not mean irrelevance.
Radio alone is extremely influential for political opinions. Many politicians owe their careers to Rush Limbaugh and Neil Boortz.
> The FCC's mandate is to regulate communication, how is radio communication ownership outside of its jurisdiction?
In the same way consolidation among trucking companies is outside the NTSB's jurisdition. The FCC's legitimate purpose is to prevent interference among radio and TV stations. It's not to regulate content (which isn't a legitimate area of regulation at all). And it's not to enforce antitrust laws (which are enforced by a different government agency, with specific expertise in antitrust).
The fact that radio is influential in politics among a certain segment of the population is even more reason for the FCC to steer clear, not a reason for the FCC to intervene.
How is changing existing regulations in the favor of a specific partisan group "steering clear" of that group? That's downright Orwellian phrasing there.
Regulating an area (ownership of TV and radio stations), because the FCC worried about how the ownership will affect viewpoints expressed by those radio and TV stations, is not a legitimate exercise of the FCC’s authority (or, for that matter, any government agency’s authority). Getting rid of those regulations is “steering clear” of the problem created by exercising the FCC’s licensing authority as a means for influencing viewpoints expressed in the media.
The fact that getting rid of hose regulations might help any particular group is besides the point. To the extent that those regulations were based on an attempt to influence viewpoints, they were not legitimate to begin with.
>In the same way consolidation among trucking companies is outside the NTSB's jurisdition.
If the NTSB licensed trucks, and there was only enough road space to license 100 trucks per city, I'd be perfectly fine if they decided that 50/100 trucks had to be locally owned.
Usable radio frequencies are a limited resource, we have a vested interest in allocating those resources efficiently and fairly. The argument is what constitutes efficiently and fairly.
Is it fair to award licenses to the highest bidder? How about the tallest station owner?
Regardless of how they allocate licenses, they are still making a choice that determines who gets access and what viewpoints are represented.
I see no intrinsic reason that "highest bidder" is any more fair than "lives within 100 miles of the radio station."
How are radio stations irrelevant? Nearly everyone I know with a 9 to 5 job listens to talk radio on the way to work. Either WSB for conservatives, or NPR for liberals.
Conservative talk radio in particular plays a huge part in conservative political culture.
Do what? Note that this is an accurate description of the media landscape in other English-speaking countries which have chosen to relax cross-ownership rules.
Back in March, 265 members of congress voted to reverse an FCC privacy rule [0] in exchange for bribes (whoops, it's called lobbying). I'll leave it to you to figure out whether they had a "D" or an "R" next to their name. Then after that, tell me with a straight face that this isn't a partisan issue or that both sides are just the same.
Pretty sure Trump does identity politics. Examples are claiming the NFL protests are about disrespecting the flag, comments about Mexicans, a lot of shots at China, etc.
Trump != GOP. He is a game show host and parasite.
The base voters who show up are people who value specific issues like abortion, taxes, guns, etc and a red line that cannot be crossed.
Compare that message to the gotv efforts for democratic candidates. They’ll target ethnic voters, women, unions, lgbt, etc with messages specific to them. Depending on where they are, Democrats will stay silent on abortion or guns.
It’s a big reason why voter suppression is such a priority for the GOP. When there aren’t enough old white people, it’s expensive and difficult to convince gays or African Americans to flip.
I live in a very democratic state, and my little city probably has 30 polling places open from 6am to 9pm on Election Day with hardly any wait time.
Especially when every policy he's pushing is a bog-standard GOP policy (even if they've been a lot more polite and dogwhistled them rather than outright screaming.)
GOP definitely pushes identity politics, just the identies they claim to represent are frequently not actually oppressed or are the majority:
Some tropes:
* "Real" rural Americans vs city dwellers
* Oppressed Christians vs atheists and Muslims (despite both being a tiny minority nationally vs the majority Christians)
* blacks and Hispanics vs their majority white base
* College educated vs uneducated (somehow ignoring the party elite and backers frequently have elite educations)
* Gun owners vs everyone else
I cynically believe many people, including the GOP national leadership, realize these are much more manufactured than oppression faced by actual opressed minority groups. But stirring up culture wars provides a great smoke screen for their agenda while fracturing socially or racially what would otherwise be natural opposition to their policies among class lines.
