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FCC boss Ajit Pai is being investigated by his own agency over potential corruption allegations.
The already-unpopular agency boss has been on a tear in recent months gutting decades old media-consolidation rules designed to protect consumers and the nation's media markets from any one broadcaster becoming too powerful.
Pai's efforts arrived, not coincidentally, at the same time Sinclair Broadcasting Group is attempting to acquire Tribune Media as part of a $3.9 billion dollar megamerger. It's a deal a bipartisan chorus of critics say would demolish media diversity, resulting in Sinclair owning more than 230 local stations across 72 percent of the United States.
Given criticism of Sinclair for its often distorted and inaccurate news reporting, consumer advocates say the deal would have a profoundly negative impact on the quality and diversity of media discourse, as well as already dwindling competition in the space.
Without Pai's assistance on this front, the Sinclair merger would have been impossible.
Now the New York Times indicates that the FCC's Inspector General has launched an investigation into whether Pai acted inappropriately as he rushed to dismantle media consolidation rules.
Also at CNN, Gizmodo and The Verge.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Saturday February 17 2018, @03:48PM (4 children)
At some point, dying legacy media needs the monopoly rules removed. As an example of what I'm talking about there's a PBS craft show where this very polite and smart yet neanderthal looking dude who apparently has never shaved nor gotten a haircut since the Bush presidency interviews the last of their kind in dying pre-industrial craft industries. Strangely enough, no matter how weird I described it, the show is entertaining and VLM approved. So he interviews the last dude hand making horse spurs in the USA or likely the last dude on the planet. Or the last dude in the USA hand making felt cowboy hats using hand steam tools from the 1800s, etc. Those last dudes have 100% of their market because the market now supports one or somewhat less than one human supplier. Its a bit extreme to call "shut it down" on a monopoly in an industry that only employs one dude. Technically if you shut down the hat dude and smashed all his retro steam hat production hardware then prices would explode even higher BUT possibly two people might now work entirely by hand, not thinking thats a good thing, as more likely the higher price would annihilate the industry and nobody would hand make cowboy hats, at least not as a real business.
Obviously that PBS show is an extreme example, but there's a big difference in effect on the public of a monopoly back when legacy media wasn't legacy yet, vs now when its like LOL old people still pay attention to that stuff? Sinclair owns a station where I live that I haven't watched since Saturday afternoon Star Trek reruns in the 90s. With the death of broadcast TV it can be weird to think back on stations I watched as a kid and try to remember the last time I watched that station or network. I used to watch football in the 90s before I got tired of it, and according the wikipedia that means the last time I watched a show on NBC was when NBC lost its NFL contract in '97 for a couple years. I watched a couple minutes of American Ninja Warrior but couldn't stomach American style sports broadcasting (Japanese version far superior). Doesn't look like I'm missing much. Anyway in a dying industry, worries about monopolies are less relevant to daily life.
I'm not entirely sure Sinclair and their situation is past the point of relevance, but you gotta admit, there is a line at some point where none of that old fashioned stuff matters. Does anyone care in 2018 who is monopolizing telegram service, or home milk delivery, or ice block delivery for residential iceboxes? That stuff was VERY important a century ago, but not so much after a certain point.
Also Legacy Media is dead among the youth, so even if you insist the line hasn't been crossed in 2018, you can mathematically model when as boomers die off and because Gen Zyklon only reads /pol/ that on some mathematically calculable date the legacy media monopoly stuff won't matter. For example, as per the URL, the monopoly in newspapers mattered maybe 30 years ago, but in half a century or so, no living adults are going to remember what newspapers were. My kids don't understand newspapers at all; its yesterdays internet news with extra ads and no technology for ad blocking, printed out, and delivered tomorrow, along with a bunch of shitty left wing propaganda, and people pay for that, why? Its like trying to tell a teenager watching youtube that, sure youtube is interesting to you kids today, but back in the old days, telegrams were really exciting, and by the way, you kids get off my lawn, and the kids is like "yeah whatever, post that on your MySpace"
https://www.statista.com/statistics/548467/print-newspaper-reach-age-usa/ [statista.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @05:51PM
you may have missed the point of what "consolidation of power", "control of the message" and "control of message delivery" means when referenced in context of the article.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Saturday February 17 2018, @10:28PM
I could go for some home milk delivery. Does that guy have a website?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday February 17 2018, @10:38PM (1 child)
Do you have the name? I searched for 'pbs neanderthal craft show' and came up with 'Craft in America', but I'm not sure if that's it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Monday February 19 2018, @01:07PM
I finally found it, a craftsmans legacy. The host is a nice but ridiculously hairy giant dude. The host is definitely not a professional journalist; he seems to know at least a little about what he's talking about.
Its a strange sort of interview / hands-on craft show. So they'll go all human interest talking about how important the hosts mother was to him, then spend about half the show mostly hand making some sort of art/craft thing. In all the episodes I've seen so far, the host asks if the guest is a craftsman or artist, and the guest always answers craftsman which matches the title of the show, although presumably sometimes guests answer "artist" or the question wouldn't be asked.
Normally I make fun of TV coverage that goes excessively human interest, like modern american sportsball coverage which is often 75%+ human interest stories, but this is at most 50% and of course its an interview show where its expected.
As for things to complain about, the music is somewhat repetitive after awhile.
Given that its on TV, its a surprisingly high quality show.