Volunteers for a Better America

CNN Cordiality

Part of the problem of the consolidated media giants that now monopolize broadcast and print news media is their tendency to define fairness, balance and decency in their own terms, which may well not comport with our own understandings of those requirements.  Take the news about CNN Headline News' hiring of radio talkshow host Glenn Back to host a new primetime show.  See CNN announcement, here.  Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting provided an analysis, linked here, of Glenn Beck's style that appears to refute his new boss's claim, reported here in Vanity Fair, that he is "cordial" and "not confrontational," "conservative", but "apolitical."

It certainly is hard to see how Beck is "apolitical."  As noted in this entry for Beck in Wikipedia, he "gloated" when Bush and the Republicans returned to office in the 2004 elections.  He may "hate politics", but in fact his right-wing politics makes him very similar to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

As the FAIR release explains, a number of specific statements made by Beck demonstrate his use of hate for entertainment value.

• Beck set up Clear Channel's pro-war Rallies for America before the Iraq War and commented hatefully about anti-war candidate Dennis Kucinich that "Every night I get down on my knees and pray that Dennis Kucinich will burst into flames."  FAIR release, citing WABC-AM 3/16/03.
• Beck criticized a father whose son was beheaded in Iraq as a "scumbag" because of the father's criticism of Bush.  FAIR release, citing MediaMatters.org, 5/17/04
• Beck "fantasized about murdering anti-war filmmaker Michael Moore."  FAIR release, citing Mediamatters.org, 5/18/05
• Beck spoke derogatorily of Katrina victims as "scumbags" and declared his hate for 9/11 victims' families.   FAIR release, citing Mediamatters.org 9/9/05

CNN claims that Beck will provide "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring Beck's often amusing perspective."  Does hate speech like that illustrated in these examples of Beck's style now count merely as  "unconventional" and "amusing"?  If you don't think so, you might want  to call Ken Jautz, Presideent of CNN Headline News, at 404-878-5633 and tell him that you think Beck's hateful humor does not belong on a news network.

Government Propaganda and Corporate Media: Controlling the News Spin

Fox News is in the news again, as it tightens the noose even further on its local outlets and broadcasters.  Its goal is a monolithic right-wing spin machine. It owns stations all across the country, in some cases even two stations in the same city.  Its stations are more and more being forced to slant the news towards the right.   For specific information about Fox News and its line up of conservative hosts who have predominantly right-wing guests, see the FreePress website here.  To sign a petition against Fox News' effort to centralize all programming so that it reflects a monolithic voice that leaves out local views, see here.

Of course, Fox isn't the only corporate media giant controlled by right-wing interests.  MSNBC host Keith Olberman revealed recently the pressure his show is under to present an almost uniformly right-wing face to the American public.    As quoted in an article on FAIR's website here, Olbermann said the following on October 25 when speaking with comedian Al Franken:

"You were good enough to come on this newscast with me late in the summer of 2003. It was August or September. And by coincidence, either the next day or the day before, Janeane Garofalo had been a guest on the newscast. And I got called into a vice president‘s office here and told, "Hey, we don't mind you interviewing these guys, but should you really have put liberals on, on consecutive nights?"

Olbermann's show had a total of 9 guests over 3 days, 2 of whom were liberals.  That means that 7 out of 9 were conservatives.  So MSNBC is portraying a skewed picture of American thought to all of its viewers, who may be deceived into thinking that these right-wing perspectives are the norm of American life.  If you want to do something about the way corporate ownership of the media is distorting the information you receive, petition the FCC to demand public hearings throughout the country on media consolidation. 

And if that weren't enough, it seems that the covert government propaganda that we thought had been exposed and gone to a rapid demise is still alive and well.  Kerry and Lautenberg in the Senate proposed a strong bill that would have required continuous notification throughout a government-prepared video news release (VNR) that the "news report" was in fact government propaganda.  That bill was strongly opposed by the media, who claimed it would interfere with their local rights to broadcast.  Apparently, they think they have a right to broadcast deceptive reports to the public that fail to identify their source.  A news report on a government function that is prepared by the government carries very different credibility than one prepared by an independent journalist.  The result of industry lobbying is a spineless bill that the industry now loves.  According to the AlterNet article (see link below):

According to to TV Week, Cochran summarized the effect of these changes as: "The bill clears the way for TV news operations to continue using snippets of government-produced VNRs for [video footage] in their own stories, as they do currently, leaving the issue of how to identify the material up to station news personnel."

In other words, it appears that the result of the bill is business as usual--covert propaganda without any required disclosure.  For more on this story, see this posting on AlterNet of "The Fake End of Fake News." 

