REPORT: Evening Broadcast News Shows Ignore Net Neutrality Ruling

[octoberlib]

Broadcast nightly news shows completely ignored the day's landmark court ruling striking down federal net neutrality regulations, an omission that deals a huge disservice to the public audience and a boon to the news outlets' parent corporations.

Net neutrality -- the principle that corporate internet providers should provide equal access to content for subscribers -- was dealt a serious blow the morning of January 14 when the D.C. Court of Appeals invalidated the Federal Communications Commission's requirement that providers offer equal access to online information, regardless of the source. Prior to the ruling, the FCC prevented internet providers from blocking (or slowing down access to) content in order to benefit their own business interests.

That evening, neither NBC, CBS, nor ABC acknowledged the ruling in their evening news broadcasts.
Here's why that's important -- NBC is owned by Comcast Corporation, which bills itself as the nation's largest high-speed Internet provider. CBS' parent company is CBS Corporation, which also owns multiple sports networks and Showtime, while ABC is part of The Walt Disney Company empire, also the owner of ESPN.

This is a huge conflict of interest for the broadcast news channels, as their parent corporations all have a vested interest in striking down net neutrality laws and promoting their own content at the expense of competitors that lack an advantage in size or Internet service.
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BERNERS-LEE, inventor of the World Wide Web: We need to be able to find ways of coming to agreements with people in other countries, in other cultures, about what we are going to do with our planet and how we are going to solve global warming. For that, we need a very strong democracy. Democracy involves people being informed, being able to communicate, being able to hold each other accountable. And all that absolutely depends on the neutral internet.


http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/01/14/report-evening-broadcast-news-shows-ignore-net/197592

[freshwest]

1. Same owners. What did we expect. I hate 'em. n/t

[octoberlib]

2. Yeah, me too, freshwest. nt

[Wait Wut]

3. Posting about it on FB...

...I felt like all my friends had turned into a sea of golden retrievers. No one knows enough about it. No one cares enough. I'm using the most frightening words and phrases I can come up with and still...that look. That tilted head, 'Duh'.

Ignorance is bliss. That's what I'm seeing.

[octoberlib]

4. I had the same experience on FB.

Only people who seemed concerned were a couple of my techie friends.

[Wait Wut]

5. I don't have any techie friends...

...they're all musicians, or most, anyway. Oh!!! MUSIC!!! Damn, I should have thought of that before!

Thanks for the kick start!

Found this!

http://futureofmusic.org/blog/2014/01/14/ever-get-feeling-youve-been-cheated-out-open-internet

[octoberlib]

8. Excellent find! nt

[freshwest]

9. The term *net neutrality* is what sinks it. What it *is* is economic apartheid, suppression of

information needed for informed decisions politically and narrow educational and employment opportunities.

If you are restricted to the wrong network, you lose the advantage of contacting others to elevate your position in life. A detailed example is an article which I can't find right now had the story of woman trying to get her voter ID in Florida.

They had mispelled her name when the scanner misread the calligraphy on her ORIGINAL birth certificate, the long form and they required all of her records to comply, but some were in records she could only find by GPS and driving.

When she got there, after going to many other official places, she was still denied. It was all Catch-22. This is what happens when public records are privatized. She said none of the locales were on bus lines or main roads, some were on an island and other locations were in gated communities.

She had the means and the money and the time, but she knew it was not going to be possible for millions to vote without them. It showed how ordinary, but vital information is being farmed out, not shared with the people who need it to function in society.

They are creating data fiefdoms to push out all but the people they know out. It's division by class. And it's going to change this country in ways that the NSA nevver could. This is the real up close and dirty and what will happen to the net.

And it was long predicted that there would be digital divide due to level of income and ability to pay for the services and keep up with the new devices. Those who can't, will be left behind. We'll be living in very different worlds, not able to talk to each other very well, and that's the plan of the fascists.

[Nevernose]

6. I hope it's just a "give it a day"

I'm a news junkie, but even I didn't hear about it until this evening or maybe late afternoon.

[Shandris]

7. It didn't even rate coverage on Comcast's news page at...

...comcast.net (the homepage for those who are forced to use Comcast). They show links to all kinds of stories...but not this one! Ohhhhh, no.

And does anyone think that Comcast, the kind loving gentle folk that they are, is interested in allowing Netflix to stream at the same speed as their Xfinity service that requires you to pay for their terrible cable? Any takers? Anyone?

[woo me with science]

10. We live in the Corporate Matrix.

We need Edward Snowden and thousands more Neos.