"A lie keeps growing and growing until it's as plain as
the nose on your face," said the Blue Fairy to Pinochio.
Paul Ryan apparently didn't remember that tale when he stepped
into the scrutiny of the national press.
Perhaps it's because, unlike Pinochio, Ryan's puppetmasters encourage
fiction over fact. The seven term
Congressman from Southeast Wisconsin is not
used to reporters verifying statements or asking hard questions, because
throughout his career he's been well supported by Big Media owners so blatantly
right wing they publicly brag about their power to get Republican candidates
elected.
The Milwaukee media market is somewhat unique (note: Ryan's
1st District does not include Milwaukee but is a mere 10 miles south, and
Milwaukee media dominates it, as well as much of Wisconsin.) A single corporation, Journal Communications,
owns Milwaukee's Journal Sentinel
newspaper, TV station WTMJ, and uses
its 50,000 watt radio giant WTMJ as
an unabashed cheerleader for all GOP candidates, including Ryan. Clear Channel Communications, which owns six
radio stations in Milwaukee,
joins the Republican lovefest on its own 50,000 watt blowtorch WISN. Their political preference and clout is so
clear, critics in the community call WTMJ and WISN - "WGOP."
Five local right wing radio hosts hold court fifteen hours a day, every Monday through Friday, from studios in Milwaukee. Charlie Sykes, Mark Belling, Vicki McKenna, Jay Weber, and Jeff Wagner dominate signals that travel hundreds of miles and reach millions of people in four states. They wave the flag in one hand and the Bible in the other, whipping up fervor for their favored Republican candidates, meanwhile lying to audiences about facts of importance and propping up falsehoods of those same "moral" GOP candidates they promote without question. Daily they mischaracterize and demonize Democrats, but never do they allow them on the air to mount a defense.
These powerful charges are backed up by a study Media Action Center conducted during the Scott Walker recall campaign. MAC found that during the four week election, the Milwaukee Manipulators gave about 160 minutes of airtime every day to supporters of Scott Walker and the GOP to specifically promote their candidates, but abjectly refused to allow supporters of Democratic candidates any access to their giant microphones whatsoever. Add it up, and WISN and WTMJ radio gave Republicans more than a million dollars in free airtime -- plus a keen venue for the GOP to misinform the public about their opponents without recourse.
Given that those radio airwaves legally belong to all the public, not just the Republicans, you'd think there'd be a law against it. Actually, there is a law against it -- sort of.
Section 315 (a) of the Communications Act is the law that
says if one candidate gets broadcast airtime, the opponent must be afforded
equal time, if that candidate requests it within seven days.
An FCC rule called the Quasi-equal Opportunities Rule, or "Zapple Doctrine," expands that law to include supporters of candidates. It says, in the 60 days before an election, if a broadcaster provides time to supporters of one major party political candidate, it must provide comparable time to to supporters of the opposing candidate.
Supporters of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett
did request comparable time from WISN
and WTMJ throughout the Walker recall campaign,
but were either denied or ignored. So right
in the middle of the recall campaign, Media Action
Center filed an urgent complaint
to the Federal Communications Commission to enforce the Quasi-equal Opportunities
Rule.
Given the Constitutional issues surrounding the case, MAC did not expect an answer in time for citizens of Wisconsin to obtain redress in the remaining two weeks of the recall campaign. The case pits the First Amendment rights of Broadcasters against the Free Speech rights of the actual owners of the airwaves, We the People, and it understandably would take a bit of time to sort out.
Luckily, the Supreme Court is on the Peoples' side. In the seminal case Red Lion v FCC, SCOTUS ruled that "The First Amendment is
relevant to broadcasting, but it is the right of the viewing and listening
public, and not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount." And "The First Amendment does not
protect private censorship by broadcasters who are licensed by the Government
to use a scarce resource which is denied to others."
But given the political significance of the complaint (and analysis by some in the radio industry,) one would think the FCC would have found time to make a decision prior to the 2012 general election so Big Media owners could not continue to censor the political voice of nearly half the U.S. population during a critical campaign. But the FCC remains silent.
This is not new behavior for the FCC: as documented in my film Broadcast Blues, the FCC routinely ignores the public whose interest it is tasked to serve; the agency often doesn't even bother to notify legal petitioners with results of their decisions. (As the theme song from the film sings, "If you stand up to the FCC, all you hear back is BFD!") As noted by media attorney Harold Feld, the FCC doesn't even abide by the SCOTUS Red Lion decision defending the public interest, apparently because FCC lawyers don't like that law.
But Broadcast Blues also warns the FCC that if it will not stand up for We the People, We the People are standing up for ourselves. "This is OUR media, and we are taking it back!"
So, are YOU ready to take our media back, starting now? Are you ready to stand up to your local one sided radio stations - and to the FCC?
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