If you want the news you watch to be independently produced and not a piece of covert government propaganda intended to manipulate your views, join the Center for Media and Government's petition drive to ask Congress to stand up to corporate media and government propagandists on this issue.  We can pressure Congress to make the weak bill a real bill.  Let's do it!  Here's the link for speaking out on this issue.

Gore Speech to WeMedia Conference

Al Gore gave a stirring speech at the American Press Center's We Media conference. The introduction to the speech makes clear the depth of concern about the state of American dialogue about issues that matter.

"I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse ... I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions."

Gore goes on to ask a series of questions about the lack of engagement of the Congress and the American people in a deliberative discourse on issues such as war or peace, torture or Geneva Conventions, income disparity or working for equality.  He notes that our country's Founders had devised a government that permitted citizens to have a say in government policies through their representatives, but to work, both citizens and representatives must be informed and engaged through an open "marketplace of ideas."

" [The Founders'] faith in the viability of Representative Democracy rested on their trust in the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry. But they placed particular emphasis on insuring that the public could be well-informed. And they took great care to protect the openness of the marketplace of ideas in order to ensure the free-flow of knowledge."

The Founders counldn't forsee, however, the reign of television and the stranglehold that a few dominant corporations would be able to exercise over the information available to the American people. 

"Radio, the internet, movies, telephones, and other media all now vie for our attention - but it is television that still completely dominates the flow of information in modern America. In fact, according to an authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an average of four hours and 28 minutes every day - 90 minutes more than the world average."

With the rise of television as the dominant medium that has taken over the public forum that was meant to ensure the accountability of the government to the people , the discourse is changed immeasurably.  Gore notes several major changes between the newspaper medium available to the Founders and the pervasive short clips of television that pass for journalism today.

"Istead of the easy and free access individuals had to participate in the national conversation by means of the printed word, the world of television makes it virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation today."

"[Television] is accessible in only one direction; there is no true interactivity, and certainly no conversation."

"The production of programming has been centralized and has usually required a massive capital investment. So for these and other reasons, an ever-smaller number of large corporations control virtually all of the television programming in America."

"[U]nlike the marketplace of ideas that emerged in the wake of the printing press, there is virtually no exchange of ideas at all in television's domain."

"[T]he absence of a two-way conversation in American television also means that there is no "meritocracy of ideas" on television. To the extent that there is a "marketplace" of any kind for ideas on television, it is a rigged market, an oligopoly, with imposing barriers to entry that exclude the average citizen."

Those changes carry a heavy price.  The cheap, passive entertainment and digested news leave We the People inadequately prepared to engage in weighty discussions about the state of the Union or the competence of the bureaucrats or the choices between taxing or borrowing, cutting or creating b benefits.  In short, as Gore notes,

"[The]  concentration of control over this powerful one-way medium carries with it the potential for damaging the operations of our democracy."

You can download the audio from the speech at this link.

The Case for Media Reform

By Kathleen Robbins
Media reform; you may have heard something about it lately, living close to the University of Illinois, Prof. Robert McChesney and all the local efforts that have been made to address this issue. But what does it really mean to most of us?

To answer that question, it is necessary to remember the role the free press has played in crafting the democracy that we enjoy today. The very first article in the Bill of Rights, those first ten amendments to our Constitution, guarantees freedom of the press. A concept we take for granted today, but which was radically different from the prevailing model in Europe at that time the Constitution was written.

Today, that same freedom of the press, which has helped preserve our democracy for over 200 years is being challenged as never before. Fewer than 10 massive, multinational conglomerates dominate our access to and/or produce our television, movies, music, radio, cable, publishing and Internet. This consolidation has happened over the past two decades with the consent and support of the federal government at the urging of these mega-corporations and their lobbyists, creating huge profits for a few stockholders while eliminating most local control and competition.

The result has been that we now have a virtually homogenous news media that gives us thousands of hours of coverage of Michael Jackson and the love life of Brad and Jen while providing scant coverage on local and international events that have potentially huge impact on our daily lives. We are told the media is giving the people what they want, but when ownership is consolidated in the hands of few people who answer only to their stockholders, the result is a media that takes the easy way out, doesn’t challenge the status quo and conforms to the corporate hierarchy for fear of dismissal.

We only have to look at organizations such as Enron and MCI WorldCom to see the results of unchecked corporate greed without some reasonable governmental constraint. More information on media consolidation can be found at www.freepress.net/content/ownership and to join a local organization that is addressing these issues at a grass roots level, contact Volunteers for a Better America here in Champaign/Urbana at [email protected].

Another FCC Letter on Sinclair License Renewal

Letter from Maureen Holtz protesting to the FCC of the WICD/Sinclair Broadcasting license renewal.

