How do we take OUR PUBLIC AIRWAVES back from the corporate liars?

[darth marth]

This truly is why our country is so disfunctional.

There must be something we can do?


This has been attempted at the local level, and there are minders every step of the way, roadblocks prevent anyone from entering their controlling circle.

But there must be something the Occupy movement can do together, to start taking our media back.


The internet is awesome, of course, and the media is losing all credibility....but there are still some people that just don't read the net, and they are still being influenced by these evil people...every day...brainwashing them....

Thomas Jefferson seemed to understand the importance...why are we accepting this entertainment crap as 'news'?


"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure."

"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them."

[KittyWampus]

1. Airwaves? You mean radio? That's all bought up by Christian fundies. Is TV even broadcast anymore?

[FarCenter]

2. May 4, 2010 : Nielsen: Broadcast-only TV households to slip below 10 percent

U.S. TV households this year will continue their migration away from OTA reception with fewer than 10 percent choosing to receive OTA television programming only, according to Nielsen's latest "Television Audience Report."

http://broadcastengineering.com/hdtv/nielsen-broadcast-only-tv-households-slip-below-10-percent-0504/

The conversion to digital broadcasting pretty well ended over-the-air television.

[catabryna]

5. I can't really count the actual number of broadcast tv stations

here in the Portland area. I have to contort the digital antenna in so many different directions to pick up the signals that I can never receive them all at the same time.

My guess, however, is that 40% of the local broadcast stations that I can pick up are operated by religious broadcasters.

Needless to say, I rarely watch television because I refuse to hand my money over to the other gods in charge of pay-television.

[SoCalDem]

3. We don't

:(

That ship sailed decades ago..

[bluethruandthru]

4. When radio deregulation took place in 1996, that was the beginning of the end.

That allowed for the concentration of media ownership which then made the radio market attractive to large corporations. With the number of stations one group could own in each market greatly expanded, corporations saw ways to make huge profits in an industry where that opportunity hadn't existed before. With the advent of these large ownership groups, there was an explosion in syndicated programs. It was very profitable to eliminate local announcers, newscasters, etc. and run syndicated programs like Limbaugh, Stern, Dr. Laura..or music programs with generic or no announcers...just the local insertion of time or temperature.
This trend has continued and more and more radio employees are losing their jobs (not just announcers). These groups have absolutely no concern for quality programming and they have no interest in thinking long term. They are only concerned with providing shareholders a few cents profit each quarter. If that means 500 people lose their jobs this quarter...so be it. They worry about next quarter when it gets here.

The FCC and Congress need to reinstate strict ownership limits in the radio industry.

[darth marth]

6. They must prove they serve the public or have their license revoked

It doesn’t have to be this way. America lets radio and TV broadcasters use public airwaves worth more than half a trillion dollars for free. In return, we require that broadcasters serve the public interest: devoting at least some airtime for worthy programs that inform voters, support local arts and culture and educate our children — in other words, that aspire to something beyond just minimizing costs and maximizing revenue.

Using the public airwaves is a privilege — a lucrative one — not a right, and I fear the F.C.C. has not done enough to stand up for the public interest. Our policies should reward broadcasters that honor their pledge to serve that interest and penalize those that don’t.

The F.C.C. already has powerful leverage to hold broadcasters to their end of the bargain. Every eight years, broadcasters must prove that they have served the public interest in order to get license renewal. If they can’t, the license goes to someone else who will.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/02/opinion/02copps.html?pagewanted=all

[FarCenter]

8. It's only a matter of time until they reallocate television spectrum to data transmission

[KurtNYC]

7. "Freedom of the press belongs strictly to those who own one"

and we don't own the MSM. They sell audiences to advertisers -- in other words, corporate media owners sell our minds to other corporation who buy advertising and sponsor info-tainment.

YouTube is the basis of a more horizontal media and news system. Embrace and use that toward a more democratic future.

[RevStPatrick]

9. Why bother?

Just leapfrog over that sucker.
Airwaves are nearly irrelevant.

[darth marth]

11. well I get that, but there are a lot of people that only get their news from corporate TV

Some people just are not hip to technology, it's a generational thing, and believe it or not there are still millions of Americans that probably don't read news on the net.

What right do they have to use our public airwaves to sell our country to the highest bidder?

They don't.

Everyone thinks they own the media, but we can work together to kick them off!

[RevStPatrick]

13. But do people get their news from corporate TV over the airwaves?

I think they get their corporate TV mostly over cable.

[darth marth]

15. ABCNNBCBS and clear channel is all over the place

people listen to clear channel brainwashing all day long, and it is on every radio station in my area...no other choice whatsoever...

[valerief]

10. By making them irrelevant. Stop using them. nt

[qb]

12. By electing a majority of Democrats who aren't owned by corporations.

:banghead:

[jwirr]

14. Since digital does that now the problem is not the airwaves so much

as it is the monopoly in media. We need to use anti-trust laws to break up the monopoly IMO.

[Lorien]

16. Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine

corporate liars weren't an issue when it was in effect.