unity where you have one large corporation controlling the bill the newspaper radio stations television stations the cable outlet can you tell me that that sounds like democracy public opinion versus f.c.c. broadcast blues margy. one stream cascading from mountain slopes to you is miss mancini. but this beauty brings deaths at a speed of more than four hundred kilometers per hour lou new step to launch. is easy. to. see.

looking back at the week's top stories here on our teeth three thirty am in moscow and he's here headlines dozens killed in libya's capital as nato embarks on its most intense bombing raids yet while there's been heavy fighting as rebels were new attacks on the oil support city of zawiya and syria tension is growing as the government continues its severe crackdown on the opposition security forces have retaken the northern town of jews or al shabaab or portably following heavy fighting. in greece anger at the introduction of a new wave of austerity measures are spilling onto the streets of new cuts are those who are to secure a second round of new bailout problems remain as germany and europe. central banks

argue over how to get private investors to contribute. u.s. naval vessel in the black sea sparks outrage from moscow and claims it's a prelude to the planned nato missile defense shield for europe u.s. us monterrey docked in odessa ahead of a joint military exercises in the area. up next a look behind the scenes of the u.s. broadcasting business stay with us here on our. brooks jackson leads the fact check team for the anybody school of communications they revealed misleading political apps coming from republicans and democrats alike just let me show you a few examples. well the obama ad. the fact is that corning plant shut down because it made old fashioned cathode ray tube t.v. two that are being replaced by flat screen technology not john mccain's for. this mccain a it is part of

a pattern. obama is actually proposing is a tax cut for most of us eighty percent probably and a tax increase only for families making over two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year. actually we call this a pattern of misrepresentation a pattern of deceit which is something we don't often say jackson says that checking by news organizations in two thousand and eight has been better than in previous years still t.v. stations are making a lot of money from these t.v. ads we're seeing just unprecedented amounts of cash thrown at political advertising in this election it's always seemed to me that a television station that's making so much money off of these things owes the audience the viewers a responsibility to channel a little bit of that money back into check and whether or not what's being said in those ads is true or not why can't we just ban all political television advertising

because in one thousand nine hundred seventy five the supreme court ruled that money equals speech. not when we caught up with congressman john two little outside his two thousand and six congressional debate with democratic challenger charlie brown what campaigns are just advertising driven advertising is horrendous very expensive. electronic media is ridiculously expensive. the best way that everybody wants to use my point is where to respect the first amendment says congress shall make no law bridging the freedom of speech and the fact of the matter is that part of the meaning of that is that you can control the means of making a speech you have to let people raise the money in order to be able to get their message otherwise you've affectively denied them the freedom of speech. money will you be spending on electronic media in this campaign that is a trade secret it is an open secret that nearly three billion dollars were spent on

campaign ads in the two thousand and eight election and the candidates they spent seventy five percent of their time fund raising. and. we can stop those practices by ensuring the candidates are given free airtime that's a very simple thing. that was done back in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine there was a proposal that the networks provide. their licensees provide five minutes of airtime to candidates that went nowhere any free airtime proposal means less profits for broadcasters profits that according to the f.c.c. top forty six percent.

of the bad we got an emergent devoted to real men we've got to. do you know. we've got to have a good material and i don't know it was six degrees below zero in mind. january eighteenth two thousand to seven canadian pacific train cars derailed at one thirty am creating the worst and i. ammonia spill in history just outside the housing tract. a cloud of deadly gas was moving toward the town. my not police sergeant dave goodman heard the call and went to take a look it looked almost like. something out of the country for film it was just a large cloud and it just appeared to be rolling towards my no. bar . and that once you're part of it. i am going to

