Though stalled for now over insider outcry, the US government's Federal Communications Commission plans to charge the agency with the onerous task of evaluating news rooms of different media outlets to assess their ability to deliver on “critical information needs” for the public was a rather chilling prospect.
The aim to create a more informed and civic-minded population is a noble one, of course, with several categories that define what a broadcast ought to convey, but it also runs the risk of possibly deputizing FCC inspectors as censors and propagandists, as it quickly could become a question of journalistic credentials if one source or another did not tow the party line in diplomacy, security or social welfare. Already outlets are pretty polarized and either championed or dismissed, while every non-traditional opinion and reporting is classified as something fringe. The FCC let the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” that mandated for equal-time to avoid a press-bias and demagogy on controversial subjects atrophy before finally expiring in 2011—for sound reasons, since a cartel is different from an autocrat and the public has to discern for itself what's worth following, even if the choices are saccharine. Implementation has been delayed—for now, but as of late, the hurdles of public-sentiment have been merely assuaged and left to be battled behind the scenes, possibly like the
empty victories tossed to the public over keeping the internet out of the hands of big industry, which was instead taken up in secret arbitration and trade deals and in turned out that the whole of communications and activity was under surveillance in the first place. It is true how they say power is never relinquished willingly.
