{"id":8678,"date":"2012-08-25T09:30:01","date_gmt":"2012-08-25T16:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=8678"},"modified":"2012-08-25T09:30:01","modified_gmt":"2012-08-25T16:30:01","slug":"crew-vs-the-republican-ministry-of-propaganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/25\/crew-vs-the-republican-ministry-of-propaganda\/","title":{"rendered":"CREW vs. the Republican Ministry of Propaganda"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fourth estate has the responsibility to inform the public truthfully.  Media organizations have a right to express their own opinions, but freedom of the press does not include the right to make up their own facts.  Most broadcasters have fallen short of this responsibility, because they have their own corporate agendas, but one broadcaster is so dishonest that they are the Republican Ministry of Propaganda, Fox.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"25crew\"Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), asking the agency to deny renewal of three broadcast licenses held by Fox television stations<\/strong>.  Because their licenses are set to expire in October, two Fox stations in Washington, D.C. and one in Baltimore \u2013 which are wholly owned subsidiaries of News Corp. \u2013 filed to renew the licenses this past June. <\/p>\n

CREW is objecting to the renewals because under U.S. law, broadcast frequencies may be used only by people of good \u201ccharacter,\u201d who will serve \u201cthe public interest,\u201d and speak with \u201ccandor.\u201d  Significant character deficiencies may warrant disqualification from holding a license.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read CREW’s petition to the FCC<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is well-established that News Corp. has been involved in one of the biggest media scandals of all time.  Its reporters hacked voicemails and bribed public officials while top executives \u2013 including Rupert Murdoch \u2013 either approved the conduct or turned a blind eye,\u201d said CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan.  \u201cTo say those responsible are not of good character is a colossal understatement \u2013 \u2018despicable\u2019 and \u2018loathsome\u2019 are more apt.  Retaining U.S. broadcast licenses is a privilege, not a right<\/strong>.  Based on its egregious actions, News Corp. should lose that privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last May, CREW asked FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski<\/a> to revoke News Corp.\u2019s 27 broadcast licenses, but the FCC has taken no action to date.  Under federal law, however, broadcast licenses must be renewed every eight years. Once renewal is sought, opposition may be filed within three months. <\/p>\n

An investigation by Great Britain\u2019s House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee condemned Rupert Murdoch as \u201cnot a fit person to exercise stewardship of a major international company,\u201d and concluded that both Rupert and James Murdoch turned a blind eye to News Corp.\u2019s illicit activities<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <CREW<\/a>><\/p>\n

I would certainly defend the right of Fox, or any other news source, to express their own views in their editorial content, no matter how much I disagree with them.  However, making up their own facts to distort truth for Republican partisan gain does not \u201cserve the public interest\u201d or \u201cspeak with candor\u201d as required by law to exercise the privilege of using bandwidth in the broadcast spectrum that belongs to the people.<\/font><\/p>\n

I applaud CREW and fully support their petition.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fourth estate has the responsibility to inform the public truthfully.  Media organizations have a right to express their own opinions, but freedom of the press does not include the right to make up their own facts.  Most broadcasters have fallen short of this responsibility, because they have their own corporate agendas, but one broadcaster […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}