SwiftVets.com

[Nomorelies]

Dan Rather made a very stupid decision to run with his Sixty Minutes II show last week and it is now apparent that this show was yet another partisan hatchet job on GWB. This network is in the process of attempting a coup against a sitting president using public airways as his vehicle. I don't think that we should take it and should demand that CBS's broadcast license be revoked. To contact Chairman Michael Powell

http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/powell/mkp_email.html

[dmackto]

I agree, we have to make noise to make sure this isn't swept under the rug.

I sent the this to the FCC guy:

[azpatriot]

Below is the letter I sent

[Nomorelies]

FCC Rules regarding political broadcasting:

Retention of Material Broadcast. We generally do not require stations to keep the material they broadcast. However, there are limited exceptions to this policy for personal attacks and political editorials.

Personal Attacks. Personal attacks occur when, during the presentation of views on a controversial issue of public importance, someone attacks the honesty, character, integrity, or like personal qualities of an identified person or group. No more than a week after a personal attack, the station must transmit the following three things to the person or group attacked: (1) notification of the date, time, and identification of the broadcast; (2) a tape, script or accurate summary of the attack; and (3) an offer of a reasonable opportunity to respond on the air.

Political Editorials. A political editorial is when a station endorses or opposes a legally qualified candidate(s) during a broadcast of its own opinion. (The opinions of other people broadcast over the station are referred to as "comments" or "commentary"). Whether a statement of opinion is an editorial or a commentary will usually be made clear at the beginning of the statement. Within 24 hours after the editorial, the station must transmit the following three things to the other qualified candidate(s) for the same office, or to the candidate(s) that were opposed: (1) notification of the date and time of the editorial; (2) a script or tape of the editorial; and (3) an offer of a reasonable opportunity for the candidate or a spokesperson for the candidate to respond on the air.

BROADCAST PROGRAMMING:
LAW AND POLICY ON SPECIFIC KINDS OF PROGRAMMING

Broadcast Journalism. Under the First Amendment and the Communications Act, the FCC cannot tell stations how to select material for news programs, and we cannot prohibit the broadcasting of an opinion on any subject. We also do not review anyone's qualifications to gather, edit, announce, or comment on the news; these decisions are the station's responsibility.

Return to Table of Contents

Political Broadcasting.

* Broadcasts by Candidates for Public Office. When a qualified candidate for public office has been permitted to use a station, the Communications Act requires the station to "afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office." The Act also states that the station "shall have no power of censorship over the material broadcast" by the candidate. We do not consider either of the following two categories as a "use" that is covered by this rule:

o An appearance by a legally qualified candidate on a bona fide newscast, interview or documentary (if the appearance of the candidate is incidental to the presentation of the subject covered by the documentary); or

o on-the-spot coverage of a bona fide news event (including political conventions and related incidental activities).

* Political Editorials. Within 24 hours of airing an editorial where the station itself either supports or opposes a candidate for public office, it must transmit the following three things to the other qualified candidate(s) for the same office or to the candidate who was opposed in the editorial: (1) notification of the date and the time of the editorial; (2) a script or tape of the editorial; and (3) an offer of a reasonable opportunity for the candidate or a spokesperson for the candidate to respond on the air.

Broadcast Hoaxes. Broadcasting false information concerning a crime or a catastrophe violates the FCC's rules if:

* the station knew the information was false;

* broadcasting the false information directly caused substantial public harm; and

* it was foreseeable that broadcasting the false information would cause substantial public harm.

In this context, a "crime" is an act or omission that makes the offender subject to criminal punishment by law, and a "catastrophe" is a disaster or imminent disaster involving violent or sudden events affecting the public. "Public harm" must begin immediately; it must cause direct and actual damage to property or to the health or safety of the general public, or diversion of law enforcement or other public health and safety authorities from their duties.

Political Broadcasting.

* Broadcasts by Candidates for Public Office. When a qualified candidate for public office has been permitted to use a station, the Communications Act requires the station to "afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office." The Act also states that the station "shall have no power of censorship over the material broadcast" by the candidate. We do not consider either of the following two categories as a "use" that is covered by this rule:

An appearance by a legally qualified candidate on a bona fide newscast, interview or documentary (if the appearance of the candidate is incidental to the presentation of the subject covered by the documentary); or

on-the-spot coverage of a bona fide news event (including political conventions and related incidental activities).

