Link: Activists Dominate Content Complaints.
The main point of this article, Activists Dominate Content Complaints,
is that 99.8% of all the complaints received by the FCC were generated
by one advocacy group. My favorite part, however, is that the FCC
commissioners claim that the number of complaints received has no
impact on their decision making. Really it’s a matter of law.
Right.
That’s why Michael Powell highlights the dramatic year-to-year
increase in number of complaints, from 14,000 in 2002 to 240,000 in
2003 when testifying before the Senate. (There were fewer than 350 in
2001 or 2000). But really the number of complaints is irrelevant.
How can it have an impact when they only use the complaints to
decide what to investigate. After all if the FCC monitored the airwaves
for violations on their own then they might be accused of censorship.
But, really, it’s not the volume it’s the quality of the complaint that matters.
BTW, this article is a follow up that MediaWeek did after Jeff Jarvis revealed this little beauty.
Befuddled 