go. sergeant goodman needed his gas man to wait but it was at home inside the poisonous cloud hard cold wind of my driveway nine one one emergency where you know i had my swat gear in the garage and it up getting my gas mask. and i got my family out of there. now they were in extreme and. my kids were up for six and eight years old at that time how old is your daughter she's twelve down and my kids are going to be in the background so they were all concerned. and i know my wife has said several times that she was so scared that she was either going to sit there and watch our kids die she camerino care or i thought she was going to die in front of our kids. bad work them try going to neighbors but going outside was the worst thing to do we're all over the

place we don't know where we're going to and mike johnson fled their home and got lost but they got lucky the lundeen family rescued them our eyes and our know is in our throats everything was a burning burning burning nerves in happiness to see. when she only does this find a place sit down by each other and all get to talk tomlin dean guided the families into. his basement no lights no heat no information for you on the radio you're doing. music dispatchers were advising callers to listen to their emergency broadcast station or to report. katie did the radio nine ten g.b. but a full hour after the crash there was still nothing on q.c. j b ok or any other radio station we didn't play out over three hours which radio stations have a radio station for have our ever heard of or how come there's nothing on the radio or the t.v. that should be someone original about it but there is. here is actual footage from

inside the patrol car that night listen carefully you hear the radio playing music . and. there were eight commercial radio stations in my not six of them including. had been bought by one company clear channel they were programmed from twelve hundred miles away the satellite i got the radio on. and just going through it all it found k.c. g.b. who is the station for what at that time for emergency services or anything we heard on the radio was what time it was and the temperature what time it was and the temperature and that just gets old one forty one forty five to fifteen to twenty zero zero it was awful only the time in town that's all we heard over and

over and over and over again. and country music. why not police tested the emergency alert system the week before but it didn't work that night nine one one with your modem three and cops aren't allowed to interrupt regular programming when they need to interruptions cut into advertising revenue only the president can do that. if we if we could have had somebody on that would have said stay in your home. we would have yes we would have our lives would be much much better we have lots of health issues now because we were out in it for twenty two minutes because we didn't know what it was no one could reach the emergency broadcaster by telephone clear channel was consolidating all six of its stations into one building and had cut the line just one broken telephone line meant no one could reach anyone at six different local radio stations that i want to work don't think there's a man down in his driveway a. benefit of meeting him one night when i was just brand spanking new when he was

my first ticket i ever wrote to him and we became good friends after that time and when what is your emergency we are seeking a person who's are accounted for and his name is john gray bigger and no one has heard of him or seen him a good friend of mine died that morning. b. so what did the c.e.o. of clear channel have to say about all this and you're trying to compete to sell your customers products which is our business we're in the business of selling our customers products and through our audience is the advertising that we sell we hope that we do accomplish the end it is our absolute commitment to be a public service conduit to every single market that we're in which we do achieve in every single market that we're in. broadcasters can neglect the public in other ways take the case of intercoms radio station in

sacramento k d n d who sponsored a water drinking contest hold your we to win a nintendo we think some twenty people and turn the contest you know which one do you think you can you can hear it before you have to we. why are we getting like i want during the show any number of people were calling in and saying look this is a dangerous stunt someone could die i'm going to be monitoring all the marketing do you think i'm hungry guy for one hour in time became aware that there is a guy they say releases ordinary people the staff laugh this off take orders anybody is anybody dying in there we've got to go about it i. could make a fairly i think that yes very very the way. please ultimately a young woman mother of three children who she was twenty eight years old i'm not mistaken. consumed about two gallons of water over getting

a value that's about how to get it for you ok you want to lay down what do we. do with water and i hadn't heard the feeling you. know i did this is what it feels like when you're drowning. just hours later jennifer strange died. the family's attorney asked the f.c.c. to take the radio station's license away but two years later the f.c.c. has done nothing with that intercom station instead it has rewarded intercom with fourteen additional station licenses let's look at it to wage either entercom doesn't have the chain of command in which case why are they giving licenses or they did have a chain of command and they approve this again why are we giving these people more radio. why aren't we thinking about pulling some of these licenses away from them.

