The Washington Post’s headline “Conservative backlash kills FCC plan to survey America’s newsrooms” speaks volumes.
Indeed, only conservatives fought back against the invasion of America’s newsrooms by the agency which licenses them. Only conservatives fought against the incursion into the press’s freedom to report without being accountable to the government. At RATM we are constantly shocked at how we care more about the first amendment which preserves these networks’ independence than they do; we fight harder for their freedom than they do. How can this be?
The choices seem to be these. They either feel immune from government interference, which is staggeringly naive – an administration that uses its power to target any group will use it to target another; or they lift up their wrists to be shackled, with joy in their hearts, which is not only naive but also dangerous; or else they are intimidated into silence, which some have suggested.
Either way, liberal groups did not a single thing to ward off this threat to their freedom. John Nolte from Breitbart brilliantly refers to them as the lapdogs that didn’t bark, although Jake Tapper from CNN voiced his own concern in this interview with GOP FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, the original “whistleblower” of the “study.”
Conservative groups prevailed, protecting all newsrooms, even what passes for one over at MSNBC, at least for now. Predictably, the only Democrat voice, in fact, was for the “regulating” of Fox News. If there were others, we were unable to find them.
From the Post:
The Federal Communications Commission faced a firestorm of controversy this week over a plan to survey broadcast journalists over how they do their jobs. Conservative critics charged that the survey was a first step toward regulating radio and television reporters. Now FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has bowed to criticism, announcing that questions relating to newsroom coverage will be scrapped….
Opposition to the study was spearheaded by Ajit Pai, a Republican FCC commissioner. “I welcome today’s announcement,” he said in a Friday statement. “This study would have thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country, somewhere it just doesn’t belong.” read more…
The best part is this:
“Any suggestion that the FCC intends to regulate the speech of news media or plans to put monitors in America’s newsrooms is false,” an FCC statement said on Friday.
and if you like your first amendment right, you can keep your first amendment right. Where have we heard this before?
There is no question that this will return, that the same goals will be pursued but through other means. This administration has demonstrated time and again its obsession with reaching into our lives and grabbing hold, and the media has been utterly content to aid and abet these power-grabs. From the IRS’ intimidation to Obamacare’s destruction to Common Core to the “settled science” of Global Warming/Climate Change/Extreme Weather that is used to justify more regulations from the administration, there is no area they will leave untouched.
And the liberal media is complicit, even unto its own destruction.
They are indebted to FoxNews and other conservatives groups for staving off this most recent invasion; their obliviousness to this would be funny if it weren’t tragic.