* Political Editorials. Within 24 hours of airing an editorial where the station itself either supports or opposes a candidate for public office, it must transmit the following three things to the other qualified candidate(s) for the same office or to the candidate who was opposed in the editorial: (1) notification of the date and the time of the editorial; (2) a script or tape of the editorial; and (3) an offer of a reasonable opportunity for the candidate or a spokesperson for the candidate to respond on the air.
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[ccr]

[Nomorelies]

CCRj: will this part of the regulation help?

[Aristotle The Hun]

[ccr]

Nope. That section doesn't apply (based on my layman's reading of the language).

That appears to refer to a "War of the Worlds" kind of hoax. It is targeting the "fire in a crowded theater" situation.

The line, "broadcasting the false information directly caused substantial public harm" does not appear to be referring to the kind of harm caused by throwing an election. Please note the next paragraph that says, "'Public harm' must begin immediately; it must cause direct and actual damage to property or to the health or safety of the general public, or diversion of law enforcement or other public health and safety authorities from their duties."

I don't think this falls into this category.

Besides, what is the most the FCC could do? Take away a broadcast license? Isn't going to happen. Issue fines? The most they could fine is pocket change to CBS -- they couldn't fine Rather personally.
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[Nomorelies]

Taking away CBS broadcast license would be a rather nice touch.
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[producehawk]

I sent mine anyway. Rather makes BOR look like a saint.

[margie]

Shouldn't 60 mins have to give equal time to the "other side"? From what I'm reading, most experts think the mems's are frauds, and even the son and widow don't beleive any of this bunk' also Major Gen Bobby Hodges ret. who was Lt Col Jerrry Killian supereior, ( supposedly Rathere's TRUMP CARD) said he was misled. Was told on the phone that the memos were hand written, thay were than read to him, and he said "Well, IF he wrote them, than that's what he believed." It wasn't till later he learned they were not hand wrtitten..and seeing the typed pages Hodges said they looked "computer generated, and a fraud".

[Debs]

How about having the FBI investigate? CBS has put forth fake government documents designed to slander the President at a time of war - sounds a bit serious to me.

Debbie
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"No greater love..."

[jimlarsen]

I don't know if the FCC could take any action or not, but I sent mine in. A copy is below. My feeling is that there are certain requirements that broadcast TV stations have to meet concerning political broadcasts and providing access to people/groups with different viewpoints. All re really need to do, in my opinion, is the get the FCC to start an investigation of CBS. I think just the investigation would be devistating to them and their cause.

Re: Sixty Minutes II broadcast aired Sept. 8, 2004
Dear Chairman Powell:

I believe the Sixty Minutes II broadcast aired Sept. 8, 2004 was a political advertisement that masqueraded as a news documentary program. The theme of the program, as I understand, was that President Bush got special treatment with regard to his service in the Texas Air National Guard about 30 years ago. Several documents were shown to viewers that purportedly supported this theme. These documents are supposed to have been typed at a National Guard office on one or more typewriters in the early 1970’s.

Copies of these documents are available on the Sixty Minutes II website, and many people have now examined them and pointed out many inconsistencies between these documents and known facts about that period of time. Dan Rather reported during the subject program and again on the Friday night news that the documents had been examined by experts who vouched for their authenticity and that CBS stood by their belief that the documents were genuine. However, CBS has not, to my knowledge, reported significantly about the glaring deficiencies that have been found in these documents, ignoring several easy to see problems with the documents.

Some of the deficiencies in these documents are:

1. Some of the documents have imprinted on them one or more superscripted “th” placed immediately after a number. These are identical to the superscripted “th” generated automatically by Microsoft Word using the Microsoft Times New Roman font. When printed on paper the “th” is raised considerably above the tops of the other letters, which matches exactly the position and form of the “th”s in the documents.
2. Many of the “th”s on these documents are preceded by a single space and are full size instead of superscripts. This raises a question about the authenticity of the documents because placing a single space between a number and the “th” is a common way to keep Microsoft Word from turning the ending into a subscript.
3. All of the documents use a proportional font similar to Microsoft Times New Roman. There were only a few typewriters in the early 1970’s that used proportional fonts, and they were expensive and extremely unlikely to be used in a National Guard office.
4. Some of the documents have centered headers in a proportional font, something that’s very difficult to do on an early 1970’s typewriter with proportional font and something that simply would not be worthwhile for office memos. Valid National Guard documents from this period would be expected to have used stationary with an imprinted header not a typed one.

