The Obama administration is moving ahead with a FCC project to send government agents into newsrooms to make sure journalists cover certain topics the Obama administration considers important.
The first amendment is such an inconvenient thing: The Obama administration is moving ahead with a FCC project to send government agents into newsrooms to make sure journalists cover certain topics the Obama administration considers important.
I had read about this proposed project last week but had then seen reports that the FCC was backing down. Now it appears they are not.
What I can’t figure out is this: What news organization is going to agree to this? The FCC has no legal power over print journalism. If those researchers wanted to enter my newsroom or question my reporting, I’d simply tell them to go to hell, after I recorded the conversation. I would then report on that conversation, making it as embarrassing as I could for that researcher and the Obama administration.
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The first amendment is such an inconvenient thing: The Obama administration is moving ahead with a FCC project to send government agents into newsrooms to make sure journalists cover certain topics the Obama administration considers important.
I had read about this proposed project last week but had then seen reports that the FCC was backing down. Now it appears they are not.
What I can’t figure out is this: What news organization is going to agree to this? The FCC has no legal power over print journalism. If those researchers wanted to enter my newsroom or question my reporting, I’d simply tell them to go to hell, after I recorded the conversation. I would then report on that conversation, making it as embarrassing as I could for that researcher and the Obama administration.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Sounds like they want Pravda, in the old Soviet tradition, print and discuss what we tell you or else! Another ministry of truth.
Since we apparently live in some kind of Fascist / Corporate / Monopolist / Socialist / Marxist controlled conglomeration of a country now, why not a government overseer in the news rooms of America ensuring that the news contain what the current government determines is essential ?
I just read an email that introduced the term “Post Turtle” to me. What is a post turtle? A post turtle is a turtle that while driving along a country road you notice sitting on top of a fence post.
“You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong up there, he doesn’t know what to do while he’s up there,he’s elevated beyond his ability to function, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there to begin with.”
Obama and the true believers that follow and the ignorant of America are doing what it is that they believe they should be doing given the place that they find themselves. I think they all serve another purpose and that is to deliver / condition America for a post Constitutional America. Government is informed by multinational / monopolistic entities that are not in any way constrained by the Constitution or any thoughts of being for America and what it stands for. Boy it was hard to write that.
Any American reporter that is “grilled” by one of these government inquisitors should be answered with this universal and very appropriate response.
FK. U.
Every single question.
(I apologize in advance for indicating the use of such a combination of words on this site where such words are not traditionally used. Please excuse me)
CNN, MSNBC, NPR, CBS, and ABC already have their government minders and for the most part act as Obama’s mouthpiece. What this will do is put pressure on small local stations, who don’t have the resources to fight the feds, to act as the Democrat’s propaganda wing or face the prospect of losing their broadcast license.
They don’t need all the news outlets.
A small percentage of TV news broadcasts is all they need to influence in order to cast doubt. Doubt in stations like Fox.
The air waves that the FCC regulates are all they need, who really consciously notices the difference between those stations and cable stations when everything comes over via cable anyways?
With those and a few loyal propagandists on the cable networks and they have more than enough to convince the average citizen of anything they want to promote.
They are loosing the independents and do not have full control of the Latino voters who are surprisingly starting to trend republican.
This is a last ditch effort to make in impact in the next election. If they win in any way they can make the next push at total control.
If they loose they will wait until the next win, either senate, congress or presidential control. They only need two now.
Our local conservative talk radio station hosts are up in arms about this, but as expected the liberal/democrat hosts keep trying to spin it as nothing evil or nefarious.
They will do this until their political ‘editors’ take an office in their stations and start handing out the news of the day. And by then it will be to late. They will be in the trap and not able to speak out.
If they have California, Florida, New York and Texas they can pretty much ignore the rest of the nation and keep control.
Let them take Texas and watch the rest of the nation die a long slow death.
They do not understand the economic and social relationship between urban and rural, mega cities and fly over country.
They do NOT understand that flyover country actually supports them and their lifestyle and its not the other way around.
Cotour,
Your thoughts on this are right-on-point. The water temp for the pot of water holding the frogs,( i.e. sheeple) is just shy of the boiling point. Unfortunately, the idiots in this country don’t even know or care. It is a done deal.