today most people don't even know we can challenge a station's license not one person in my not did. hurt him along. the route or. not that i'm aware of. not sure exactly what you mean by that but for vice presidential candidate sarah palin was sure knows what it means come january twentieth when i am sworn in as vice president you guys had better knock it off otherwise we'll have to get n.b.c.'s broadcast license revoked let's go to the f.c.c. is website to find out how one does chair with just a few slices. license. challenge. gets us nowhere all right you can surf around the seas website forever but if you don't know the secret word you're never going to find it to secret word is titian if you didn't know. jane a creep in steve wilson spent thousands of dollars on

a washington law firm to challenge w.t.v. tease license for violating the f.c.c. is news distortion policy so we filed a challenge to a license really based on the facts that came out in our case nothing new here we filed back in january of two thousand and five and here we are. many years later the f.c.c. has not ever gotten back to us with anything they've not responded they've not sent us a thanks for sending your complaint we're looking into it e-mail letter nothing zero absolutely nothing and you understand the whole premise that the airwaves are a precious commodity there are very few of them so to get these licenses broadcast licenses for free broadcasters are supposed to act in the public interest it's the deal they make providing that privilege that's their mandate and that's what the f.c.c.

is supposed to be overseen i haven't seen any evidence of it. ok time for a little more information about the f.c.c. five commissioners had the f.c.c. the president chooses three from his own party and two from the opposing party it was president bush who set the agenda through two thousand and eight in two thousand and three bush appointee michael powell tried to consolidate the media even further and wrote rules that matched the times if they got away with what they wanted to do you can involve in a community where you have one large corporation controlling the daily newspaper radio stations television stations the cable outlet in one community. their profits would go through the roof i mean if it's stripped. well you tell me that that sounds like the it didn't look good three of the five members of the republican they were all pretty much on the record before we consider any evidence we want to get rid of these rules of the marching orders but the public found out

and rose up against us we understand we got about three million people to weigh in to the f.c.c. that's almost you know one in every hundred americans i don't even think that many people knew there was in a c.c. the law how to get their information to us but they did they were really concerned about this pauwels f.c.c. approved consolidation anyway i believe we did our job and i believe we did it well but grassroots media reform activists had a surprise for him so when the f.c.c. clearly didn't listen to the american public we knew that it was our time to act and so with the media access project and many other plaintiffs who joined on to our case we told the f.c.c. that we would sue them and we took it all the way to the third district court of appeals in philadelphia. court of appeals in philadelphia reversed the decision and directed it to conduct a do over that duel for the f.c.c.

had to hold more public hearings about consolidation they held six between october two thousand and six and november two thousand and seven as artists spoke about corporate media popular musicians off the air really is the travesty of it is all these fans and all these people that have grown up in these communities listening to those radio stations it's just gone to me that is just the most anti-american thing i've ever heard in my life thank you. it's all over. europe. only. they don't treat you like about the demise of independent producers in hollywood however the days of the. been introduced to taking his or her created this in on a series or movie of the week to completion is a thing of the past but in this democrats and republicans joined in opposition to more consolidated media but a competitor can start a local bank or

a restaurant you just can't go in and start a radio or t.v. station. because the airwaves are finite and not only are they finite. their own not by the seller but by the people but on december eighteenth two thousand and seven dog and republican members of the f.c.c. noted to allow broadcasters and newspapers in the same town to have the same owner allowing cross ownership may help to forestall the erosion and local news coverage by enabling companies to share these local news gathering costs across multiple media platforms today's order amends the thirty two year old absolute ban on newspaper broadcast cross ownership. last time the commission went down this road the majority heard and felt the outrage of millions of citizens. and congress and the court and they're hearing from citizens once again there's a new lawsuit from media's radio and media access project and

