Guest Cerebus Posted June 25, 2004 Report Posted June 25, 2004 About fucking time: US court keeps stay on media rules WASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court refused on Thursday to allow loosened federal media rules on media ownership to take effect, dealing a blow to large media companies like News Corp. that are hoping to expand. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said the new rules would not take effect until the Federal Communications Commission better explained how it came up with them. "The Commission has not sufficiently justified its particular chosen numerical limits for local television ownership, local radio ownership, and cross-ownership of media within local markets," the court's 218-page opinion said. The FCC last year lifted a ban on a company owning both a newspaper and television stations or radio outlets in a single market. It also agreed in many cases to allow a company to own two television stations in a single market. The FCC said it eased the rules to help broadcasters compete against pay television services. But opponents fear the rules would only allow media conglomerates like Tribune Co. and News Corp. to grow even bigger to the detriment of local news reporting and diverse viewpoints. Opponents cheered the ruling. "Clearly, the court found that the FCC's previous studies were inadequate and lacked credibility," Democratic FCC commissioner Michael Copps said in a statement. Andrew Schwartzman, a lawyer for Prometheus Radio Project who filed the lawsuit, said the court had ordered the FCC to "take the deregulatory thumb off of the scale." "It looks like the court agreed with us that preserving democracy is more important than helping big companies grow bigger," Schwartzman said. I hate to champion anything that Chomsky claims as his own, but media consolidation and monopoly is one of the greatest dangers not only for American capitalism but also goverment and society since we absorb so much of our information from tv, radio, and newspapers. Bravo for the Third Circuit, now if we could only clone you guys and ship you off to the Ninth....
kkktookmybabyaway Posted June 25, 2004 Report Posted June 25, 2004 I agree. What freaks me out are the news-entertainment blurring. Hey, Simon & Schster have some books coming out -- let's give their authors some free pub on 60 Minutes...
Guest MikeSC Posted June 25, 2004 Report Posted June 25, 2004 I agree. What freaks me out are the news-entertainment blurring. Hey, Simon & Schster have some books coming out -- let's give their authors some free pub on 60 Minutes... Gotta agree. I was willing to give it a chance --- but media consolidation has not been a boon thus far. Time to pull the plug and stop the f'n "synergy". -=Mike
kkktookmybabyaway Posted June 25, 2004 Report Posted June 25, 2004 Also, just to be fair, I'm not just picking on "liberal" targets like the recent books given free pub on "60 Minutes." (Although not as "serious" as my first example, it was equally annoying) Judith Regan used to pimp the hell out of authors that wrote books for her on a certain cable news channel (I'm assuming she's no longer on because I haven't seen her show in a while)...
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