See: GOP rallying the rural poor and elderly against ACA, despite the two groups being some of the biggest groups on Medicare/caid
It's just another word the right has latched on to in order to sound more intelligent, c.f. "cultural marxism". It's the same as people who throw around words like "Social Justice Warrior" as if that's a bad thing and make critiques of feminism without having actually taken even a second to read feminist literature on topics like intersectionality. It's the age of buzzwords. Ironically, caring about "identity politics" is identity politics as well, but the people using the term will still feel holier-than-thou and pretend they're rational, impartial, impassionate, and indifferent beings.
Tone and lack of respect for the person being conversed with is one of many reasons politics have become so divisive - let's not pretend it isn't important when the topic is constructive discussion.
Another commenter mentioned your tone, but you're right about what I think is your general point, identity politics is a political codeword for the "catering to the needs of minorities" that specifically democrats and other leftists do, not politics tied to any identity, which sort of includes a lot of politics in general.
Conservative Christian right wingers might have trouble in diverse workplaces but pot smoking gays are in deep shit anywhere outside of some coastal strongholds which ran out of places for newcomers years ago, oddly enough in part because of pervasive acceptance of neoliberal economics.
Oh, no. Identity politics is limited to issues specific to an individual's identity, as opposed to politics of nationalism, economics, broader social issues, etc.
Do you find it the least bit ironic that you learned that from a admittedly liberal talk show host who's videos are pushed on YouTube while conservatives who create similar content are demonetized?
Yes, I sort of agree. Is removing this rule really such a bad thing in itself, or is it a bad thing because a conservative media conglomerate seems to have the most to gain.
> "If you believe, as I do, that the federal government has no business intervening in the news, then we must stop the federal government from intervening in the news business,” Pai said...
But... this isn't about that. We're eventually going to reach a media (internet, tv, news, etc) singularity. How is that good for _anyone_ except investors?
One thing I found out the other day is that Sinclair actually gives right wing "talking point" snippets to its local news stations called "must runs"! Wtf?
What is incorrect in the video? Oliver has been doing "jouro-comedy" segments in his show from the start, and they're usually very well researched.
Alex Jones claims that Obama and Hillary smell like sulfur because they are possessed by demons. Needless to say, I don't think your comparison is accurate.
I don't remember any off hand but later I will rewatch an episode and list the problems. In the meantime you could search YouTube for "John Oliver rebuttal"
I've been a bit busy but here it is. (BTW: is there a way to get HN to notify you when someone comments?) I will be talking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8pjd1QEA0c Student Debt.
1:11 Student debt is bad because they will sue you in court. :
Well of course they will. Its not like they can take away your car if you stop paying your debt.
3:30 Why did student loans increase so much? States slashed funding for higher institutions causing colleges to increase tuition. :
Or maybe because more people are eligible for student loans. Having the government back student loans is linked to the increase in tuition according to this: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff...
5:16 Students at for profit schools account for 31% of student loans having just 13% of the students. :
Does anyone expect a private company meant for people with few options to be cheeper than ivy league schools that offer on average $40,000 of aid per student? I don't have sources but I would imagine that the 13% most expensive car sales would account for around 31% of car sales.
9:00 Looks at one specific program at itt and says that it has an 8% employment rate and 25% didn't graduate:
There is / was (I don't know if it is over yet) a lawsuit against itt and the plaintiff claims that the employment rate was around 50% http://www.ajc.com/news/education/lawsuit-claims-itt-tech-ex... . Also, what do you expect from a college that excepts anyone who can pay? If they graduated everyone than their credibility would be worse than it already is. Any place that accepts anyone will have a low success rate (eg. Hollywood and start ups)
And the most annoying point about his videos is that he doesn't propose a solution. It feels like making a video about how chemo is so bad and painful but then doesn't mention any alternative. In this analogy John Oliver would like to ban or severely limit chemo.
