Analyst's note: It is important to remember that the FCC has the power to renew stations’ licenses or not. Now see the FCC wants to expand its intervention to newspapers. We note that the FCC has never had any regulatory authority or jurisdiction over print journalism. That newspaper publishers and editors would even consider such a diabolical effort by the feds to insinuate itself into First Amendment-protected institutions is absolutely astonishing to say the least. The contract for this study had gone to Maryland-based firm Social Solutions International, whose background largely focuses on public health and not media. Republican lawmakers first complained about the potential course of the study in December.
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The FCC may have suspended its invasion into American newsrooms, but the controversial “Critical Information Needs” study also has George Soros’ fingerprints all over it.
Image: George Soros (Wikimedia Commons).
While disturbing, this should come as no surprise since Soros’ gave more than $52 million to media organizations from 2000-2010.
Two schools were working with FCC on the project, according to Byron York of The Washington Examiner. The University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Communication and Democracy, were tasked by the FCC with coming up with criteria for what information is “critical” for Americans to have. The FCC study would have covered newspapers, websites, radio and television, according to The Washington Post.
On top of the 1st Amendment problems with this proposal, the schools involved have strong ties to liberal billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and have gotten more than $1.8 million from since 2000.
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