Transforming The Fourth Estate...

...Into The Fourth Plantation. That's what Team Hopenchange's Federal Trade Commission is actually considering in this working paper.

Not all that many years ago, a small gang of editors and reporters in the dead tree and legacy media, sitting in offices in New York, Washington and Los Angeles, could control the national news cycle and what was distributed as news in this country. Though they claimed uber-objectivity, they decided what was covered (important for you to know), what wasn't covered (wasn't important for you to know), and how it was covered (spun to you). Getting alternative news and information into the mass media without their approval was nigh impossible.

But their monopoly on information ended in 1998, when they sat on the Monica Lewinsky story and a blogger - Matt Drudge - let it out. Not only did it become news, it became news without the approval of those toady editors and reporters. The Age of Internet Information arrived, and those editors and reporters lost not only control over the content of the news, they lost credibility ([cough]Dan Rather[cough] -ed.) and - most importantly for this discussion - readers and revenue.

As you and me voted with our remotes and laptops as to where we got our information, the dead tree and legacy media are have been dying - unable to adapt to the digitized information market (that is, the Internet) and it's highly open and democratic nature (that is, folks like me).

But instead of embracing the change and encouraging trade, it appears Obama's Federal Trade Commission wants to fight change and restrict trade, by using government power and your tax dollars to keep the dead tree and legacy media - who slavishly supported Obama - alive. In other words, since you and I are not buying what the dead tree and legacy media are selling anymore, the government will take your money - what they think you should be spending on the dead tree and legacy media - and give it to such non-partisan sources folks like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS News, etc., etc., to keep them afloat. How many Obama scandals will The Los Angeles Times or the San Francisco Chronicle investigate once their funding source is, well, the Obama administration? Not many.

Here are some things actually under discussion by Obama's Federal Trade Commission. Yes, here in the USA:

Limit news facts, as opposed to an author's articulation of them, to government-approved "stakeholders" via a "hot news doctrine".

Modify the Copyright Laws to restrict or eliminate "fair use", and adopt a licensing of news, with "government’s help and support".

Allow government anti-trust exemptions for dead tree and legacy media outlets.

Create a government-funded journalistic branch of AmeriCorps (We can call it 'PravdaCorps'. - ed.)

Substantially increase funding for Public Broadcasting. (What with the proven success of cable TV, talk radio, and XM/Sirrus, shouldn't we be eliminating Public Broadcasting?? We got a deficit here, people. -ed.)

Create a whole series of taxes and fees for local news, employing journalists, and 'Citizenship News Vouchers' to non-profits, via broadcast taxes, consumer electronics taxes, spectrum taxes, advertising taxes, and (another!) cell-phone tax.

Encourage news organizations to reorganize as non-profits, who will pay no tax.

As a quick history lesson to my Team Hopenchange Reader(s), let me present something us limited-government types call the First Amendment to the Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Making the press a government-funded - and therefore, government-controlled - entity pretty much abridges that Right right out of existence.

And remember, dear readers, on this Memorial Day the price paid for that Right.