Revoke their charters, don't renew their licenses, force GE to divest NBC

[StefanX]

Once again the corporate media (eg, NBC, which is 80% owned by the defense contractor a/k/a war profiteer GE) is trying to swing an election.

The corporate media want Hillary, and if they can't get Hillary they want Obama, but no way in hell do they want that other front runner, Edwards -- for the simple reason that he's said he's going to rein the corporations in and make a dent in their multi-billion-dollar profits and try to stop them from eating us alive.

There's a few things we should do (actually should have done long ago):

- Prohibit defense contractors from owning media outlets. This ought to be a no-brainer.

- Revoke the charter of corporations which do not act in the public interest.

- Not renew the license of a broadcaster who is incapable of reporting on all the front runners in a race. (I'm also looking at Fox News, which tried to exclude Ron Paul from the debates. Not a guy I like, but I'll defend his right to be heard if he pulled 10% in the Iowa caucus and outfundraised many other candidates.)

The Telecommunications Act of 1934 (amended in 1996) makes clear reference to "the public interest" and implies that part of this has to do with diversity and accuracy.

Well, yeah, it's probably too late for all these things now, now that the primaries are underway. But maybe we can start monitoring these so-called "news" stations now, and serve them notice that if they can't report the news, they will lose their broadcast licenses and/or corporate charters.

And I do think a movement should be underway to pass laws forcing defense contractors to divest their media holdings. It just ain't right and it's going to throw our elections every time till we fix it. NBC is clearly against Edwards, and NBC is owned by GE. It's bad enough that GE is in the bomb-making business, but a bomb-maker shouldn't be allowed to own a friggin' TV network.

War profiteers should not be allowed to own TV stations. It's just sick. The Founding Fathers would be rolling in their graves if they knew we allowed this kind of nonsense. It is a recipe for disaster.

[PDJane]

1. Agreed.

The corporatocracy needs more than a few laws reinstated to ensure their compliance with the common good. That's not gonna happen easily.

[aquart]

2. Still pulling the "they want Hillary" crap? Unbelievable.

Yeah, I'm sure your man Obama is gonna do just that.

[Kucinich4America]

4. The corporate media had a solid pro-Hillary bias until Iowa

and even yesterday, they were spinning like crazy to turn the crying episode into a "positive", where it would have been "Dean Scream II" for any candidate they didn't like. Obama's getting the coverage because right now he IS the story, but they haven't abandoned Hillary by any means yet. And they are avoiding Edwards, just as they started to shut out Dean's access in late 2003 after the debate where he made it clear he would target the media whores.

[StefanX]

9. "My man" isn't Obama -- it's Edwards! My post is about the Edwards media blackout!

"My man" is He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken in the media -- ie, Edwards.

You do agree that there is a massive imbalance between who the people are voting for and who the media are talking about?

It's a three-way race neck-and-neck between (among!) Obama, Edwards, Hillary.

But in the media it's Obama vs. Hillary, Hillary vs. Obama.

This graph says it all:



Is that graph any way reflective of a three-way race? Notice how the guy who came in #2 in Iowa (Edwards) has that tiny little bar graph. And this is CUMULATIVE representing HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of news outlets, and this is AFTER the guy came in #2 in Iowa. This is clear evidence of SOMETHING -- I don't know if you'd call it conspiracy, fraud, a violation of the public interest, whatever, but it is simply WRONG. Not just morally wrong. A country which allows this to happen can never be a democracy. It's that simple.

I talk to family and friends on the phone. They know that Hillary and Obama are in the lead. Most of them have no idea that Edwards is also in the lead.

It's not their fault, they're not web addicts like I am. But this is the way the media has been playing the game for the last few years. Same with the Iraq War -- people knew what they read in the papers and saw on TV, and it had nothing to do with reality.

I think in something like a Presidential election, a legal case can be made to say that if three candidates are all neck-and-neck, it is a violation of that network's broadcast licence and/or corporate charter to systematically fail to mention all three candidates by name.

It really strikes me as unfair. The media is throwing our elections. They tried to destroy Gore with the sighing, they destroyed Dean with the scream, and now they're trying to destroy Edwards with silence.

I believe in one person one vote. It's not fair that the owner of a TV station has more say in the electoral process than me. And it's particularly sick when a bomb manufacturer owns a TV channel. We could, if we wanted, outlaw this.

[AzDar]

15. ....

:wow:

[Snotcicles]

17. You don't want to reach across the isle and get the warm and fuzzy? nt

[rhett o rick]

18. It appears to me that Sen Clinton and Sen Obama get more than their fair share

of MSM (read corporatist) media attention. It is very logical to conclude that since Edwards and Kucinich are very anti-corporatist that the corporatist media would shun them. Corporatism = fascism.

[elehhhhna]

3. War profiteers should also be prevented from being elected President and/or vice-president

[Kucinich4America]

6. The fact that you should even have to say that, is evidence of how far this country has fallen

Someone was trying to float a rumor that Obama would pick Dianne Feinstein as a VP. I don't see that happening, but if it did, He would not get my vote. We can't replace Dick Cheney with a female clone of himself.

[Triana]

5. BUST them apart - and reinstate the Fairness Doctrine...you bet they don't want Edwards..

....'cause he'll kick their asses.

[Bill McBlueState]

7. I like the first amendment. n/t

[StefanX]

10. I like the First Amendment too -- BUT...

I would never want to violate GE's sacred right to express itself. I mean, bomb manufacturers have rights too.