_________________________________
Office of the Secretary
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th St. SW
Washington, DC 20054

RE: Station call sign: WICD (Channel 15)
City and State: Champaign, Illinois
Station facility Identification number: 25684
License renewal application file number: BMPCDT 2004 1215AAN
Modify Permit: BPCDT 19991 029AHL

I am writing this informal letter of complaint regarding the license renewal process for our "local" television station Channel 15 WICD located in the Urbana - Champaign Illinois viewing area.

I have two complaints. One, simply put, is Mark Hyman. THE POINT, shown on WICD's evening news broadcast are totally one-sided opinions, with no serious attempt to offer any alternate points of view. At every opportunity to listen to his comments, I feel compelled to turn the channel. He is obviously a tool for the current Bush administration as well as conservative viewers. I know that people in our community
requested a weekly 90-second local response to his segment, but WICDhas rejected that request. Isn't this supposed to be a local station? I now refuse to watch the night-time show and will start boycotting the advertisers to the show.

My second complaint are the dubiously named segments on "national news" and "international news. One day the canned segment on "international news" included the review of troops in Scotland by a
mascot - a penguin. Cute, but not news of any kind. Another segment included a snippet about a wife-carrying contest in German. This morning the "national news" included a story about a car that was
stolen with a cat inside. The car was returned but the thief is holdingthe cat hostage for a ransom. With disasters like Darfur, Iraq and even the forest fires burning in the center of Portugal, shouldn't we be viewing those instead? Coverage of these stories may be cheap and entertaining, but hardly news. They obscure the real issues that are crucial to our families and our communities. The media aren't telling us what's really going on in our statehouse, in Washington and around the world.

I understand that Channel 15 is meeting most legal requirements of the FCC regulations. However, we object to their resistance to respond to public concerns and their lack of local input. At this time I wish to
submit this informal letter of complaint and restate the need for a weekly 90-second local response to the Mark Hyman segment. We continue to join with fellow community members to become better informed about the impact locally of corporate media and how it has come to dominate the public interest. The Sinclair broadcasting policy enforced by WICD is not in the best interest of our local community.

The way the current laws are written, Sinclair and Channel 15 WICD appear to be operating within the law. However, by submitting an informal letter of complaint, I want to restate our position that the way in which this station is operating in our community may be meeting most FCC regulations, but WICD is also doing irrevocable harm to our local community as well as our democracy. Channel 15 has failed to
operate in the best interest of the entire community by not allowing alternative or opposing viewpoints an opportunity to be heard.

I am hopeful as the FCC reviews WICD Channel 15's License for continued operation, this letter of informal complaint will be attached as corroborating evidence that many local voices and points of view are not being included.

My family's response has been to look elsewhere for information regarding our community. We know that to be fully informed we have to find sources other than information provided by a corporate media owned
many states away from Illinois.

Please consider this informal complaint as you undertake the license renewal process of Baltimore Maryland's Sinclair-owned Channel 15 WICD's license to operate on the airways that enter the residences of viewers in the Urbana Champaign viewing area. We are hopeful that the FCC will keep in mind the public and local community's objections to this Sinclair owned station as the FCC seeks to renew the operating licenses for WICD Channel 15 television station. We look to the FCC to provide leadership and oversight on behalf of the public interest. Help us reintroduce a diversity of local voices into our "local" media andenable our democracy to prevail.

Sincerely,

Maureen Holtz
1124 N. State St.
Monticello, IL 61856

cc: WIDC Station Manager: Gary Hackler
cc: VOBA Volunteers for a Better America: Dan Brady

FCC Letter on Sinclair License Renewal

Letter from Jan and Durl Kruse protesting to the FCC of the WICD/Sinclair Broadcasting license renewal.

_____________________________________________________
Informal objection to license renewal August 2, 2005

Station call sign: WICD (Channel 15)
City and State: Champaign, Illinois
Station facility Identification number: 25684
License renewal application file number: BMPCDT 2004 1215AAN
Modify Permit: BPCDT 19991 029AHL

We felt compelled to write an informal letter of complaint regarding the license renewal process for our "local" television station Channel 15 WICD located in the Urbana - Champaign Illinois viewing area

Some time during the past 2 years we became painfully aware of the segment included on WICD's evening news broadcast called THE POINT with Mark Hyman. We were surprised that he was able to voice an unopposed point of view each broadcast. No serious attempt is made to offer any alternate points of view. There was little doubt that THE POINT was being used as a campaign forum during the 2004 presidential election. We contacted the station and were informed by Mr. Gary Hackler station manager that this was all legal. However, we could write to the station owners in Baltimore Maryland or listen for the Friday Mail Bag to find that the opposing views are given a chance to be heard when Hyman pulls a chosen letter from his mail bag. During the Mailbag Events the viewing public is also given the Hyman rebuttal to this viewers abbreviated and written request for balance. Thus Hyman always gets the last word.

