On December 18, 1777, the United States celebrated its first official Thanksgiving, marking the then-recent October victory by the Americans over General John Burgoyne in the Battle of Saratoga.
“The FCC finally stopped enforcing the policy in 1987, acknowledging that it did not serve the public interest. In 2011 the agency officially took it off the books. But the demise of the Fairness Doctrine has not deterred proponents of newsroom policing. . . .”
Thankfully, this is old news. The former FCC commissioner’spiece was actually published nearly twelve years ago. Mr. Pai has since moved on to the private sector, in April becoming President and CEO of CTIA, the wireless industry trade association.
We can breathe a sigh of relief. The FCC is not planning on regulating the news for biased content.
Well, supposedly, anyway.
So why rehash an old issue — why revive something from the proverbial slush pile?
To compare and contrast. Bias is a continuing problem, but the biggest threat to news reporting and dissemination since that time has revealed itself in a very different form, not as “abridgments” to press freedoms but as secret government commands and direction.
Remember what we learned in the Trump-and-pandemic years?
During the recent pandemic, and the release of the Twitter Files, we learned of a massive effort of government and “ex-government” personnel directing social media outlets to platform-censor dissent, going so far as to squelch new sources . . . as happened regarding the New York Post Hunter Biden laptop story.
The FCC Fairness Doctrine was nothing compared to the meddling that has more recently occurred behind the scenes, but which we all experienced, on social media. It played a role in the election results favoring Biden in 2020, and in the dysfunctional, disastrous public health response to COVID-19.
The FCC doesn’t handle that level of biased manipulation of news.
So who does?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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They flew like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water.
Kenneth Arnold to East Oregonian reporter Bill Bequette at the airport at Pendleton on June 25, 1947, where Arnold was refueling his private plane. Bill Bequette and editor Nolan Skiff’s front page story in the evening paper of the same day, titled “Impossible! Maybe, But Seein’ Is Believin’, Says Flyer,” started the modern Flying Saucer legend, which was widely reported and discussed worldwide in the 1950s.
On December 17, 1777, France formally recognized the United States of America.
The 17th of December, 1819, was the day Simon Bolivar declared the independence of the Republic of Gran Colombia in Angostura.
You deflect: Of course different media organizations have different perspectives; each to its own. Sometimes, too, we choose what to run less rationally than the Platonic philosopher-journalist would demand.
Bias is everywhere, inevitable.
Which makes the only cure maximal freedom of speech and openness of discourse. The answer to deficient speech is better speech, not either direct or indirect government censorship.
Nevertheless, the FCC has proposed to “investigate” the selection process of newsrooms.
Any such investigation is necessarily biased from the get-go against freedom of speech and press. Even if it never gets to the regulation stage, the investigation itself constitutes interference. It is impossible for anyone being asked formal investigatory questions by the FCC to be unaware that the questioner has the power of government behind him.
How, for example, is a conscientious employee who respects the rights of his boss supposed to answer this loaded question: “Have you ever suggested coverage of what you consider a story with critical information for your customers that was rejected by management?”?
FCC commissioner Ajit Pai reports that this is one query being considered as part of a “Critical Information Needs” study to determine how stories are selected, “perceived bias,” and how responsive a newsroom is to “underserved populations.”
Pai, who opposes the project, says: “The government has no place pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.”
Or not covering others.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
Winston Churchill, speech at Harvard University, September 6, 1943, in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999), p. 215.
On December 16, 1689, England’s Convention Parliament began, not only transferring power from one king to another, but establishing procedures and rights.
In many cities, homeowners need a permit to make such additions. But although the city had no problem with his proposed construction, it required something more than a permit fee: half of Tausch’s front yard — without even offering to pay for it. No land surrender, no permit.
The city has been making the same demand of other homeowners who need alteration permits.
The city has a plan, a goal: Pile up land that the city might one day use to widen roads. The Institute for Justice (IJ) has identified “more than 1,000 homes threatened by this scheme across 66 streets.”
“The right to prevent the government from unlawfully taking your property is a right recognized from the very start of this nation,” says Suranjan Sen, an attorney with IJ. “The city of Miami cannot simply decide to take your property away because it wants it.”
Well, thus far, the city has thus simply decided. It’s been operating the scheme for years. The question is whether it’s constitutionally entitled to do so; obviously, no.
Tausch didn’t submit to the extortion. Instead, he turned to IJ for help in challenging Miami’s practice in court. As a result of the litigation, the city has waived the land-for-permit requirement in his case.
Victory! But what about all those other homes on the 66 streets, which remain in jeopardy?
Well, the Institute for Justice is continuing the lawsuit, seeking to liberate all Miami homeowners from the city’s sneaky scheme.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place.
Washington Irving, Tales of a Traveler (1824), Preface, p. 7.
On December 15, 1791, the United States’ Bill of Rights became constitutional law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly.
On December 15 in 1933, the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution officially became effective, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that had, by enabling the Volstead Act, prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol for any other than medical and industrial uses.
December 15 birthdays include that of Pehr Evind Svinhufvud af Qvalstad, 1861, first Head of State of independent Finland, serving in this capacity first as leader of the Senate and then as Protector, or Regent. In 1930 he became Prime Minister, and in 1931 was elected President, leaving office in 1937.
During the Civil War of 1918, his anti-socialist refugee government, Valkoiset, or “Whites,” opposed the “Reds,” a Social Democrat Party faction, for control of the government as it transitioned from Russian rule as a Grand Duchy, to independent status.
He died in 1944.