The FCC critical information need (CIN) studies are...
The FCC critical information need (CIN) studies are an initiative to “thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country” wrote Commissioner Ajit Pai in a Wall Street Journal editorial (http://on.wsj.com/1ogUBkc). The studies, of how news organizations gather information and…
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serve their local populations, could allow the FCC to meddle in news coverage, Pai said. Though participation in the study is voluntary, “the FCC’s queries may be hard for broadcasters to ignore,” Pai said. “They would be out of business without an FCC license, which must be renewed every eight years.” Pai compared the CIN studies to the FCC’s now-defunct fairness doctrine, which required broadcasters to give air time to opposing points of view, before being taken off the books in 2011. “The demise of the fairness doctrine has not deterred proponents of newsroom policing, and the CIN study is a first step down the same dangerous path,” Pai said. His comments echo a letter sent to the FCC by Republicans in Congress, which also compared the CIN studies to the fairness doctrine (CD Dec 11 p11).