CMA Petition To Deny Against 9 Chicago TV Stations Rejected. Again.

Posted by Mitchell - July 14, 2008 (entry 604)

The word came down yesterday -- exactly one year to the day after an appeal was filed, that the FCC to little surprise formally rejected the petitions to deny of Chicago Media Action and the Milwaukee Public Interest Media Coalition.

Mind you, this is not the first time this petition was rejected. But rejection is based on the notoriously flimsy moving target "bad faith" -- "The petitions have no provided evidence that the named licensees exercised their editorial discretion in bad faith." -- without any way to standardize what "bad faith" is. This is, and has been, part of the problem: there's no operational standard to judge legitimate claims to violate the public interest. Without it, the status quo, which wasn't popularly created to begin with, maintains its institutional advantage. This echoes some calls CMA has made in the past, and will make in the future.

Speaking of the future, we're weighing our options in light of this and will figure out next steps. We're also working on a formal statement to be released shortly. The formal statement is now available here.

Press Coverage: Benton Foundation | Ars Technica | Chicago Sun-Times | StopBigMedia.com | Digg.com | Broadcast Engineering

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed on this website are those of the individual members of Chicago Media Action who authored them, and not necessarily those of the entire membership of Chicago Media Action, nor of Chicago Media Action as an organization.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.