Your job was to provide examples of "extremely misleading" statements by Oliver. You didn't actually disprove any of the four examples that you cited. You merely posited alternate theories or additional causes.
As such, I'm not going to bother replying to them.
But I suggest that you do some more careful research before using ITT Technical Institute to make a political or economic arrgument:
Ah, a good source for snake oil and bullshit — the self-tilted...
Fuck it. You’re an idiot.
You can not like JO. Fine. But YOU are more like Fucktard Jones than JO. Because you just make shit up; at least JO does 30s worth of research before saying something.
Sinclair owns those companies. How is that any different than, let's say cnn, telling it's reporters what they can report on? I think it's bad that 6 corporations own 90% of the media, but until this changes don't expect the owners of those corporations to not inject their (left or right) bias to those stations.
I guess the bit of cognitive dissonance is just coming from "local news stations" having megaconglomerate ownership at all. Of course CNN is going to have a policy for its reporters, but I'd be surprised to find out that my town-of-50k-people's nightly news is "part of" CNN and following their policies.
CNN is in the business of orchestrating local news, though the local station is arguably 'subscribing' to those stories/policies.
One of Conan's recurring bits is anchors reading prepackaged scripts.[0]. They're all packages by CNN for local affiliates,[1] one of several similar services (including Fox).
Most reputable news sources claim to have a "firewall" between owners and editors/journalists, i.e. they claim the owners can not tell the reporters what to do. While it is fair to be somewhat jaded, organizations like NPR and NYT uphold this ideal most of the time. (NPR being publicly funded is a weirder case)
Note that NPR gets much of its funding from underwriting agreements (aka commercials). It's not accurate to describe NPR as "publicly funded."
Also, I think it is naive to claim that the NYT manages to achieve some holy grail of independence from its ownership. Remember that this is the organization that recently eliminated their fairly short-lived position of Public Editor.
Thank you for the response. I was unaware of the firewall concept. That does make what Sinclair is doing hypocritical, assuming that they claim to have a firewall (which the media should strive for).
The Trump administration appointed the FCC head, so it's safe to assume this is something they're OK with. Given the right wing ownership of many large media companies, that makes sense.
It really hasn't. With younger generations, sure. But a lot of people watch local news. For many older generations it's their main source of news. And they vote in much higher numbers than young voters.
Not just old people, but also less educated people... some might call them "rednecks". My brother, for example, still gets nearly all of his news from TV news and the newspaper. He has a flip-phone rather than a smart phone, and avoids the internet almost entirely (using it only for suppliers that require internet ordering).
He's relatively uneducated, having only a high school diploma (and he barely got that) but he's also quite successful, running a business doing specialized repairs to heavy construction equipment with a revenue over a million dollars/year.
And he's a die-hard republican who thinks Trump is just what this country needs.
Normal person would not support monopolies. Shills do it for money or whatever other bribes they get. The whole process of monopolists controlling various branches of power is the prime example of corruption. Except in US, this corruption is legalized, under pretense that it's "free speech".
I fail to see how those sources show that Pai is engaging in corruption.
It sounds like you're saying, "I don't like what he does, so he must be getting bribes."
I think he is doing great damage, and that Congress needs to step in and codify into law what he is rolling back. That said, bizarre claims only serve to weaken the position that we share: that the FCC is serving industry at the expense of the public good and consumers.
Corruption here is pretty obvious. Check his ties to those he is supposedly "regulating". In this particular case, John Oliver's analogy about a dingo is very to the point.
Current Congress won't step in, because of exactly same corruption going on. Current majority supports this insanity.
You keep referencing things you expect to be familiar, but they’re not. What John Oliver said once isn’t widely known.
It’s not obvious. Why would I check? You have to support your position. Right now you continue to weaken opposition to Pai’s actions by appearing that you aren’t being logical.
Right, someone can point the commission to the Italian experience with Berlusconi - tv, paper and publishing baron - and his toxic effect on Italian society
Maybe it is because I was born before the internet was really used but I can't understand tha position of this is okay because we have new technologies that would allow for local news to still be viable without the people reporting it having any near geographical location to whom they are reporting to.
