“Democrats’ New Intelligence Chairman Needs a Crash Course on al Qaeda”, by Jeff Stein (CQ Homeland Security)
More intelligence needed in the new Democratic House Intelligence Chairman. I mean, sure, I might not’ve known that al-Qaeda was Sunni and that Hezbollah was Shiite, but I feel like Reyes should’ve known. What was wrong with Jane Harman, […]

Though the passion and personal touches are lost in the translation to the digital page, these testimonies, remarks, and statements are well worth reading in their entireties. There were not, in my opinion, enough Nashvillians and other Americans present at this hearing, but that doesn’t lessen its importance. Preserving the best in show has allowed me to revisit these powerful words and remember why. Enjoy, and remember: it’s not too late to file a comment.

Do you want your children to grow up in a world where they can’t tell infotainment from news? Do you realize that affirmation media is the Orwellian opposite of news because it massages your existing prejudices without disturbing you with facts? When your children ask why this happened on your watch, will it be enough to answer, “It’s OK, dear, the company’s stock went up.” And now that you have relaxed foreign media ownership rules, will it be enough to say that Nashville’s decline enriched executives in Adelaide, Munich or Beijing?

I think it’s fair to say that the government should be a function of the people. So are we here because the people have been beating down your doors begging for greater media consolidation. Are we here because the people have been calling their representatives in Congress by the thousands expressing their burning desire for media ownership to be in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals. Well, of course not. In fact, it’s quite the contrary. You’re all aware of the public outcry the last time this issue was on the table. It was three million people. You’re all aware of the calls and faxes and emails flooding into your offices right now.

Bottom line: I think there are times when the market isn’t supplying something, but people would buy it if it did. Just look at Fox News. It probably could’ve been successful any time after the Reagan revolution, but it wasn’t available, so who could watch conservative news? Here in Nashville, the market has never corrected for an overabundance of liberal talk radio because there’s never been anything to correct. Now that there’s a supply (albeit limited), we’re experiencing market growth.

In response to the brouhaha surrounding Natalie Maines’ comments about President Bush and the subsequent threat on her life, the Dixies Chicks asked the following question on their last album, “And how in the world/Can the words that I said/Send somebody so over the edge/That they’d write me a letter/Saying that I better shut up […]

The Tennessean ran an article with quotes from yesterday’s FCC Hearing.
They left out the best one, of course, which is a response to the overwhelming majority of testimony against media consolidation and big business’ stranglehold on the public’s airwaves:
“Because, by now, the question is not what we think. You know what we think. The […]

Democracy is forged in a marketplace of ideas, and currently our marketplace of ideas is filled with the echoes of 34 hours of conservative talk radio per day. That’s 170 hours per week. Compared with our 2 hours of liberal talk radio per week from a college radio station. How many ideas get to compete in a marketplace like this? I can tell you: not enough.

Summary: FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, one of only two democrats that sit on the commission, joins us to discuss the significance of today’s public hearing, the proposed fcc rule changes, and how we own the airwaves.
Listen to: Interview with FCC Commissioner Michael Copps (18:00 22 MB)

We’re not sure which public hearing Nashville-resident and FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate will be attending tomorrow, but we’re going to the one at Belmont University to discuss proposed rule changes for media consolidation.
In a guest editorial in today’s Tennessean, Commissioner Tate says that it would be “hard to think of a more appropriate location […]