RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Free Speech in the Era of Obama

to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest.

That's whats already happening. Its called ratings. The public are already choosing what they want to hear.

Anyone else find it funny how much socialist-communists seem to love Czars these days!

No. Actually, I find it a little scary. I think Obama is appointing them because they generally aren't subject to congressional confirmation they way a cabinet position would be. Basically, he's creating a, for lack of better term, shadow government not subject to normal checks and balances.

A U.N. spokeswoman on Wednesday denied a report that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and three U.N. officials met last month to discuss critical news coverage by FOX News, the Wall Street Journal and Inner City Press.

The report by Inner City Press' Matthew Lee said that Under Secretary-General Angela Kane met on May 8 with Under Secretary for Communications and Public Information Kiyo Akasaka, Under Secretary for Legal Affairs Patricia O'Brien, U.N. Director of Communications Michael Meyer and U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas to devise a strategy to "counter negative coverage" by the three media outlets.

Lee, in his report, cited minutes from the meeting prepared by Kane. He claimed the minutes initially were shown to him and then read to him by an unidentified source.

"We propose writing to professional journalistic bodies which regulate the journalists concerned as well as letters to the editors with copies to their companies' legal counsel," the minutes stated, according to Lee.

But Montas, the spokeswoman, told FOXNews.com on Wednesday that "there were no minutes" to the meeting and that Lee actually quoted from a memo to Ban regarding concerns raised by the U.N. Medical Service in connection to previous reporting by Lee on allegations of unlicensed doctors and nurses at the international agency.

"It was not to counter negative coverage of any sort," Montas told FOXNews.com.

Montas said the meeting was held to address ethical and privacy concerns raised by U.N. Medical Services officials in response to Lee's posting of a sign-out sheet from the department. Lee removed the photo from his site on May 16 following requests by the U.N.

Montas said "no steps" were taken regarding potential legal action or "cease and desist" letters, as Lee reported.

"There were no decisions made," Montas said. "There was an exchange of ideas about what could be done about that complaint."

Montas also denied Inner City Press's report that the minutes indicate U.N. officials "should consider complaining to Google News," which hosts the small news outlet.

Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker told FOXNews.com that the Internet giant had not recently been contacted by U.N. officials.

Google News reinstated Inner City Press in February 2008 after dropping it when someone complained to Google that it was a one-man operation, violating the Google News rule that news organizations listed have two or more employees, Stricker said last year.

Lee told FOXNews.com at the time that he believed someone within the U.N. pressured Google to de-list him. The U.N. denied those charges.

"Clearly retaliation is the word," Lee said of his latest controversy with the U.N. "Something's wrong with this U.N. administration's understanding of what it means to have a free press covering them."

I can see why Obama is such a fan of the UN.

Rep. Lamar Smith: ‘The greatest threat to America is a liberal media bias.’
Yesterday, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) launched the Media Fairness Caucus, made up of about a dozen House Republicans, aiming “to fight liberal media bias.” The group will “point out unfair stories, meet with members of the media, and write op-eds and letters to the editor to highlight media bias,” Newsmax reported. Appearing on Fox News today, Smith declared that “liberal media bias” is a bigger threat to the United States than the recession or terrorism — and Fox’s Bill Hemmer seemed to agree:

SMITH: Let me just say — this is going to sound radical, I don’t mean for it to be radical — but to me, the greatest threat to America is not necessarily a recession or even another terrorist attack. The greatest threat to America is a liberal media bias. …

In a way it's true,the media bias has us in our current situation.

The media is.

• Rep. Lamar Smith: ‘The greatest threat to America is a liberal media bias.’
  Yesterday, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) launched the Media Fairness Caucus, made up of about a dozen House Republicans, aiming “to fight liberal media bias.” The group will “point out unfair stories, meet with members of the media, and write op-eds and letters to the editor to highlight media bias,” Newsmax reported. Appearing on Fox News today, Smith declared that “liberal media bias” is a bigger threat to the United States than the recession or terrorism — and Fox’s Bill Hemmer seemed to agree:
  
  SMITH: Let me just say — this is going to sound radical, I don’t mean for it to be radical — but to me, the greatest threat to America is not necessarily a recession or even another terrorist attack. The greatest threat to America is a liberal media bias. …

A bigger threat than terrorism?

Arguably, yes.

There's a reason why "Free Speech" is in the First Amendment. It was considered one of, if not the, most important rights to be preserved if we were to remain a free society.

It has long (ie, even before the founding of the US itself, to some extent) been recognized that, in order to preserve liberty, there should be a free and open exchange of ideas and information. Part of that free and open exchange is that as many viewpoints as possible should be presented.

Another part is that there should be a free and independent press that questions and challenges the excesses of the government.

If media bias means that there isn't a true open exchange (because the center-left press effectively "censors" opposing viewpoints) and/or that the government is unquestioned (because the center-left press is unwilling to fairly report on the excesses of the Obama administration) then we have lost the basic building block of a free society.

We can recover from terrorism. We can't recover so easily from a stripping of our most important civil right.

You went from arguing that bias exists, but is not a problem akin to terrorism, to arguing that bias doesn't exist.

That's because you're ignorant on what a free press is.

What do you think a free press is Rex?

What do you think a free press is Rex?

I can't speak for rex, but I'm pretty sure it's not a press that suddenly starts bowing to the President as if he's a Saudi Shiek.

You're only asking because you don't know.