While somewhat true, it seems like a strawman argument seen through rose colored glasses and this is not what will happen. Consolidation will continue and the only local news you'll probably get is what X corporation wants to supply you with. And you can not use the argument of 'free-market, vote with your wallet / consumption, switch to their competitor' because chances are there isn't one.
102 comments
[ 341 ms ] story [ 2863 ms ] threadThe latter could easily be more of a cause of the former than vice versa.
The worst case is more likely, unfortunately. Echo chambers will get louder and influence their believers even more. Information will be replaced with entertainment and propaganda. In other words, more of the worst of what we have now.
This is a calculated and malicious move.
Also, consolidation is a cross-cutting economic problem the DOJ’s antitrust division should be handling. It’s outside the FCC’s expertise.
Radio and television are extremely relevant to most Americans. It's only those of us in our Bay Area-Chicago-New York bubbles that think they aren't. Decreasing market share does not mean irrelevance.
Radio alone is extremely influential for political opinions. Many politicians owe their careers to Rush Limbaugh and Neil Boortz.
Curated news stories that omit one perspective will certainly influence their audiences: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-07-20/the-sincl...
In the same way consolidation among trucking companies is outside the NTSB's jurisdition. The FCC's legitimate purpose is to prevent interference among radio and TV stations. It's not to regulate content (which isn't a legitimate area of regulation at all). And it's not to enforce antitrust laws (which are enforced by a different government agency, with specific expertise in antitrust).
The fact that radio is influential in politics among a certain segment of the population is even more reason for the FCC to steer clear, not a reason for the FCC to intervene.
The fact that getting rid of hose regulations might help any particular group is besides the point. To the extent that those regulations were based on an attempt to influence viewpoints, they were not legitimate to begin with.
If the NTSB licensed trucks, and there was only enough road space to license 100 trucks per city, I'd be perfectly fine if they decided that 50/100 trucks had to be locally owned.
Usable radio frequencies are a limited resource, we have a vested interest in allocating those resources efficiently and fairly. The argument is what constitutes efficiently and fairly.
Is it fair to award licenses to the highest bidder? How about the tallest station owner?
Regardless of how they allocate licenses, they are still making a choice that determines who gets access and what viewpoints are represented.
I see no intrinsic reason that "highest bidder" is any more fair than "lives within 100 miles of the radio station."
Conservative talk radio in particular plays a huge part in conservative political culture.
[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp...
The base voters who show up are people who value specific issues like abortion, taxes, guns, etc and a red line that cannot be crossed.
Compare that message to the gotv efforts for democratic candidates. They’ll target ethnic voters, women, unions, lgbt, etc with messages specific to them. Depending on where they are, Democrats will stay silent on abortion or guns.
It’s a big reason why voter suppression is such a priority for the GOP. When there aren’t enough old white people, it’s expensive and difficult to convince gays or African Americans to flip.
I live in a very democratic state, and my little city probably has 30 polling places open from 6am to 9pm on Election Day with hardly any wait time.
Some tropes:
* "Real" rural Americans vs city dwellers
* Oppressed Christians vs atheists and Muslims (despite both being a tiny minority nationally vs the majority Christians)
* blacks and Hispanics vs their majority white base
* College educated vs uneducated (somehow ignoring the party elite and backers frequently have elite educations)
* Gun owners vs everyone else
I cynically believe many people, including the GOP national leadership, realize these are much more manufactured than oppression faced by actual opressed minority groups. But stirring up culture wars provides a great smoke screen for their agenda while fracturing socially or racially what would otherwise be natural opposition to their policies among class lines.
See: GOP rallying the rural poor and elderly against ACA, despite the two groups being some of the biggest groups on Medicare/caid
Not very conducive to discussion, and quite ironic in a thread about divisive echo chambers.
They have been buying up local stations for years. They then use that influence to push conservative ideas.
I too miss all the unique local radio shows.
On the other hand, it was easy to buy many of them off. See these two examples:
1. LBJ and Lady Bird: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/20...
2. Payola: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola
But... this isn't about that. We're eventually going to reach a media (internet, tv, news, etc) singularity. How is that good for _anyone_ except investors?
