Do you still doubtgovernment-media cooperation?

By Jon Dougherty

A story in yesterday
‘s Washington Post ought to scare the hell out of you if you have even a
modicum of rational thought left in your head.

It seems as though, for some time now, the White House — meaning, of
course, the president and first lady, since nobody there does anything
without their approval — has been “cooperating” with “the six major
broadcast television networks,” and “has reviewed the scripts of such
popular shows as ‘ER,’ ‘Chicago Hope,’ and ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ and made
suggestions on at least two dozen programs to help them convey an
aggressively anti-drug message.”

“In exchange for their cooperation,” the Post reported — as confirmed by
“a White House official” — “the networks were freed from obligations to
provide $22 million in public-service advertising over the past two years,
allowing them to sell the lucrative time to corporate advertisers.”

No doubt the seriousness of this development will be lost on untold
millions of Americans because they will see the White House’s efforts as
“noble and just,” and, of course, “compassionate.” After all, what’s the
fuss about? These people are trying to fight drug use, for goodness
sakes.

Yeah, right — this from a president with known and established
connections to drugs and drug use (e.g., “I’ve got to get some for my
brother (Bill) … he’s got a nose like a vacuum cleaner!” — Roger Clinton
on tape buying cocaine from undercover narcotic agents, circa the mid-1980s)
.

No, this is about the incredible power the government holds over media
companies in this country. There was a time in our history when any
general manager of any major television network would have told any
White House to “stuff” their notion of “viewing and recommending changes” in
television scripts.

Incredible.

Worse, did you notice what inducement the government used to gain
the “cooperation” they needed from the networks? Right — the White House, no
doubt without FCC or congressional approval, waived the requirement
of these networks to broadcast their assigned portion of public service
advertisements — the same PSA spots the government’s drug “czar” should
have used to get his anti-drug message across in the first place. That’s
what they’re there for.

But to allow government bureaucrats even the remote opportunity to
change, alter, or omit television scripts? That begs the question: What
other popular — or unpopular — ideals could government “induce” the
networks to endorse?

Oh, yes — now it’s becoming more clear, isn’t it?

Yes, that’s right, the precedent has been set. Now that one White House
has done it, who can doubt that others won’t try in the future? Worse,
what will they try to “promote” — socialistic ideals of government or
more traditional constitutional ideals?

Do you even want to waste your time trying to guess?

Though there are still plenty of readers who think we’re off base on this
“don’t tax the Net” campaign, hopefully now you can see the bigger picture.
Hopefully now you can see, as I said in early January, how utterly foolhardy it is to give the government the power to tax
and, ultimately, regulate the Internet.

If you really believe that once Uncle Sam begins to tax the
Internet he won’t move to regulate it, I’d like to know what planet you’ve
been living on for the past 50 years.

If you still believe “it won’t happen” after reading the Post’s
story and this column, then I don’t know what else to say or do to convince
you otherwise. Telling you, “We told you so!” a couple of years from now
will do damned little to change the fact or give me satisfaction.

Furthermore, once the Internet becomes a bastion of government
regulation, who’s to say regulators won’t require that websites — which are
being classified as a form of visual communication — be forced to provide
“public service” advertisements as well? And who’s to say that some future
White House administration, in an effort to “do something good,” won’t have
the ability to bolster a website’s income by removing the requirement to
show public service ads, thereby freeing up more inventory for paid
advertising?

The White House — this criminal bastion of reprobates — has figured out
how to “get its message across” without ever having to write one executive
order or push for one piece of new legislation. How’d they do it? Easy —
they just figured out how to use the existing governmental regulatory
burden on the press to their advantage. As WND editor Joseph Farah recently
described, it’s happened before in
another media industry — only then it was to the detriment of that
industry, not to its financial betterment.

See how arbitrarily government officials can use the rules to their own
advantage? To push their own selfish agendas and ideals?

If you think it won’t happen again or that there is still no
government-media collusion in this country, all I can say is, “Wow — how
naive.”

I would say the same thing if you think the Internet tax issue is just
“all about fairness” and “all about equal taxation.”

Sure it is.

Jon Dougherty

Jon E. Dougherty is a Missouri-based political science major, author, writer and columnist. Follow him on Twitter. Read more of Jon Dougherty's articles here.