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FCC declines to punish Sinclair for its ‘must-run’ segments and scripts

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Re: FCC declines to punish Sinclair for its ‘must-run’ segments and scripts

#111

Post by craftyguy »

KZeillmann wrote: post #104
arca_vorago wrote: post #94

FCC doesnt seem like it's protecting consumers. I think if I were POTUS I'd be using this section of its mandate. "Communications during emergencies and crisis must be available for public safety, health, defense, and emergency personnel, as well as all consumers in need. The Nation's critical communications infrastructure must be reliable, interoperable, redundant, and rapidly restorable." The honest thing is that t…

Were you under the impression that an Ajit Pai-led FCC would be intent on protecting consumers?

I don't think anyone was under that impression. But there are literally no solutions to the Ajut problem that any of us can contribute to.

Re: FCC declines to punish Sinclair for its ‘must-run’ segments and scripts

#112

Post by gh02t »

Shendare wrote: post #84
rhino369 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fairness doctrine was hardly ever envoked. Attempting to apply it to a situation like this would not be constitutional. The fairness doctrine was found constitutional when it required a rebuttal to a direct personal attack during an era when there were only 3 stations. But this situation is different. It was never applied to a sitation where a network required "must run" content. At best, the fairness doctrine wo…

>The fairness doctrine was hardly ever envoked. I (a layperson) don't really follow this. It sounds to me like "while the rules were in effect, they were rarely broken". >an era when there were only 3 stations. But this situation is different. Lots of station numbers, run by just a handful of owners: http://www.neatorama.com/2008/07/07/who-owns-what-on-televis...

OP's point was that Fairness Doctrine was never a hard and fast rule because the FCC was hesitant to actually enforce it due to free speech concerns. Broadcasters were generally willing to cooperate, but they got lots of wiggle room. Plus it was vague and easily sidestepped.

I worry it could do more harm than good nowadays if reinstated. Suddenly anti-vaxxers and people who think climate change is a hoax would have to be given more coverage, for example.

Re: FCC declines to punish Sinclair for its ‘must-run’ segments and scripts

#113

Post by actsasbuffoon »

sjg007 wrote: post #110
arca_vorago wrote: post #94

FCC doesnt seem like it's protecting consumers. I think if I were POTUS I'd be using this section of its mandate. "Communications during emergencies and crisis must be available for public safety, health, defense, and emergency personnel, as well as all consumers in need. The Nation's critical communications infrastructure must be reliable, interoperable, redundant, and rapidly restorable." The honest thing is that t…

I think Trump is probably supportive of Sinclair. The promote a pro Trump message and have a conservative bias.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn

Boris Alexandrovich Epshteyn (Russian: Бори́с Алекса́ндрович Эпштейн; born August 14, 1982) is a Russian-born American Republican political strategist, investment banker, and attorney. He is currently the Chief Political Analyst at Sinclair Broadcast Group. He was a senior advisor to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign for President of the United States, and previously worked on the McCain-Palin campaign. Following Trump's election, he was named director of communications for the Presidential Inaugural Committee, and then assistant communications director for surrogate operations in the administration, until he resigned in March 2017.

TL;DR: The guy in charge of political programming for Sinclair worked for Trump, both on the campaign and in the white house.

Re: FCC declines to punish Sinclair for its ‘must-run’ segments and scripts

#114

Post by bobwaycott »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #77
dragonwriter wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the safe thing to do with that regulations that to try to find truth of substantive claims, but instead tomjudt uncritically relay sourced rumor: it's very easily to be completely factual if everything you report is “So and so says that...” regurgitating official statements from interested parties without attempting to validate the claims the originator is making.

How about we start with the over-use of "leaked"? For example the new James Comey book was not "leaked." What happened was, the publicist kicked off the marketing campaign and MSM feeding frenzy and hyping begins. The part about the book's author being sacked by the guy he's critiquing is never mentioned. A real journalist would not use the worded "leaked" as that's not only entirely misleading, it's a lie. Stating t…

> The part about the book's author being sacked by the guy he's critiquing is never mentioned.

Every bit of coverage I've heard about Comey--both from the last 24 hours about the book, and for the last year--has mentioned Comey being fired every time.

Re: FCC declines to punish Sinclair for its ‘must-run’ segments and scripts

#115

Post by dragonwriter »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #108
jakebasile wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People that use this quote to justify censorship must be in two camps. Those that are ignorant of the provenance of the quote and how it was and could be misused, and those that know it and are looking to censor as long as the idea bring censored is disagreeable to their own. With the regularity I see it parroted I very much hope the former is more common than the latter. As to the proposal of labeling content, who d…

> People that use this quote to justify censorship must be in two camps. Those that are ignorant of the provenance of the quote and how it was and could be misused, and those that know it and are looking to censor as long as the idea bring censored is disagreeable to their own. I don't follow this entire line of thought. As with your parent comment: >> Before you use "Fire in a theater" argument, please be aware that…

> Is the thought supposed to be "this argument was once used to support a bad thing. THEREFORE, this argument is invalid"? That can't be right.