In all, a great way to avoid having to give any real arguments as to why this is a good idea.
https://nyti.ms/2ra6y15
Alex Jones claims that Obama and Hillary smell like sulfur because they are possessed by demons. Needless to say, I don't think your comparison is accurate.
See: Gell-Mann Amnesia effect
1:11 Student debt is bad because they will sue you in court. : Well of course they will. Its not like they can take away your car if you stop paying your debt.
3:30 Why did student loans increase so much? States slashed funding for higher institutions causing colleges to increase tuition. : Or maybe because more people are eligible for student loans. Having the government back student loans is linked to the increase in tuition according to this: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff...
5:16 Students at for profit schools account for 31% of student loans having just 13% of the students. : Does anyone expect a private company meant for people with few options to be cheeper than ivy league schools that offer on average $40,000 of aid per student? I don't have sources but I would imagine that the 13% most expensive car sales would account for around 31% of car sales.
9:00 Looks at one specific program at itt and says that it has an 8% employment rate and 25% didn't graduate: There is / was (I don't know if it is over yet) a lawsuit against itt and the plaintiff claims that the employment rate was around 50% http://www.ajc.com/news/education/lawsuit-claims-itt-tech-ex... . Also, what do you expect from a college that excepts anyone who can pay? If they graduated everyone than their credibility would be worse than it already is. Any place that accepts anyone will have a low success rate (eg. Hollywood and start ups)
And the most annoying point about his videos is that he doesn't propose a solution. It feels like making a video about how chemo is so bad and painful but then doesn't mention any alternative. In this analogy John Oliver would like to ban or severely limit chemo.
As such, I'm not going to bother replying to them.
But I suggest that you do some more careful research before using ITT Technical Institute to make a political or economic arrgument:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT_Technical_Institute
Fuck it. You’re an idiot.
You can not like JO. Fine. But YOU are more like Fucktard Jones than JO. Because you just make shit up; at least JO does 30s worth of research before saying something.
Clearly, you don’t.
Off you fuck.
One of Conan's recurring bits is anchors reading prepackaged scripts.[0]. They're all packages by CNN for local affiliates,[1] one of several similar services (including Fox).
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM8L7bdwVaA
[1] http://thedesk.matthewkeys.net/2013/12/heres-how-conan-obrie...
Also, I think it is naive to claim that the NYT manages to achieve some holy grail of independence from its ownership. Remember that this is the organization that recently eliminated their fairly short-lived position of Public Editor.
He's relatively uneducated, having only a high school diploma (and he barely got that) but he's also quite successful, running a business doing specialized repairs to heavy construction equipment with a revenue over a million dollars/year.
And he's a die-hard republican who thinks Trump is just what this country needs.
Not great that every decision coming out of the FCC regulatory body as of late is beneficial to a small group of companies.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
When you get cases like this: http://stopthecap.com/2017/10/23/mich-lawmaker-seeks-ban-com...
you can observe it very clearly. Pai is even worse, because he isn't an elected official.
It sounds like you're saying, "I don't like what he does, so he must be getting bribes."
I think he is doing great damage, and that Congress needs to step in and codify into law what he is rolling back. That said, bizarre claims only serve to weaken the position that we share: that the FCC is serving industry at the expense of the public good and consumers.
Current Congress won't step in, because of exactly same corruption going on. Current majority supports this insanity.
It’s not obvious. Why would I check? You have to support your position. Right now you continue to weaken opposition to Pai’s actions by appearing that you aren’t being logical.
Anyway, about Pai's ties to monopolistic ISPs, there was a lot published here: https://www.techdirt.com/search-g.php?q=Pai
I'm not doing free research, you're going to have to mention one example of corruption.
While somewhat true, it seems like a strawman argument seen through rose colored glasses and this is not what will happen. Consolidation will continue and the only local news you'll probably get is what X corporation wants to supply you with. And you can not use the argument of 'free-market, vote with your wallet / consumption, switch to their competitor' because chances are there isn't one.