Report: FCC To Snoop About Content

Do you think the federal government should investigate how local newspapers and other media cover the news? Should Uncle Sam probe what, how and why issues are covered?

Don’t bother answering.  According to columnist Chuck Sweeny at the Rockford Register-Star, your federal government has valiantly stepped in to ask and answer those questions for you.

According to Sweeny, the Michigan Press Association reports the FCC is going to examine content: 

“In order to ‘examine how the media ecosystem operates to provide critical information,’ the FCC announced May 24 that it plans to research how existing media outlets are meeting the ‘critical information needs’ of local communities. 

“The planned research will center principally on a detailed ‘content analysis’ drawn from samples of local media content.   The research design calls for 26 media content samples to be pulled over the course of seven months. 

 “Social Solutions International (SSI) of Silver Spring, Md., developed the research design for the FCC to ‘identify and understand the critical information needs of the American public (with special emphasis on vulnerable/disadvantaged populations).’”

The study calls for “qualitative analysis” of stories, including confidential interviews with people in targeted markets.

Chuck Sweeny

The FCC said: “The commission needs to conduct or commission research that illuminates the diversity of views available to local communities, the diversity of sources in local markets and the diversity of critical information needs of the American public, including women and minorities.”

The study proposal talks about analyzing the content of all media, including websites and newspapers.

Sweeney writes the First Amendment says the government cannot inhibit freedom of speech, nor of the press. And while the FCC proposes at this point to study local news media, he assumes there will be a step two in which the FCC recommends putting their study into effect. 

And that means regulation, according to Sweeney.

Read More Now