a resolution to disapprove the f.c.c. vote by the u.s. senate we have visited this issue previously i think there is too much concentration in the media and the f.c.c. rule moves in exactly the wrong direction adding more concentration preventing more media consolidation is a bipartisan effort i look at this is not of course an issue we have multiple votes on both sides in the commerce committee when this was last discussed so there were people on the republican side on the democratic side it's not for them this is all not so with the fairness doctrine republicans are trying to make sure the f.c.c. can never bring it back so what does your legislation do to the broadcaster freedom act which i'm happy to report is now co-sponsored by every single republican member of the house of representatives and this taping one democrat would simply do this it would take the power away from the federal communications commission to restore the fairness doctrine without an act of congress but there are new battles yet to

be waged time after time and hearing after hearing people complain about licensing there must require at least half of all broadcast licenses in every market to go to a local interest local control doing otherwise violates the public trust you bell and i like to say that broadcasting is a lot like driving it's not a right it's a privilege and if i get caught driving recklessly endangering the public i lose my license doesn't matter if i own twelve hundred cars i. don't have the right to do this on the public airwaves take their licenses it's pending before you right now how many people here would like to see. clear channel lose six licenses for this kind of broadcasting.

cheney returned her turn at the mike at the f.c.c. hearing in tampa w t v t in january of two thousand and five my husband and i challenge the operating license of the fox station right here in tampa we have proven in court the top ranks of management engaged in news distortion resisting had cost us our jobs more than two years later we have yet to receive any response from the f.c.c. on the status of that complaint so why is the f.c.c. ignoring license challenges it's the only tool the public has to hold stations accountable i called the f.c.c. to learn how many petitions to deny licenses they have and also with the last time they revoked any stations license i have been told it since one thousand nine hundred six virtually no licenses have been revoked at all and i'm trying to confirm or deny that the. primary it sue wilson broadcast lose her. i'm fine thank you i'm following up on our conversation and i don't know when it

wasn't a week or so ago in terms of the numbers of petitions to deny i know. somebody is going to have it mary i mean with all due respect the only people who would have it would be the f.c.c. . but it seems to me that they're not taking positions to deny very seriously if that's if they don't even know how many they're getting very good thanks. oh she is not a happy with me at all. but she just keeps saying i've asked the question and we don't have that information and that is. there have been who would and she said if you want to file a freedom of information act act request go right ahead so that's going to be the next step was in her the press and public can use freedom of information act requests to demand information from the government they have twenty business days to respond. in the meantime jane finally got her response from the f.c.c.

as media bureau remember how for a creator when her case the judge told the jury she'd have to prove the station deliberately tried to distorts the news the beauty ricci's and then w t v t said goods i think we are indicated on the finding of this theory the f.c.c. said they were confused whether w.t.v. t. distorted the news and in any case they would not be bound by some state court's decision her petition to deny had been denied any case stand to see. the. commissioner's final broadcast journalist of twenty years currently a film about media issues broadcast lives on july sixteenth of this year i filed a freedom of information act request with your media bureau to find out how many petitions to deny broadcast licenses are currently pending in front of the f.c.c.

i also asked what is the last time any station ever had a license taken away. by law the f.c.c. is to respond to me within twenty two days it has been four months i have heard nothing. to petition is to deny the licenses are the only means that we the people have to hold station accountable to the public interest. if you will not stand up for we the people that i have misread you we the people are standing up for ourselves this is our idea and we are. gonna take it back. we're taking it back in our schools says the president is a key to students for instance. in the lead in schools in the states we're taking it for reporters to see route to news goes

thursday was this morning newspaper there were a t.v. station called by the free incompetent. fighting for the internet before big media control. we're putting up our own low power radio towers. remember the airwaves belong to us if we the people don't take the media back no one will.

see. if you just. make. sure the rights of what. most people. seem to. be. good. for. these are. the ones. to lose. responsibly.

in the. long. says you know i'm right but if you don't. eat. so you must love. this. culture is that so much i was about to fail and those like you know michael for me i'm a real rifle boris yeltsin was he a great man who made history or was he merely a product of his current opinions differ widely don't know when. the for.