Charlotte Front and Center

Control: Obama and the New Internet Czar

According to the Washington Post, Obama signed off on a new position last Friday that is for now being referred to as an Internet Czar.  Actually, the White House is still defining the job description, but cybersecurity with a "broad mandate" seems to be the prevailing top information known at the moment about the new job.

During Obama's campaign,he promised to appoint a cybersecurity adviser who would report directly to him.  Since that time, Obama appointed Melissa Hathaway,an interim cybersecurity adviser at the White House,to head a commission to investigate the position. In Hathaway's report she makes this statement about the position: The report suggests that although it is a key government responsibility to help secure private-sector networks, regulation should be the last resort...

It seems that lawmakers continually attempt to carry in a little bit more through the backdoor of what seems to be minimal legislation in regard to the internet.  According to the State Surge there is legislation we should keep an eye on:pending legislation that also should be tracked includes H.R.4279 and S.522. The first seeks to create an IP Dictator at the Department of Justice while the latter aims to further increase intellectual property rights enforcement.

The internet is the town square for Americans. It brings serious issues,but the biggest headaches are for those who wish to control it. It is magnanimous and evolving, so much so that it threatens the old establishments of newspapers,the music industry,and any industry that feels as though it has lost the control it had.  Yet, new legislation will not bring back the past, it will only hamper communication and the free market that exists via the internet.

Pelosi Wants Bail Out for Newspapers

We knew this one was coming. Since newspapers and "freedom of the press" have been so closely aligned from the beginning of our nation, it is important that newspapers are never beholding to the government. Newpapers were the traditional watchdogs of our government, and it would be a perfect case of putting "the fox in charge of the hen house".

Considering the media bias that exists today, a bail out would only reinforce the liberal allegiance of most papers to the far left side of the democratic party.

According to MSNBC, Hearst said the Chronicle has not made money since 2001. Like so many other papers, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, quit printing its hardline copy and is now to only be found online.

So now we have Nancy Pelosi petitioning Atty.General, Eric Holder, to consider the failing "San Francisco Chronicle" when reviewing requests for mergers and takeovers.

Let the free market rally the newspapers.  If a quality paper writes real news, and leaves it biased slant in its opinion section, then readers may respond by buying them again.  This of course is based on the idea that people will still read a hard copy of anything if it is of quality.

According to WOW the Justice Department said 'it would consider her plea in due time', but it looks like time is running out.

UPDATE: Bail Out The MSM! Pleas Making Way To Obama

UPDATE: Gee, the MSM has done so much for Obama. Shouldn't the upcoming President give them a share of our taxpaying dollars as well?  How could we make it without their biased reporting?  We would have nothing to complain about. Yet, I don't think the MSM could be any more slanted than if the government were to own the media.  Pay Attention!  This is our biggest threat to democracy, and so far, Obama expresses some interest in doing so. Imagine, we could have the NYT cloned for every city in America....TRedwine

From Fox News Forum, James P. Pinkerton

Bailout the MSM? Why Not? Everyone Else Is Getting Some

“Government aid could save U.S. newspapers, spark debate”–that was the Reuters headline featured atop the always-must-read Drudge Report on Wednesday night. Now that Uncle Sam has chosen to bail out so much of the economy–estimates of total federal commitments run as high as $8.5 trillion–some Main Stream Media types must be thinking how unfair it is for them to be left off the federal gravy train in 2009, especially since the MSM has been so good to Barack Obama, favoring him by an 8:1 ratio,according to the public’s estimation.

Why shouldn’t the media get a bailout, too?

So this Reuters article could be seen as either a valid news story or as a bit of special pleading–your choice. The piece, by reporter Robert MacMillan, focused on the efforts by some state legislators in Connecticut to prop up their local newspapers which are otherwise facing extinction.....continued

NO, NO: To Bailing Out Newspapers!

 "No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions." --Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804. ME 11:33

We already see the dangers of a large media that is influenced by one political view. It would be disastrous for the government to get involved with any newspaper.  

The argument for government bail out in regard to newspapers is this: no democracy can remain healthy unless it has a strong and prosperous press.  But let's look at this way that no newspaper is healthy and prosperous if it needs the government beauracracy to survive. Whatever demands the American consumer has for news will demand a market, and it will survive or something better will take its place.  Americans have always looked to the press to provide facts so that we could make our decisions based on them.  If the public no longer trusts a newspaper, or it doesn't meet its needs; it shouldn't survive.

The biggest threat to American freedom is the government controlling the media...TRedwine

READ MORE

2009: The Year of the Newspaper Bailout?

By Tom Blumer (Bio | Archive)
January 1, 2009 - 20:04 ET

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Michelle Malkin called it, as did several NewsBusters commenters. Their prediction was that newspapers on the brink would be asking for government bailouts.

It came to pass in late November that seven Connecticut legislators asked the state's Department of Economic and Community Development for help in keeping the New Britain Herald and the Bristol Press afloat. A JPEG of the full letter with three of the seven signatures is here. Alleged GOP Governor Jodi Rell is apparently sympathetic.

A Wednesday "analysis" piece by Robert MacMillan of Reuters reports that the state agency is indeed "offering tax breaks, training funds, financing opportunities and other incentives for publishers, but not cash." continue on at Newsbusters