The First Amendment Doesn’t Need a Bailout -- Government Is Worst Enemy of ‘The Future of Media’

From Competitive Enterprise Institute

Washington, D.C., May 10, 2010—In recently-submitted regulatory comments, the Competitive Enterprise Institute urged the Federal Communications Commission to take a stand against government interference in the media marketplace as part of its “Future of Media” campaign.

The FCC’s proceeding is premised on the assumption that the news media in the United States faces a bleak future unless government acts to save it from disruptive market forces. In reality, however, the marketplace of ideas and information has never been more vibrant, diverse or accessible. The only fundamental threat to the future of media is an overreaching federal government that attempts to dictate winners and losers in the journalistic enterprise.

“All FCC’s proposals should emphasize deregulation, not continued micromanagement or quests for new campaigns,” wrote Competitive Enterprise Institute Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews. “The agency has long been a magnet for destructive political rent-seeking, and a hindrance to communications investment. If there is policy making to be done with regard to media, it should not target the private sector but instead government’s own regulatory policies that create artificial scarcity of bandwidth and spectrum. These are the true barriers to new voices.”

Officials at the FCC now have the responsibility to review the comments and judge the value of their advice. Unfortunately, given the Commission’s longstanding inclination to enhance its regulatory powers, the field of comments is likely to be dominated by parties seeking to benefit from greater interference in the marketplace. The only fair response to such competing interests is to not intervene in the first place.

“A ‘bailout for the First Amendment’ is inappropriate policy, even if its advocates' purported goals are merely to make us all enlightened citizens,” wrote Crews. “FCC calls this project reboot.fcc.gov. It would more appropriately be shutdown.fcc.gov when it comes to an obsolete FCC grasping for a role to play. Appropriations for these counter-democratic campaigns should be revoked.”

###

CENSORSHIP: ‘Progressives’ call on FCC to reclassify Internet as telephone system, take control of content

Tell Congress to Stop the FCC Internet Takeover

As we have explained on www.ObamaChart.com, the Obama administration is committed to accomplishing its far-left agenda at any cost and by any means. When Congress blocks its agenda, it pursues any number of techniques to circumvent the normal policy-making process.

In its efforts to impose crippling net neutrality regulations on the Internet-an idea with very little support from the American public or Congress-the Obama administration turned to the FCC to simply pretend Congress has given it authority to regulate. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals emphatically smacked down that attempt in Comcast v. FCC.

But President Obama and his close friend, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, refuse to back down. Chairman Genachowski wants to escalate to the regulatory equivalent of a nuclear attack on the free-market Internet: reclassifying broadband Internet as an old-fashioned telephone system as a pretext for total regulatory control.

Robert McChesney, the Marxist founder of Free Press, one of the leading groups urging the FCC to reclassify the Internet as a phone system under the pretext of "net neutrality" explained:

"At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control."

Please fill out the form below to urge Congress to step in and stop the FCC.

---30---

http://www.capwiz.com/americansforprosperity/issues/alert/?alertid=15000526&type=CO