CLOSED: What government policies could improve the news and information media?
The reboot.fcc.gov project has ended. All related public feedback forums have been closed.*
Creative ideas are needed. Please tell us what could be done to improve information and news in this digital era.
110 results found
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END MEGA-CORP OWNERSHIP OF MEDIA.
A small handful of powerful corporations controls the majority of new media. This stifles the real business of news media which is investigating and reporting facts. It creates a biased stranglehold in which a powerful media owner, such as Murdock, has disproportionate control over the content and delivery of news.
150 votes -
Hold public hearings on Deliberate Disinformation and Propaganda
Every day there are several documented new instances of deliberate disinformation, distortion and propaganda by media outlets. Just yesterday, for instance, KFI 640 AM radio's John & Ken Show regurgitated the Faux Nooze deliberate distortion and misrepresentation of Phil Jones' interview with the BBC on the subject of Global Climate Change. They -- both numerous individuals at Faux as well as the John & Ken radio personalities -- made numerous willful false statements about what this climate scientist said about the subject of global warming, and in doing so deliberately distort the issue for political purposes.
Faux Nooze went to…
82 votes -
Expand Public Access TV to Digital Broadcast
Public access TV was created due to a technology change: Cable TV.
We have just been through another: Digital Broadcast. Unfortunately, there are no public service obligations in the 1996 Telecom Act.
There are only 4 major content providers in the PBS network, and these providers make content for a national audience.
So for most of us, "Public" Broadcasting actually excludes access by content producers in the community.
Now, most PBS stations have several digital sub-channels. Let's look into the possibility of using these new channels for access by community members.
PS: Those airwaves are the COMMONS, i.e., the property…
53 votes -
Restrict, fine and suspend media outlets that promote hate speech, racism, and violence.
The FCC should seek penalties for corporations and individual broadcasters that promote hate speech, racism, and violence over the public airwaves. There are too many instances of TV networks and radio stations that host broadcasters that not so subtlety encourage discrimination, hate, and sometimes violence against those that that they fear. A recent example is Bill O'Reilly's repeated comments that someone should 'kill' Dr. Tiller, the abortion provider and referring to him as "Dr. Tiller the Baby Killer".
Glenn Beck's "Progressive Hunter" campaign is another example of intentional propaganda with the purpose of generating fear and hate of anyone he…
50 votes -
Broadcasters should be leasing the public's digital spectrum!
Lease the public's digital spectrum to broadcasters and the telecom industry instead of giving them free use!!! And then use the annual income to pay for more independent public broadcasting!! Give the people a voice and medium to receive news and information free from the Corporate News Media (and the on-slaught of big money campaign ads that the Supreme Ct has just approved).
38 votes -
Allow cable/satellite customers to pay for only the channels they want
Let customers choose the channels they want. Don't force customers to purchase bundles in which they don't care about half of the stations being offered but have to pay for them nonetheless.
30 votes -
Require Comcast to divest NBC broadcast network when it merges with NBC/Universal
The broadcast network will be crushed by the Cable giant and will lose citizen value as a broadcaster.
It should be sold to a small group, ideally it should become employee-owned, so that it becomes more likely to respond to its local communities and tackle issues that embarrass the country's conglomerates.
As a requirement prior to approval of the merger, the government should require Comcast to spinoff NBC broadcast network.
29 votes -
Put a lock on the revolving door
FCC commissioners are supposed to work for the public not trade their positions and votes for cushy jobs in the industry they are trusted to regulate. After her yes vote on the NBC/Comcast merger, Meredith Attwell Baker will start collecting her pay from Comcast. Something is seriously wrong here. Are there no rules against this?
26 votes -
Campaign Reform
To build a multi-party democracy from the grassroots, we'd like to require broadcast media, including cable TV, to provide free and equal airtime to each candidate who qualifies by collecting signatures from at least 1% of local voters. If any candidate purchases airtime, every qualified candidate for the same office receives equal time without charge.
