Home
Archive
Newsletters
Video
Blogs
Discuss
About
Search
Donate
Advertise
  • AlterNetYour turn

Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.


Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.

Advertisement
Advertisement

Celebrity Gossip = "Bona Fide Newscast"

Posted by Brave New Films, Brave New Films at 4:00 PM on May 6, 2008.


Has the FCC gone mad?

Share and save this post:

      

      

Share on Facebook       

AlterNet Social Networks:
follow us on twitter
find us on Facebook

Got a tip for a post?:
Email us | Anonymous form

Get Video in your
mailbox!

 

http://StopBigMedia.com

Hard-hitting journalism is nearing extinction on television, and the Federal Communications Commission just threw another shovel-full of dirt on its grave when it recently ruled that Rupert Murdoch's TMZ and Pat Robertson's 700 Club meet the test for "a bona fide newscast." Media companies get their broadcast licenses for free. In return, the FCC says that if a TV show is not a bona fide newscast, and it airs a story about a political candidate, "it must afford equal opportunities to other such candidates for that office." This is supposed to keep ideologues like Pat Robertson and Rupert Murdoch in check. But instead the FCC let them off the hook by adding TMZ and 700 Club to the list of bona fide newscasts; even though Congress defined bona fide as newscasts as those that hold "genuine news value" and are not intended to boost or aid any particular political candidate.

Free Press Exec Director Josh Silver has more at HuffPo.

Digg!

Tagged as: fcc


Glenn Beck Dividing U.S. into 7 Parts ... Will Offer Americans Right-Wing Education
9/12 movement spreads its pernicious tentacles.
Post by Staff. November 23, 2009.
What Sarah Palin's "Jewish people will be flocking to Israel" prediction really means
Palin's associated with a religious tendency whose leaders promote anti-Jewish conspiracy theory
Post by Bruce Wilson. November 21, 2009.
Hmmm ... Why Do So Many Wingnuts Have Such an Obsessive Fear of Being Raped?
It's all they can talk about in the right-wing media.
Post by Staff. November 20, 2009.
Advertisement
You've chosen to turn comments off for the entire site. Would you like to turn them back on?