Category: examining the mainstream

Following closely on the heels of Sinclair Broadcast Group pulling last Friday’s edition of Nightline from their ABC stations, Josh Silver of the media reform group Free Press announced an investigation into the company’s practices, vis a vis FCC policy and the law: We intend to investigate your actions to ensure that your stations are…

Last night I was watching the Daily Show on Dish Network when a scroll went across the bottom of the screen addressed to Dish Network viewers, apparently from Comedy Central owner Viacom, telling us that Dish was going to drop Viacom owned channels. Then, about halfway through the scroll, the message was covered out by…

An article in the Arizona Republic examines how greater cell-phone use may be skewing political poll results, since pollsters are barred from calling cell phones, due to FCC rules against auto-calling cells and calling people who have to pay for the call. The article identifies young adults as the demographic most missed, since they’re thought…

That’s the beauty of the Internet, isn’t it? You don’t have to be a prominent syndicated radio host or TV talking head anymore to catch the eye of the press. No, you just need a website, like this one here. All of a sudden the number of profanity-laden comments to this site about “stupid liberals…

… but doesn’t cop to the charge that he’s been obtaining thousands of pills illegally. So, what’s the deal? If he isn’t getting his pills on the black market, is his doctor just too willing to hand out scrips, does he have a bevy of doctors ready to supply his needs, or is he taking…

I know I should be more high-minded, but I must confess enjoying watching Rush stew in his own juices over being a racist moron, and now, maybe a prescription pain-killer drug addict. Now, if he were just some average schmoe, I wouldn’t cackle over the drug allegations. But since he’s a moralizing, arrogant, bigoted blowhard,…

The Columbia Journalism Review’s Matt Welch takes the Alt. Weekly establishment to task after attending their annual convention: “The dull pieties of official progressivism is one of many attributes that show how modern alt weeklies have strayed from what made them alternative in the first place. The papers once embraced amateur writers; now they are…

The FCC just released a rundown of today’s decision. The radio rules have not been subject to the same amount of publicity and public discussion, and have emerged only slightly changed. All the current limits, which allow one company to own up to 8 stations in a large market, with no nationwide limit, remain as…

To nobody’s surprise, yesterday the Center for Public Integrity released a report saying that, according to the Washington Post, “Over the past eight years, Federal Communications Commission officials have taken 2,500 business trips to global tourist spots, most of which were paid for by the media and telecommunications companies the agency oversees.” Predictably, the FCC…

I’ll start by saying that I’ll always have some trepidation about indecency fines on broadcast stations, because there is always the lurking risk of the fines being leveled for political reasons, such as when the FCC fined community radio KBOO for playing a feminist rap answer to mainstream rappers’ mysogyny (and then later rescinded it…