26 votes -
Develop regulations that require media outlets to recant blatant falsehoods or they pay cash fines
Create a cost for state and federal level media outlets that don't do fact checking and hat spread mis-information or lies.
19 votes -
Encourage competition, then stand back
Government has limited power to intervene in the media. Historically, it has dealt with anticompetitive business practices (especially when a newspaper seeks to become a monopoly) but has not been allowed to go farther. The best thing government can do is remove obstacles to competition (including some of its own existing policies), prohibit anticompetitive practices, and stand back. The people have a great thirst for information; they will do the rest via a free and open marketplace.
19 votes -
Ban corporate ownership
I have not been able to work in commercial broadcasting since the station I worked for, WFUN-FM 95.5 Bethalto, IL, was sold from local ownership to Radio One in 1999. I would have been able to stay in commercial radio had there been more local ownership of local radio, and not this concentration on corporate ownership. I was not able to find work in commercial broadcasting in the St. Louis area; I was forced to give up looking in the spring of 2001. I lost my last broadcast job at a public radio station last July, after working there for…
18 votes -
Simply said: Broadband internet for 100% of the country
Knowledge is power and the most effective tool for delivering information is the internet. If the FCC requires all homes across the nation to have access to fast internet, we will be better equipped to compete in all aspects on a global scale.
18 votes -
Allow all Directv and Dish net work cust
all customers of Directv and Dish network should be able to get access to local news and information from any where in the contry even if served or unseved by local broadcast networks in a dma. if an unserved household can get a distant signel for out side there local tv dma then what about a served household please make it so all sattilite subcribers and get these channels from outside our local tv markets. plese make changes to this law by elimenating the waiver process without hurting local broadcasters
14 votes -
End broadcast TV! Airwaves should be used for Nationalized neutral wireless broadband internet only.
There is no real reason to continue broadcast TV as we know it, anolog or digital, and the broadband system should be built and maintained by and for the people, just like our highways. As it stands only a small percentage of the wealthy few have access to and control the media. The internet is the great equalizer, if Fox or NBC (General Electric) want to broadcast their media they can use their websites like everyone else. Any media you need (or want) can be offered online, and if you want your programing mixed and played for you (which is…
12 votes -
We End the outdated cross-ownership rules that hurt newspapers. They are archaic.
Local newspapers could be more healthy if they were allowed to own broadcast licenses in their communities. Likewise, we'd get radio and TV more oriented to local news.
11 votes -
LO, OR Require broadcasters to share more of the digital spectrum for true, honest public discourse
The MainstreamMedia has failed the American Public. Currently, it is very, very difficult for the average citizen to get at the truth on the issues, as all of the media are owned by corporations that may have (or answer to) special interests. None of the corporate-owned newsmedia outlets provide consistent, accurate, substantive information. Citizens United V. FEC greatly exacerbates this reality. Broadcasters are the finacial benefators of all the new politcal ads (accurate or not), that are about to saturate our airwaves. We (i,e, YOU) need to restore the people's ability to both receive and give accurate information, - which…
11 votes -
Encourage local ownership of stations
Many TV stations are now investor owned by media conglomerates instead of local family groups. The investors behind the conglomerates are more interested in squeezing every dime out of their stations rather than investing in the communities the stations are licensed to. Newsrooms have been gutted in the name of keeping profit margins up and doing minimal journalism with what little staff and money is granted to the newsroom instead of what many of the old family own stations were like before they were sold to media groups (KING/KGW/KREM under the Bullitt family for example).
11 votes -
C-SPAN has great news
Require all cable providers to include all C-SPAN channels, 24/7, for all subscribers, including Basic.
10 votes -
Here's a "creative" idea:
Here's a "creative" idea: keep ethics in the media! Stop showing sex, nudity, cursing, violence, and all that destructive filth!
10 votes
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