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News of the movement for June 7, 2012 |
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House Republicans Vote to Protect Broadcasters' Interests, Ignore the Public Interest So determined are Republican members of Congress to kowtow to the broadcast industry that members of a House Appropriations subcommittee voted to strip the FCC of its ability to post online information that is already supposed to be public about who is paying for campaign ads. House Panel Moves to Nullify FCC's Political Ad Disclosure Rules A House appropriations subcommittee slipped language into a federal budget bill that would strip the FCC of its ability to disclose political-ad spending by TV stations online. The FCC adopted the new online disclosure requirements for broadcasters April 27 in an effort to shed more light on political spending. House Approps Bill Would Bar FCC's Political Ad Rule A House Appropriations subcommittee approved legislation that includes a provision that would bar the FCC from implementing a rule requiring broadcasters to post online how much political candidates pay for television ads. FCC Disclosure Rule Knocked Down by House Panel Voting along party lines, a House panel rejected a new FCC rule that would shed some light on political advertisements by candidates and others -- including secretive outside groups. White House Seeks New Term for Clyburn The White House has nominated FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to a second term, this time a full five years. FCC Proposing to Sunset Dual-Carriage Viewability Rule Cable operators will no longer be required to provide both analog and digital versions of must-carry TV station signals as of December 2012 if FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski gets his way. Genachowski considers low-cost converter boxes a sufficient vehicle for allowing analog customers to continue to view TV station signals.
Community Broadband Legislation Alert: South Carolina Yesterday the South Carolina Senate voted in a second reading of H 3508, a bill that has been debated in the State Legislature since it was introduced in January 2011. The bill would revoke local authority to pick up the slack where the private industry has failed. If this bill passes, South Carolina will entrust its future to AT&T, which has admitted it has no solution for rural broadband. The bill has been pushed by AT&T and ALEC. A Call for More Clarity on Net Access in Europe In Europe, the debate over unrestricted Internet access -- so-called Net Neutrality -- has shifted to a core question: How much should the European Union intervene when mobile Internet service providers restrict Web access? Companies Try to Create Room on Radio Spectrum Cellphone carriers like AT&T and Verizon say they are worried about running out of the radio spectrum that carries wireless calls and data, and they want the government to give them more chunks of it. But a number of companies are developing technology that could change the whole spectrum game by using radio frequencies more efficiently. Broadcasters Air Complaints About Royalty Deal House lawmakers got an earful about the policy implications of radio's migration from its transistor days to an era in which Internet and satellite services are accessed from virtually anywhere.
New Orleans and the Future of News Last week's announcement that the New Orleans Times-Picayune would be slashing its staff and cutting its print run to just three days a week has sparked a new round of debates about the future of news. But one piece has been missing in this discussion: the role of media policy. Tribune Pushes to Exit Bankruptcy into Depressed Market Tribune Co. begins its last big court fight today, one of two steps remaining before the publisher exits bankruptcy into a newspaper market where values have dropped by half. Ethiopian Government Steps Up Control of News and Information Ethiopia's only ISP, state-owned Ethio-Telecom, has just installed a system for blocking access to the Tor network, which lets users browse anonymously and access blocked websites. At the same time, the state-owned printing presses are demanding the right to censor the newspapers they print. Reporters Without Borders is very worried by these attempts to reinforce government control of news and information.
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The House Appropriations Subcommittee just passed a provision that strips the FCC of the ability to provide online discloser of political ad spending on TV stations. We need your help to stop Congress from selling out our democracy. Tell Congress: Don't kill transparency.
A bureaucratic process might ruin our chance of getting the information we need to make informed choices this election season. Tell the Office of Management and Budget: Don't let bureaucracy stand in the way. Clean elections require media transparency.
Do you have any suggestions or comments about the Media Reform Daily? Tell us what you think at newswire@freepress.net. Thanks!
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