live from moscow this is artie's news review of the weekly cavanagh in for knight and first american spring spreads across the country with demonstrators demanding an end to social inequality and corporations abuse of power over the u.s. government is up in arms against the protests despite washington supported revolutions over see. fresh riots erupted in egypt tonight with least twelve killed in clashes between christian demonstrators in the military cairo soldiers and the people started using gunfire to disperse the crowds. and this week the u.s. led war in afghanistan passed a ten year mark with victory over the taliban and pull out of foreign troops still

a long way from reality. and police and demonstrators clash on the streets of athens are free to make them to the country to make cuts or face collapse the greece admitted failing to reduce its deficit to the greek level despite a relentless austerity drive. now says our programs continue on r t the second part of a special reports about who's really riding america's airway. brooks jackson leads the fact check team for the anybody school of communications the revealed misleading political ads coming from republicans and democrats alike just let me show you a few examples. well the obama. 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 it is part of a pattern. obama is actually proposing is a tax cut for most of us eighty percent probably in 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 who are 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 challenge

a little bit of that money back into check and whether or not what's being said in those ads is true and 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 free speech. not when we caught up with congressman john doolittle outside his two thousand and six congressional debate with democratic challenger charlie brown what campaigns are just advertising driven advertising is horrendous very expensive. certainly electronic media is ridiculously expensive and that's the best way that everybody wants to use my point is where and 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 that to mean of that is that you can't control the means of making a speech you have to let people raise the money in order to be able to get their message out otherwise you've affectively denied them the freedom of speech how much

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 for both candidates spent most of their time doing what races. and. where's the money go right. so we can stop those practices ensuring the candidates are given free airtime that's a very simple thing the gore commission that was done back in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine there is a proposal that the networks provide. and the 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.

good minded good bad we've got an emergent devoted to real men we've got a. new yorker a camera on board sir we've got to have a good material and i know it was six degrees below zero in my night or to kota january eighteenth two thousand to seven canadian pacific train kirstie realty at one thirty am creating the worst and. ammonia spill in history just outside the housing tract to the mayo a cloud of deadly gas was moving toward the town. my not police sergeant steve goodman heard the call and went to take a look it looked almost like. something out of a cheap for film it was just a large flower and it just appeared to be rolling towards mine i.

thought. we. are not your market but. i am going to. start goodman needed his gas mask but it was at home inside the poisonous cloud and hold the end of my driveway i wanted her to work no. more here in the garage it up anyway. and i got my family out of the the house now they were in extreme and. my kids. for six and eight years old at that time your daughter twelve ok if they are not my kids are you me in the background so they were all concerned. and i know my wife has said several times that she was scared there she was either going to sit there and watch our kids die she can breathe out there or i thought she was going to die in front of our kids. were going to try going to neighbors but going

outside was the worst thing to do we were all over the president and we were going sue and mike johnson fled their home and got lost but they got lucky and among the family rescued them our eyes and our know was in our throats everything was a burning burning burning near them happy as the seat. on the windshield this is fine if i sit on my each other and all gets untold tomlin dean guided the families in. his basement no lights no heat no information really on the radio you're doing. music dispatchers were advising callers to listen to their emergency broadcast station or sirius or. he did the radio time candy but a full hour after the crash there was still nothing on k c j v ok or any other radio station with that very out over three hours radio station that everything i say since there. is nothing on the radio or the t.v.

yeah should be someone who originally bought it but there isn't. here is actual footage from inside the patrol car that night listen carefully you hear the radio playing music. for. american. here. there were eight commercial radio stations in my not six of them including t.c. g.b. 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 a toy phone case in 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 it's 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 and i wonder what is your emergency why not police tested the emergency alert system the week before but it didn't work that night and i don't want your modem free 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 there 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 and i want to run think there's

a man down in his right way i have the benefit of meeting him one night when i was just brand spanking new when he was my first taker ever wrote to and we became good friends after that i won what is your emergency we are seeking a person who is unaccounted for and his name is john great big or no one has heard of him or seen. a good friend of mine guy 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 customer 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 today 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 the water drinking contest hold your we to win a nintendo we play think some twenty people and for the contest and which one do you think you can you can hear it before you have to we know why are we thinking like. during the show any number of people were calling in and saying look this is a dangerous stunt someone could die of there are people going to drink and all that one thing do you think of her memory by the hour and time again can tell you are aware that they did they say releases to mary sparkle the staff laugh this off they cut or anybody is anybody dying in there. could be safely. ultimately a young woman mother of three children if she was twenty eight years old i'm not

