Jon Stewart rips old "Pony Express" John McCain for stepping into the void left by Ted Stevens and his support of the "Internet Freedom Act of 2009".

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Rachel Maddow talks to editor and partner of BoingBoing Xeni Jardin about the bill introduced by Sen. John McCain that would block the FCC from keeping the entire Internet accessible to everyone. I completely agree with Rachel here. If I have to choose between the old guy who admitted that he doesn't know the difference between a MAC and a PC and that has also admitted he has to rely on his wife for "all of the assistance he can get" when it comes to using a computer, and who is as Rachel notes "the single largest Congressional recipient of campaign contributions from the telecom industry from Jan. 2007-June of this year", I'm going to "side with the geeks" as well who think this is a really bad idea.

Marcy Wheeler has more on this over at FDL--McCain Rediscovers His Passion for Screwing Us with Bad Telecom Policy and doesn't hold back any punches in her criticism of McCain. Harsh stuff but well deserved IMO.

McCain just joined the ranks of Ted Stevens and those Internet Tubes. Clueless, dangerous and willing to sell himself to the highest bidder on an issue he has absolutely no business being allowed to make policy on.

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(VP Spiro Agnew - ran around threatening revoked FCC licenses)

At the height of the war between the White House and the Media, The National Press Club ran a panel discussion featuring Bill Monroe of NBC News, Ben Bagdikian and Fred Friendly of CBS. Members of the White House Communications staff were invited; Herb Klein, Pat Buchanan and Dean Burch, but declined. The subject was The Media and The Administration and a few interesting myths were put to rest.

Ben Bagdikian: “The fact is, that the press of this country is overwhelmingly conservative and Republican. We are in danger of not enough criticism of government, not too much. Most of the new that leaves this town (D.C.) is pretty much what public officials say, with not enough time and energy put into testing the validity of what they say. It’s only human that a public official wants it that way, but it happens to be lousy journalism and bad for democracy. Now Democrats weren’t in love with the press either in their time. And we shouldn’t expect to be loved. We dish it out and we ought to be able to take it when it’s given back to us. But when it comes to the press, I think there’s a difference between Republicans and Democrats. The Republicans have had a sympathetic press for so long and in so many places, that they now regard any departure from this as a theft of a natural right. Now it’s not really the Republicans fault either. It’s the fault of the majority of papers in this country who’ve conditioned their local conservative readers to believe that it is the natural born duty of every publication to support Republicans. Let me be specific: a paper’s endorsing a Presidential candidate in 1968, 80% endorsed Nixon, which is about what it’s been with one exception, for Republican candidates in every Presidential race in this generation. And its not just the small town papers. Endorsement by circulation size is about the same percentage. And if we’re talking about a press out of step, how about 80% for Nixon, while the readers vote 43 ½% for Nixon?”

Bagdikian says pretty much what most everyone felt, even as far back as 1972. The idea that mainstream media is a bastion of liberal thought is really a myth cooked up by the GOP. And it's plain to see this myth still holds true today, even more so.

It's interesting to note that the systematic dismantling of network news departments and FCC regulations being abandoned really started with the Nixon administration. It's only been the past 20 odd years we've actually witnessed the long-term effects of those massacres.

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From Democracy Now. This looks like a good step in the right direction.

The Federal Communications Commission has announced a new set of proposals to prevent internet service providers from curbing or blocking online services. On Monday, FCC Chair Julius Genachowski unveiled a plan that would make permanent existing safeguards that ensure open access to websites and other online content. The new rules would also extend to barring companies from limiting certain kinds of data, such as free internet phone services and file-sharing applications. The safeguards would also apply to wireless phone carriers for the first time. Supporters call the proposals a major step forward in the campaign for net neutrality.

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("Same as It Ever Was . . . .Same As It Ever Was")

Believe me, I'm not singling out 1974 as a focal point for things gone wrong. But with all due fairness, most indications point to this being around the time of the Great National Nervous Breakdown and the long painful assessment of "where did we go wrong?". Call it Navel Gazing, call it Overwhelming Guilt, America was truly bothered by a lot of things - and Television News was viewed as a biggest culprit.

The problem then, as is the problem now with Mainstream News, particularly with Network News, is getting any useful information out of the half-hour format that's been the standard since the inception of Television News in the early 1950's. The problems were wide and varied, from advertising influence to the nature of Television being a visual medium and some news stories just weren't visual.

It hasn't changed and, if anything has become less and less relevant over the years as news has become more focused on entertainment, rather than a place of hard (and useful) information.

In this broadcast, again part of the National Town Meeting series, features New York Times Correspondent Harrison Salisbury, Journalist David Halberstam, former FCC Chairman Nicholas Johnson and former head of CBS News Sig Mickelson from November 3, 1974. The audience consists of Yale University students (where the Town Hall was held) who ask a number of pointed questions.

Bruce Burke (Student): “I kind of wonder about the whole notion of the Fairness Doctrine. As I understand it, the Fairness Doctrine tends to apply to hard news broadcasts . And it seems to me that, while the Fairness Doctrine to apply to Editorial type content would in fact be a wise thing, considering the immediacy of the impact and the availability to other speakers outside those of the Network organizations. It seems to me questionable for the various networks to be monitored, by either private organizations or others as to the fairness content of their hard news broadcasts. I was wondering what the speakers would think about the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine as it concerns hard news.

