FCC Commissioner Michael Copps Dreams of Inflicting “Public Value Test”

If FCC Commissioner Michael Copps had any hair, he would let it down not only for the BBC, but also for moonbat-infested Columbia University:

American journalism is in “grave peril,” FCC Commissioner Michael Copps says, and to bolster “traditional media,” he said the Federal Communications Commission should conduct a “public value test” of every commercial broadcast station at relicensing time.

In a speech at the Columbia University School of Journalism in New York on Thursday, Copps also said station relicensing should happen every four years instead of the current eight.

“If a station passes the Public Value Test, it of course keeps the license it has earned to use the people’s airwaves,” Copps said. “If not, it goes on probation for a year, renewable for an additional year if it demonstrates measurable progress. If the station fails again, give the license to someone who will use it to serve the public interest.”

Who determines what serves the public interest? Why, liberal bureauweenies like Copps, of course.

Among the standards Copps wants to inflict are race quotas for media ownership. Imagine Thomas Jefferson’s reaction if you told him that one day Caucasians would be restricted from disseminating information on the basis of their skin color.

Giving a clear indication of what the media will look like if Copps gets his way, he described the boring and ideologically rigid carbuncle that is public broadcasting as “the jewel of our media landscape.” In case the political orientation he wants to impose still isn’t obvious,

Copps was introduced to the audience at Columbia by veteran PBS journalist Bill Moyers, something that thrilled Copps: “No one stands higher in my pantheon of citizen heroes than you, and I can think of no journalist, contemporary or at any time across the annals of our past, who has contributed so much to democracy’s dialogue,” Copps said of the liberal Moyers.

Few readers will need to be reminded that the odious Bill Moyers is among the most unsavory characters to infest the moonbat lunatic fringe (see here and here and here and here). Unencumbered by morals, he has profited handsomely at taxpayer expense from the public broadcasting swindle. In the failed Johnson Administration, Moyers served as de facto Minister of Propaganda. Copps would like to give some teeth to this position.

bill moyers
Soon the likes of Bill Moyers could be the only legal source of information.

On a tip from G. Fox. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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