Finding it a frightening prospect that this local station is dominated by a right wing agenda that is also an agenda from corporate offices in another state, we found ourselves looking for a way to bring a balance of voices to our local news station. Needles to say we had a lot to learn. Media consolidation, corporate ownership, and deregulation were all topics about which we as ordinary citizens were not fully informed.

Others in our community were likewise concerned. As we talked to friends and neighbors we realized that our local media was sadly not offering a local perspective with the Hyman commentary and that this frightening takeover of our public airwaves was all legal and out of local community control.

We joined others to protest the Sinclair attempt to broadcast Stolen Honor by the Swift Boat Veteran. We joined fellow community member last October to picket the local Channel 15 television station and tried to present petitions in opposition to not only Stolen Honor's showing, but also the continuing WICD presentation of THE POINT by Mark Hyman. Station manager Hackler refused to accept the petitions in person that day and our group spokes-person made a number of attempts to meet with him to discuss the community support for presenting opposing points of view on Channel 15.
All our efforts along this line have come to no avail. We continue to hold petitions with 100's of local signatures opposing WICD and Channel 15.

We have proceeded to go to the station to view the public interest files and to take note of the large file regarding letters of complaint about the Sinclair corporate ownership policies and the impact these policies are having on our local community.

We understand that Channel 15 is meeting most legal requirements of the FCC regulations. However, we object to their resistance to accept and respond to public concerns and their lack of local input. At this time we wish to submit this informal letter of complaint and restate our request for a weekly 90-second local response to the Mark Hyman segment that WIDC has previously rejected. We also feel obligated to boycott and no longer patronize companies that do business with Channel 15. We continue to join with fellow community members to become better informed about the impact locally of corporate media and how it has come to dominate the public interest. The Sinclair broadcasting policy enforced by WICD is not in the best interest of our local community.

We understands that the way the current laws are written Sinclair and Channel 15 WICD appear to be operating within the law. However, by submitting an informal letter of complaint we want to restate our position that the way in which this station is operating in our community may be meeting most FCC regulations, but WICD is also doing irrevocable harm to our local community as well as our democracy. Channel 15 has failed to operate in the best interest of the entire community by not allowing alternative or opposing viewpoints an opportunity to be heard.
We are hopeful that as the FCC reviews WICD Channel 15's License for continued operation this letter of informal complaint will be attached as corroborating evidence that many local voices and points of view are not being included. To our dismay what we originally thought was local media is in reality, media owned by large a corporation that is not even a part of our community.

Our personal response has been to look elsewhere for information regarding our community. We know that to be fully informed we have to find sources other than information provided by a corporate media owned many states away from Illinois. Sadly we find that to be better informed we must turn off Channel 15 WICD and ignore Mark Hyman. However, his right wing unopposed positions continue to misinform and under inform our community and abuse the public trust. We also find it objectionable that Sinclair Broadcasting and WICD continues to misuse our public airways in an attempt to sell products with less community accountability.

Please consider this informal complaint as you undertake the license renewal process of Baltimore Maryland's Sinclair owned Channel 15 WICD's license to operate on the airways that enter the residences of viewers in the Urbana Champaign viewing area. We are hopeful that the FCC will keep in mind the public and local community's objections to this Sinclair owned station as the FCC seeks to renew the operating licenses for WICD Channel 15 television station. We look to the FCC to provide leadership and oversight on behalf of the public interest. Help us reintroduce a diversity of local voices into our "local" media and enable our democracy to prevail.
Please reconsider the renewal of WICD Channel 15 until the best interests of our community are served.
Sincerely,
Jan Kruse

Durl Kruse

2007 S. George Huff Drive
Urbana, Illinois 61801

cc: WIDC Station Manager: Gary Hackler
cc: VOBA Volunteers for a Better America: Dan Brady

What Gets Amplified? The Problem with Media Consolidation

by Kathleen Robbins

We all know about Jessica Lynch, the Pentagon’s cardboard heroine, captured on 23 Mar 2003 and her supposed trials and tribulations in Iraq.  But what about a real American hero, Rachel Corrie, a woman who was slightly older than Jessica when she was intentionally crushed by an Israeli Army bulldozer on 16 Mar 2003 as she tried to block the destruction of a Palestinian home with her body. Rachel’s death was reported in no less than the New York Times, but few have heard of her. 

The difference is amplification: in an environment where we are bombarded by 3,000 advertising message a day, it takes repeated exposure to rise to a level of recognition such as happened recently with Michael Jackson and Terri Schavio. And of course, what is amplified today by the major media outlets is what breaks through, creating as Bill Moyers said so eloquently, “an unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too."