FCC Cancels Media Survey Amid Allegations of Trying to Regulate The News and Trample First Amendment Freedom of the Press Rights

Hero of the Week …  whistler-blower FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai.

The FCC blinked and has canceled the media survey and plans to evaluate the coverage of media outlets in the Obama’s administration to attempt to violate the First Amendment and Freedom of the Press. As stated at the Washington Examiner, the First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …”  However, under the Obama administration, the Federal Communications Commission was planning to send government contractors into the nation’s newsrooms to determine whether journalists are producing articles, television reports, Internet content, and commentary that meets the public’s “critical information needs.”  As per The Obama Administration, of course.  The very agency that controls the licensing for the media was now going to inspect them for content and whether they were telling the correct stories. UNREAL.  The now canceled study was known at the FCC as “the CIN Study” was never put to an FCC vote, it was just announced. Imagine that. Why does this reek of IRS-gate? Or AP-gate? But in an act of conscience and bravery, FCC commissioner Ajit Pai came forward and brought the story to the public’s attention in a Wall Street Journal column last week.

First FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai brings the scheme to light and the FCC removed some of the controversial questions

The Federal Communications Commission cancelled a plan to evaluate the coverage of major media outlets Friday after a tidal wave of media criticism alleged the agency was attempting to influence and regulate the news media industry.

“In the course of FCC review and public comment, concerns were raised that some of the questions may not have been appropriate,” the agency said in a statement Friday. “Chairman Wheeler agreed that survey questions in the study directed toward media outlet managers, news directors, and reporters overstepped the bounds of what is required.”

However, despite the fact that the FCC had to pull the plug on this survey because of the negative attention and anti-First Amendment look of this attempt by the government to regulate the media, FCC Chair Wheeler said that it was not an attempt to do so. Sure it wasn’t, so then why cancel the study … hmm? Who backs of an attempt to limit the media unless you were caught red-handed? But instead, they continue to dent what their real intentions were. America needs to wake up … the Obama administration is as lawless as it gets.

Despite a response letter from FCC Chair Tom Wheeler saying the study was not an attempt to force news organizations into changing their coverage, the agency conceded the battle and Wheeler called for the removal of the questions entirely.

“Any suggestion that the FCC intends to regulate the speech of news media or plans to put monitors in America’s newsrooms is false,” the statement said. “The FCC looks forward to fulfilling its obligation to Congress to report on barriers to entry into the communications marketplace, and is currently revising its proposed study to achieve that goal.”

UPDATE I:  FCC Commissioner Blows Whistle on Agency’s Media Study and goes ‘On the Record’

Click here to watch VIDEO – screen grab from Fox News, ‘On the Record’

FOX NATION:

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Does President Obama really think no one at FOX will see a government spy in our newsroom? Tonight, an FCC commissioner goes ON THE RECORD and blows the whistle on a plan to install spies in newsroom. They call it something else, like a monitor. But no one is that stupid. We know what they are trying to do.

The FCC commissioner who blew the whistle is here to go ON THE RECORD. Commissioner Ajit Pai joins us.

Nice to see you, sir.

AJIT PAI, FCC COMMISSIONER: Thanks for having me.

VAN SUSTEREN: So your op-ed blew the whistle on this. What is it the FCC wants to do and why you wrote your op-ed?

PAI: The FCC is proposing to do what it is calling a Critical Information Needs, or CIN, study. They will send researchers into newsrooms across the country, television and broadcast and newspapers, to try to figure out why they cover the stories they do. They have identified eight categories of news they think news people should be covering. Some of the questions they ask were highly technical. They are asking reporters, for example, have you ever wanted to cover a story and were told you can’t do so. As I looked into the study design, I got concerned about what it implicated for our First Amendment values. That’s why I wrote it in the “Wall Street Journal.”

VAN SUSTEREN: What’s been the response by the other members of the FCC?

PAI: I haven’t talked to all my colleagues, but I am pleased to report, tonight, the chairman of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, instructed the contractor, who will be doing the study, to remove questions from the study relating to news philosophy and editorial judgment. That’s a positive step but the devil is in the details when it comes to the actual study as implemented