No, the “fire in a crowded theater” thing isn't an argument, it's a claim about the law often used as a premise in other arguments.

The problem with that claim is that it's a claim about the application of Constitutional law and limits to free speech in a particular fact pattern that was dicta unsupported by prior case law offered as part of the explanation for a decision which has itself since been overturned as inappropriately limiting freedom of speech in a way directly contrary to the core purpose of the Constitutional protection.

That is:

* It was not a statement of the law grounded in valid authority,

* It wouldn't be valid authority on the law itself even if the decision it was articulated in was valid authority, and

* The case it was articulated in is, in fact, no longer valid authority.

Therefore, any argument which takes it as a premise stands on sand, as the premise is unsupported.

Re: FCC declines to punish Sinclair for its ‘must-run’ segments and scripts

#116

Post by jakebasile »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #108
jakebasile wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People that use this quote to justify censorship must be in two camps. Those that are ignorant of the provenance of the quote and how it was and could be misused, and those that know it and are looking to censor as long as the idea bring censored is disagreeable to their own. With the regularity I see it parroted I very much hope the former is more common than the latter. As to the proposal of labeling content, who d…

> People that use this quote to justify censorship must be in two camps. Those that are ignorant of the provenance of the quote and how it was and could be misused, and those that know it and are looking to censor as long as the idea bring censored is disagreeable to their own. I don't follow this entire line of thought. As with your parent comment: >> Before you use "Fire in a theater" argument, please be aware that…

The provenance shows what the argument can be and has been used to justify - censorship of thoughts deemed unacceptable by people in a position of power.

Re: FCC declines to punish Sinclair for its ‘must-run’ segments and scripts

#117

Post by IAmEveryone »

downandout wrote: post #56
IAmEveryone wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really believe Sinclair doesn't have the manpower to watch their own programming to check for any 'biases'? And if you believe they are somehow incapable of noticing biases: how would they adjudicate any complaints they get? That request for comments is either a McGuffin needed to have a reason for the preceding rant slamming all other media outlets. Or it's a ploy to get local stations in line with Sinclair's…

Umm...wut? Would you not agree that bias is in the media is a major issue today, and that it may cause a significant percentage of viewers to abandon a given station or website if they see too much of it? Before the 2016 election, I regularly watched CNN and visited its website. Now it’s such a den of partiality and clickbait headlines that I have relegated it to HuffPo status and cannot trust anything I read there,…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance

Re: FCC declines to punish Sinclair for its ‘must-run’ segments and scripts

#118

Post by rufus_2 »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #57
chiefalchemist wrote: post #22

Call me crazy but it's time for a legal definition of news (vs editorial) and then have that definition forced. If false advertising is a faux pas then news that's not attempting to be objective and forthright should be labeled. Most of the so called news / journalism isn't news / journalism any more than Aspartame is sugar. If you can't call Aspartame sugar then consuming content should be forced to be as transparen…

I think a broadcaster should be held liable for dispersing any information that is knowingly _or_ unknowingly not 100% true. You might say, "But chilling effects!", but it's high time news chilled the hell out.

Who should be the final arbiter of "100% true"? Should it be an elected position or an appointed position?

Re: FCC declines to punish Sinclair for its ‘must-run’ segments and scripts

#119

Post by sp527 »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #59
bradleyankrom wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think putting the Hannitys and Carlsons on the same level as the Maddows and the Lemons implies a false equivalency. Everyone has an agenda, yeah, but one of those groups is deliberately misleading its viewers.

Um. They're all pretty deliberate. They're all gainfully employed based on one key KPI: ad revenue. They have a target market. They have a narrative. And they work that to the tune of ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. Death by cancer is still death whether it's Red State death or Blue State death. That's about as equal as it gets. None of the four you listed quality as news or journalism. One another day we can discuss w…

[flagged]

Re: FCC declines to punish Sinclair for its ‘must-run’ segments and scripts

#120

Post by will4274 »

gregdunn wrote: post #101
rhino369 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a movie theatre has a government granted monopoly on a piece of land on which they show movies. Doesn't mean you can't just build another one next door. Facebook has an actual monolopy on an entire market.

TV broadcast frequencies are a far scarcer resource than land.

And yet, there are more TV stations than movie theatres in many towns.
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