mistaken. consume about two gallons of water. a lot of if you are you ok you will eat out what do we. do with water and i had. a feeling you. know i didn't feel like when you're grounded. just hours later and for 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 intercourse 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 didn't have a chain of command can they approve this but yeah why are we giving these people. radio license 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 you ever hear the words of the roots or. not that i'm aware of i'm not sure exactly what you mean by the. vice presidential candidate sarah palin was sure knows what it means come january twentieth when i am sworn in as vice president you guys have better knock it off otherwise we'll have to get n.b.c.'s broadcast license. let's go to the f.c.c. is website to find out how one does channel or just a sheep license plaisance children. it gets us nowhere great you can surf around the f.c.c. is website forever but if you don't know the secret words you're never going to

find it the secret word is titian so you didn't marry. jane a creep and steve wilson spent thousands of dollars on a washington law firm to challenge w t v p's 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 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 our 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 programming that privilege that's their mandate and that's what the

f.c.c. is supposed to be interesting and i haven't seen any evidence that. 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 end up in a community where you have one large corporation controlling their only newspaper radio stations television stations the cable outlet in one community their profits go through the roof i mean this is stripped down to one newsroom literally competition so you tell me that that sounds like democracy it didn't look good three of the five members this is

a republican they were all pretty much on the record so even before we consider any evidence we want to get rid of these rules that they got in their marching orders but the public found out and rose up against us we understand we got about three million people to weigh into the f.c.c. that's almost you know one of every one hundred americans i don't even think that many people knew there was an a c c a lot how to get their information to us but they did they were really concerned about this not 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 the court of appeals in philadelphia reversed we have since seen this 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 keeping 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 i think it's all. it's all together so it's a business trip. to europe europe. or treasures i mean only. they don't treat you like their lord is one about the demise of independent producers in hollywood however the days have been introduced to taking his or her created these men on a series or movie of the b. to completion is a thing of the past 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 republican members of the f.c.c. voted 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 problems. 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 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 a vision we've got both of the 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 a part of the initial 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 give to the broadcaster freedom act which i'm happy to report is now co-sponsored by every single republican member of the house and purpose and that's and this taping one democrat would simply do this would take the power away from the federal communications

commission and 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 you must require at least half of all broadcast licenses in every market to go to a local or first 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 eye lose my license doesn't matter if i own twelve hundred cars. i. don't have the right to do this on the public airways. take their licenses it's a penny 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 s licensed 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 a cause to search 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 that 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 will send broadcast clues how are you

i'm fine thank you i'm following up on our conversation i don't know when it wasn't a week or so ago in terms of the numbers of petitions to deny. 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 commissions to the library seriously with us they don't even know how many they're getting very crowded thanks. oh she is not a happy with me at all. but she just you say i've asked the question and we don't have that information and that is. they are having who would as you say if you want to file a freedom of information act or act request go right ahead so that's going to be the next step was a girl's 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 query to win her case the judge told the jury she'd have to prove the station deliberately tried for the story the news the beauty ricci's and then w t v t said bedsit i think we are indicated on the finding of this theory the f.c.c. said they were confused whether w t v t distort of the news and in any case they would not be bound by some state court's decision or petition to deny had been denied any to stand to the c c. p. commissioners i'm a broadcast journalist of twenty years currently a film about media issues broadcast lives on july sixth of this year i filed a freedom of information act request with your media hero to find out how many

petitions to deny broadcasting licenses are currently pending in front of the f.c.c. i also asked what is the last night any station ever has 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. the petition is denied licenses are the only things that we the people have to hold stations accountable to the public interest. if you will not stand up for we the people then i have news for you we the people are standing up for ourselves this is our year and we are. gonna take it back. we're taking it back in our schools to the prison it was a young kid just using the school sends. a signal at

the seams of the sleeves we're taking it back for reporters if there's nothing you see rule clues goes thursday was just more newspaper and we're a t.v. series has always been a free country and if. you're fighting for the internet before being mediocre his whole life. we're putting up our own radio towers. remember that the airwaves belong to us and we the people don't take the media back no one will. really.

see. if you just. sit. still. and. most people. seem to. go. for. broke. these are the be able. to go on the guy. just a little bump

a redundancy. in most countries have a lot. to see you have the rights but if you don't watch ever leave you may have to put up a fuss. so you must watch jet blue. you're going to.

be a little.