These four points were easily seen just by reading the documents. No special training or techniques are required, only some familiarity with documents produced in this period of time. In my opinion it’s inconceivable that CBS News personnel, which includes some people who were reporters in the early 1970’s, failed to notice any of these problems. Yet, none of these problems were mentioned on 60 Minutes II, and they were only briefly noted on CBS News on Friday night. In fact, in an apparent effort to obfuscate these anachronisms, Dan Rather showed the viewers of CBS News on Friday night a document with a small, raised “th” that he said came from that period of time. However, that “th” didn’t look anything like the questionable “th”s in the documents. I believe that instead of properly reporting the questions that have been raised about these documents, CBS appears to have attempted to cover-up the possibility that these documents are fakes.

In view of fact that CBS presented these documents to its viewers as authentic from the early 1970’s, yet failed to note any of the four easy to see items listed above until forced to by reports from other news sources that called attention to the problems; and considering that CBS then tried to explain only one of the possible problems (#1), claiming that because they found a typewritten document with a small, raised “th” proved that type written documents from that period could have that kind of “th” without even pointing out the obvious differences between the “th”s on the new document and the “th”s on the subject documents; and further, considering that as a broadcaster on public airwaves CBS has a responsibility to clearly tell their viewers when programming is political or editorial in nature, and otherwise, to present controversial issues with consideration for a balance of viewpoints, which I believe CBS has failed to do,

I, ..., resident of ..., and natural born citizen of the United States of America, do request the FCC to take punitive and other appropriate measures against CBS for failing to keep their public trust while broadcasting news stories and purported news stories over the public airwaves. And, inasmuch as Dan Rather took responsibility for the events indicated above, I further request the FCC to require CBS to remove Dan Rather from their news gathering and reporting staff.

Sincerely,
J

[JCJR]

While I can sympathize with the sentiments, "Something has to be done about CBS/Rather"...

It is a very bad idea to push for increased FCC regulation power.

"Equal Time" used to be the law, but it was repealed during the Reagan era. If you agitate congress to re-enact "Equal Time", our more authoritarian congress-critters (of both the left and right) will be only too glad to comply!

With "Equal Time", every time Rush Limbaugh gives a ten-minute speil on some pet topic, Rush might have to surrender the mic to somebody like Michael Moore for a ten minute rebuttal. Do you really want this?

Alternately, perhaps any radio station that wants to carry the Neal Boortz show for two hours, would be required to follow-on with two hours from the likes of Jenine Gerafalo? GACK! PLEASE NO!

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We DO NOT need to give the FCC more power over broadcasting content. FCC powers should be reduced. Get the FCC to do something useful, like shutting down idiots who overmodulate their CB radios with 10,000 watt linear amplifiers.

If FCC were to discipline CBS for content violations (aka partisan lies)-- If Hillary gets elected president in 2008, her administration will use this precedent to shut down all your pet political partisans on TV and Radio.

Same goes for FEC. FEC needs to be defanged. Campaign finance laws should be repealed, except reguiring that all partisan organizations fully disclose funding.

If that's too 'anarchic', an alternative would be to remove all restrictions, except that organizations can only use hard money, with the hard money limit boosted to maybe $10,000.

If you successfully use current FEC laws to spank CBS, the next authoritarian Democratic regime will use the FEC to lay waste to right-wing partisan broadcasters.

Republicans ain't gonna stay in power forever.

Regardless of which side yer on, IT IS VERY UNWISE to implement any law or precedent that can be misused by an authoritarian politician 'on the other side'!

[cipher]

I concur with that appraisal, re: the power of the FCC.

What SHOULD be done is file a criminal complaint with the FBI and have Dan Rather arrested for conspiracy (for starters). He is in possession of forged official documents, reporting them to be genuine, and he should be charged.

The FCC is not a law enforcement agency. They are a regulatory body. The regulations they have do not cover this contingency, so they should be completely out of the loop.
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