FCC CORRUPT TO THE CORE: For many years, the FCC has been completely ignoring public comments — particularly complaints about broadcast bias — so it is ironic they tried to use the public comment process to justify draconian pro-industry acts — using fake comments.

We all knew Ajit Pai was a beneficiary of the “revolving door”, becoming an FCC commissioner to oversee the very industry he worked in (and will work in again in the future where he will be well rewarded.

But most people do not know how Pai took away the rights of the American people by secretly and unilaterally scrapping the Zapple Doctrine, an anti-propaganda statute that guaranteed equal time over publicly-owned airwaves for campaigns during crucial election periods.

When two top-rated terrestrial Milwaukee radio stations WTMJ and WISN were “captured” by pro-Scott Walker partisans during the recall elections of Governor Scott Walker, an activist group called Media Action Center (MAC) set out to measure how much air time was being given to surrogates of Governor Walker versus his opponent Tom Barrett.

SCREW THE PUBLIC INTEREST: After weeks of monitoring, they discovered that the radio stations gave virtually zero air time to Walker’s opponents while talking up Walker all day, every day. This was a violation of the Zapple Doctrine, violating the rights of the people in the area covered by the station to hear opposing views, particularly after requesting air time but being denied.

So a formal complaint was filed. But because the FCC completely ignored all complaints of broadcast bias made through FCC’s complaint process, the only remaining tactic was to file a petition to deny license renewals, which only comes around every eight years. They filed a petition, citing violations of the Zapple Doctrine.

What happened next shows the hubris of Ajit Pai, but also the coordination of right-wing astroturf groups that pervade Wisconsin (the Bradley Foundation, the Mackinac Center, the Franklin Center, etc. who are all front groups for the billionaires such as the Koch brothers).

Ajit Pai initially claimed the complaint was “lost”, officially stating the FCC had never received it. After they were shown proof they had received it and were simply lying, they went silent for a time.

Behind the scenes, Ajit Pai and the FCC were deciding the American people would no longer have the right to request air time to hear opposing viewpoints on the same public airwaves one candidate benefited from. Pai scrapped the Zapple Doctrine, but did so in secret without public comment, without a process of transparency and did not even notify MAC that their complaint was denied and that they had dissolved the statute in question.

Instead, Ajit Pai published a blog post on the right wing blog Redstate.com, gloating that they had dismantled the Zapple Doctrine, one of the last vestiges of the Fairness Doctrine, following attempts by activists to “shut down” or “censor” these radio stations, when they were merely seeking enforcement of equal time provisions.

The FCC would eventually release a letter stating that the stations had a free speech right to broadcast in 100% partisan bias if they felt it was “in the public interest” and claimed the Zapple Doctrine was unenforcable because it was an extension of the Fairness Doctrine which had previously been scrapped by the Reagan Administration, beginning a new age of domestic propaganda in every American city and town.

COWARDS: As Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and their sound-alikes took over the talk radio landscape aided by corporate syndicates like Clear Channel, Sinclair and Fox, it’s sad to see how divided we have become.

The idea of civil public debate has disappeared. Instead of right wingers and left wingers having it out in the open so listeners can choose the better argument, the deck is stacked so listeners never hear the other side. Tokyo Rose laughs from the grave.

If talk radio had on callers or guests to refute lies like “Iraq has WMD”, thousands of lives would have been saved. Today, they are repeating the claim that “tax cuts for the rich create jobs”, without letting callers point out that the 2001 tax cuts failed to do so, only exploding the deficit.

So these are real issues that affect real people, but the corruption of the FCC is making it more and more like George Orwell’s 1984.