Sig Michelson: “I think the Fairness Doctrine is about as required for the human being as a tail, which we long since got rid of when we quit living in trees. I think as long as our broadcasting is operated on the basis of a trusteeship principle which was written into the Federal Radio Act back of 1927 and under the Federal Communications Act of 1934, that the licensing process in of itself is quite adequate to keep a reasonable degree of fairness as long as the broadcaster is a trustee of the public interest. On the other hand, I think it’s a very dangerous commodity as Mister Whitehead tried to use it in his speech out in Indianapolis in 1973 when he suggested that this was a wedge, a weapon the local stations could use to force the networks to knuckle down with their news broadcasting. I think it’s a very dangerous weapon and I would like to see it eliminated, and I’d like to see us go back to where we were before 1949, and operate on the Trusteeship Principle and maintain our fairness on that basis.

Bear in mind that this is before the wave of deregulation during the Reagan years gutted the FCC, converted entire networks into propaganda outlets, turned the Fairness Doctrine into a worthless piece of paper,obliterated newspapers, dismantled Broadcast News Divisions, converted the Trusteeship Principle into a very bad joke and replaced much useful news with team coverage of celebrity rehabs.

In short, made anything you could use pretty much impossible to find.

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D-Day: The news leaking out from the bank stress tests just got worse

HOLY CRAP: Catholic Bigotry Rides Again...Christian douchebag, and "Dean" of Liberty U. Law School weighs in on torture...Which begs the question: Who Would Jesus Torture?...And what about the Islamofascists?...Thanks for noticing...“Mormon Mafia”...Stay Classy, Florida...Texas Intellect Massacre...Meet R. J. Rushdoony, mentor to Christianist bigots...God Squad attacks Holocaust history...The FundamentaList...The hell we aint!...

With all the talk these past few weeks about the Fairness Doctrine and the latest debate on Broadband use for rural areas, I was reminded back when the FCC actually meant something - an agency whose job it was to protect the interest of the American People and the airwaves from the lunatic fringe, the special interests and the misguided. Listening this morning to Morning Edition and an interview with former FCC economist Michael Katz, he managed to bring home in big bright letters the concept of what we have lost over these years of deregulation, incompetence and ignorant hubris, I thought back when Newton Minow spoke to a gathering of National Association of Broadcasters in May 9, 1961.

I'm wondering if it's too late . . . . .

Your industry possesses the most powerful voice in America. It has an inescapable duty to make that voice ring with intelligence and with leadership. In a few years, this exciting industry has grown from a novelty to an instrument of overwhelming impact on the American people. It should be making ready for the kind of leadership that newspapers and magazines assumed years ago, to make our people aware of their world.

Ours has been called the jet age, the atomic age, the space age. It is also, I submit, the television age. And just as history will decide whether the leaders of today's world employed the atom to destroy the world or rebuild it for mankind's benefit, so will history decide whether today's broadcasters employed their powerful voice to enrich the people or to debase them.

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From Bill Moyers Journal:

BILL MOYERS: Finally, the other big story out of Chicago this week was news that that city's Tribune Company, owner of the "Chicago Trib" and "Los Angeles Times", as well as other newspapers, 24 TV stations and the Chicago Cubs, had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Its owner, Sam Zell, blamed the economy and $13 billion worth of debt.

When Zell took the company private last year he received a waiver of the Federal Communications Commission rule barring ownership of both a newspaper and television station in the same local market, saying it was the only way he could make the deal work. He was supported in his effort by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

Regular viewers of the JOURNAL know that media consolidation has been always been an important issue for us. We've been critical of Chairman Martin and his predecessor Michael Powell's attempts to give the big media multinationals free rein to take control of more and more TV and radio stations, drastically hurting local news coverage, independence and diversity.

That's what the Commission heard last year in public hearings across the country.

CHICAGO PUBLIC HEARING PARTICIPANT: If the FCC is here wanting to know if Chicago's residents are being well served. The answer is no. If local talent is being covered? The answer is no. If community issues are being handled sensitively? The answer is no. If minority groups getting the coverage and input that they need? The answer is no, the answer is no.

SEATTLE PUBLIC HEARING PARTICIPANT: We told you a year ago when you came to Seattle that more media consolidation is a patently bad idea. No ifs ands or buts about it. So with all due respect, I ask you, what part about that did you not understand?

BILL MOYERS: This week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee issued a scathing report attacking Martin's tenure at the FCC. The title? "Deception and Distrust." It chronicles what the authors call "egregious abuses of power" by Kevin Martin, who "...manipulated, withheld, or suppressed [agency] data, reports and information" to support his agenda.

President-elect Obama will soon appoint a new FCC chairman and is solidly on the record against media consolidation. Kevin Martin has hinted to some a willingness to stay on a bit to ease the transition. Thanks, but no thanks.

You can check out our continuing coverage of the FCC and media consolidation by clicking on our Web site at pbs.org.

That's it for the JOURNAL. I'm Bill Moyers. We'll see you next week.

The FCC has ruled that Comcast is violating internet rules in their continued effort to block BitTorrent traffic:

The potentially precedent-setting move stems from a complaint against Comcast Corp. that the company had blocked Internet traffic among users of a certain type of "file sharing" software that allows them to exchange large amounts of data.

"The commission has adopted a set of principles that protects consumers access to the Internet," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told The Associated Press late Thursday. "We found that Comcast's actions in this instance violated our principles."

A lot of people hear BitTorrent and think of illegal file swapping. That is a reasonable concern, but there are also a lot of legitimate uses for BitTorrent and for Comcast to punish those legitimate users simply because some people use the technology for illegal purposes is wrong.  Of course there are other problems presented here. A main one being the fact that a large portion of this country has no competition in deciding who their internet provider is. If they don't chose a company like Comcast, or any of the other giants,  then they are stuck with dial-up internet, or one of the other, more costly, solutions, such as satellite internet. 

Hopefully this will put us a step closer to getting some actual net neutrality legislation, something that is long over do.