That being said however: Remember back in the 60s there was that slogan "What if the military had to hold a bake sale?"

Well, GE can go get a friggin' blog if they want free speech. But they should keep their bloody murderous hands off of the top three networks -- which LICENCE OUR airwaves and which have an obligation to serve OUR INTEREST.

Please remember that broadcast spectrum is limited and it belongs to us, the public. Broadcast spectrum (unlike IP4 and IPv¨internet addresses) is so limited that it would be impossible to let every person and corporation in America have a chunk of it. So it is auctioned and licenced to bidders. First Amendment doesn't really apply to to broadcast spectrum -- it isn't a right, it's a limited resource and the law already explicitly forbids doling out this scarce public resource to organizations which have shown they are not interested or capable of using it in the public interest.

Do you think that distoring Presidential election results serves the public interest? It might be covered by the First Amendment, but it is quite another thing to argue that a defense contractor which lies about elections has a "right" to a very valuable and scarce chunk of bandwith. In fact, this violates the Telecommunications Act of 1934, as amended in 1996.

As I said, let GE get a blog and I think the interesting Constitutional issue you raise will be fully addressed.

[Echo In Light]

8. Amazes me how so few know about the GE/NBC connection. Major conflict of interests

[Uncle Joe]

11. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, StefanX.

[northzax]

12. big deal

so cut off 14 million people from the networks (you don't need a license, of course, for Cable or Satellite TV broadcasts) That is only 14 percent of the households in the country (there are roughly 100 million households with a TV set in the US) and they are, on average, poor and/or rural. in teh suburbs, for instance, cable penetration is close to 95%. African American Urban populations are also in the 95% penetration rate. Broadcasting TV is expensive, especially in less populated rural areas. Trust me, the networks would LOVE to have their national broadcast requirements pulled and be able to focus on the people advertisers actually want to reach (urban/suburban 18-34 year olds with disposable income) imagine, instead of having to pay to reach customers (broadcast) they paid you! (cable and satellite) NBC, for instance, sells a package to cable companies (including Bravo, MSNBC, CNBC, USA and a few others) for about $3/month. There are 100,000,000 cable subscribers in the US, that means the NBC family generates about $300,000,000/month in subscriber fees alone before they sell a dime of advertising what do they get for the 14 million people (like me, for instance) who watch over the air? not a penny in subscriber fees. for a more restrictive medium.

[StefanX]

14. Well, I didn't mean abolish NBC. Keep NBC -- but keep GE away from it

I'm sure there is a much more responsible "corporate citizen" out there which would be happy to own NBC.

[northzax]

19. you can't confiscate the company

you can just revoke their ability to broadcast over the airwaves. which is a fairly minimal part of their business as it is.

[StefanX]

21. I didn't say "confiscate the company" -- I said "force GE to divest NBC"

Let someone else own NBC.

I'm tired of getting my news from a bomb-manufacturer. I think they may have a slight conflict of interest about all these wars -- and about the current election.

I think that explains the "Edwards media blackout."

What do you mean by "confiscate the company"? I don't understand that terminology.

And your argument about NBC being a "fairly minimal part of" GE's business is quite disingenuous -- because defense contractors make billions, so by definition a multimillion-dollar network is just a small slice of GE's overalla pie.

Yet another reason for them to be forced to divest. Let a media company own the network. Not a war-profiteer conglomerate.

I mean, are you arguing in favor of GE owning NBC? Please be a bit more explicit. I find your oblique comments rather confusing.

Seriously, would you support a law requiring GE to divest its ownership of NBC? Yes or No.

[northzax]

22. forcing someone to sell something is, in essence, confiscation

This is, of course, neither here nor there. And read what I said a little bit closer, eh? I said that over the air broadcasts are a small part of NBC’s business. The part of NBC that the government regulates (over the air broadcasting) in exchange for access is small compared to the non-regulated parts. I don’t understand what your point is that NBC needs to be divested, you mean, I assume, the broadcast portion of NBC, not the production house, or the movie house (Universal). So take away NBC’s broadcast licenses at the relatively paltry number of actual broadcast stations NBC itself owns (as opposed to selling product to under license) For instance, NBC the corporate entity owns ten NBC-affiliated stations (in New York, LA, Chicago, Philly, San Francisco, Dallas, Washington, Miami, San Diego and Hartford) all other stations showing NBC programming are independently owned affiliates that show the programming under license from NBC corporate. Of course, if you get your TV from Comcast, Verizon or any of the multitude of other cable companies, you aren’t getting anything over the air at all.

so what part of NBC/Universal exactly should GE divest? and who will set the price, since forced sales are almost always for less than the value in the open marketplace? should NBC (and CBS, et al be independant companies? should they all give up all broadcast licenses and be forced to sell their products to independant broadcasters? explain how you think this should work.

[Freddie Stubbs]

13. "broadcaster who is incapable of reporting on all the front runners in a race"

Who gets to decide who the frontrunners are?

[StefanX]

16. Easy: if a station reports #1 and #3 in the Iowa caucus, but not #2

Then pull their license.

Next question?



(I appreciate you attempt to imply that the term "front-runner" is subjective and open to interpretation. But if the station reports the gold and the bronze winner and not the silver, then we have a problem, Houston.)

[Tom Joad]

20. the Clinton's are the heroes of the Telecommunication monopolies

They really know how to help the little guy with nothing more than a a few hundred tv stations, ownership of no more than a few newspapers, and lots of radio stations and nothing more than a hundred billion in the bank. you know, common folk.