Propaganda Broadcasting & Ted Cruz

[David]

This is a follow-up post to the thread CA originally posted in April. The FCC has ordered XEWW to cease Chinese government owned programming on the station within 48 hours. IMO, this is just a variation on China Radio International programming airing on KDYL and other U.S. AM stations for several years, so I'm not sure why the FCC is getting involved when they allowed James Su/G&E Studio Inc. to air CRI programming in the states.

radioinsight.com/headlines/189378/fcc-orders-xeww-to-cease-chinese-government-owned-programming-within-48-hours/

[CAwasinNJ]

There are several different things going on here. First, the FCC did not order XEWW to stop the Chinese programming. They have no authority over a foreign licensed station. (Lance Venta knows better and I'm very disappointed that he allowed that headline to go out.) What the FCC did was to reject permission for the broadcaster to maintain the studio in the US that is/was feeding the station. I can't pull up the actual application, but from the press release the studio to transmitter link (STL) is a radio signal. That's the broadcast that needs to cease.

The next thing is why the application was rejected. At this point it's a simple procedural issue. One of the key participants who was required to be included in the filing wasn't and so the application was dismissed without prejudice, which means they are free to submit a new application including everything that is required and then a decision on the new application will be made. I have to think that the new application would also include a new Special Temporary Authority request. There's also nothing from the US side preventing at least some of the programming from continuing as long as it originates south of the border.

The comparisons between this case and the James Su stations is really apples and oranges. The circumstances and the reasoning are completely different. There's another issue too. The FCC today absolutely positively does not get involved in station programming decisions to spite Ted Cruz's efforts to try to change that in a very limited way. There's a lot more foreign propaganda floating around on US-licenced stations than just CRI, and that doesn't even take into account home grown propaganda like talk stations.


I'd also like to issue a correction to something I posted in the first thread on the subject. Apparently the studio to foreign station law doesn't have a limitation on how the programming is delivered, so using the internet or the 'Wolfman Jack tapes on XERB' trick seems to be not legal. I'm not sure how or if such a law is legal, but that's what it says.