I am reminded of the “political officer” on Soviet ships. For a brief lesson, see the movie (or read the book) “The Hunt for Red October.” They were installed to make sure that the captains acted as though they were loyal to the state. Now America gets “political officers” in our newsrooms. We are looking more and more like Chavez’s Venezuela every week.
What is this country coming to? Answer:
http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/communism-fails-again-and-the-western-intellectual-elite-puts-blinders-on-so-they-dont-have-to-see-it
I’m trying to work up some outrage here, and failing miserably. The MSM have been making this bed for decades, and the 2008 elections saw the final transformation of the MSM into the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party. They’ve been trashing this country and my beliefs for a long time, and are finally getting what they so richly deserve.
There was a time when I would have been concerned about freedom of the press, but whatever goodwill they may have had has long since been squandered. The truly sad part is that those who voted Democrat still won’t make the connection between their actions and the current consequences.
There are so many scandals happening at this point that this policy was actually advanced back in Decemember but only came to light this week.
I believe this is an attempt to show newscaster bias so as to prepare the ground for a reauthorization of the fairness doctrine.
The corruption seems to extend to EVERY function in this administration. Even when a new president takes office in 2016, the Obama legacy will continue unless action is taken now to stop it. I’m reminded of Marc Antony’s speach after Julius Ceasars death;
“The evil men do lives after them…” (I can’t think of very much that can be described as “The good”)
The strategy of keeping their heads down and running on Obamacare in 2014 will surely be a loser.
I understand your feelings in this, as I mirror them. Nonetheless, the failure of society to respond to the Obama administrations plans to install political officers in newsrooms can only be bad, for everyone. It is essential that we fight it hard, even if that fight happens to benefit people we dislike.
In fact, haven’t I just described the essence of freedom? “I will fight to the death your right to disagree with me.”
Told a dem co worker about this last night. Didn’t slant it one way or another just said that The FCC wants to put monitoring officers in every FCC regulated radio and tv station in the country.
His first and only reply.
“Well Bush would have done it if he had another term.”
I didn’t say anything more. I never do. Not to him.
A perfect description of a fascist and bigot, to my mind. He hates Republicans so much he relishes oppressing them, and will then even blame them (ie Bush) for that oppression.
1. You (Mr. Z) used the word “bad” to describe the effects of having a government representative in the news room in your previous comment, that word is not sufficient IMO.
2. (Pzat) I deal with similar people who can only see Obama through the lens of Bush. Very narrow and very emotional, if you have read my commentary you know that I condemn them all in both party’s, with a particular bias against the Socialists / Marxists in philosophy.
I asked one the other day “what would you think of the government having a representative in news rooms to monitor what was going on? ” She responded that that did not sound like something that she thinks is a good thing. Then I told her about the FCC’s plan do do so.
And she responded that “everything that I tell her about is opinion and the place where I get my information has a skew against the president.” Then I had another friend look up the Wall Street Journal letter on her phone written by the FCC commissioner and read it aloud. At that point she had to admit that she was not happy with this situation.
I would look forward to interacting with your friend.
I agree that State-controlled media is universally bad, but my sticking point is the fact that liberal journalists just don’t learn: not from history, and certainly not from their mistaken support of the Democratic Party. The press has been increasingly frozen out of this Administration, there have been scandals and misdeeds (including this one) that would have gotten most Presidents impeached, and the MSM still support this President.
If you’re interested, you can read what I have to say about this on my blog.
The guy I work with pretty nice overall. Polite and good to work with.
But he just has a few things in his background and personality that keeps him from coming to our side of things.
Being raised democrat in a union household is just the first.
He will eventually bend. It always happens.
He is worlds better than the born again Evangelical that refuses to even be in the room if anyone discusses science not agreeing with the Book. And he too is a democrat that thinks Republicans are Satans pawns, that none of them could be true conservatives and believers if they don’t help others in every way possible and try to convert them to the true way.
He will not break. And I will not try to bend him.
I heard an interesting quote from the French related to people who say that they ” don’t do Politics”:
“If you don’t do politics politics will be done to you.”
Reasonable, sane people who can properly communicate what needs to be communicated must rise from our political confusion.