Senators demand answers from FCC on media study

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) led a group of senators on Tuesday who requested an explanation of the FCC’s aborted plan to conduct a study on how editorial decisions are made in newsrooms across the country.

The FCC recently called off its Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs, which would have questioned news staff about news judgement, station bias and personal news philosophies.

“It is impossible to imagine a rationale for the commission to consider using the CIN study under any circumstance given its flagrantly unconstitutional implications,” the senators said. “We demand an explanation of how the commission internally justified the CIN study as fulfilling its statutory requirement to report on market barriers to entry, as well as the costs incurred by the commission on this blatantly inappropriate study. We also insist all commissioners be involved in future statutorily required studies in order to guard against the clear potential for abuse.”

The FCC announced on Friday that the CIN study had been called off.

“The commission has now recognized that no study by the federal government, now or in the future, should involve asking questions to media owners, news directors or reporters about their practices,” the FCC said in a statement.

FCC Commissioner Tom Wheeler said the study was initially undertaken to identify and eliminate market entry barriers for entrepreneurs and small businesses within the telecommunications services and information services industries.