Governments love it the public hates it

摘要

It was an especially hot summer in Wash-ington DC for the venerable Federal Corn-munication Commission. The U.S. Senate, in an unusual display of bipartisanship led by the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, moved to reinstate Federal Communications Commission limits on media ownership, which the FCC had lifted only a week earlier. Within weeks of the Senate action, the House Committee on Appropriations joined the Senate in a vote to block the commission's new media rules. Perhaps not surprisingly, in a poll released July 13 by the Pew Research Center for the People and The Press, "opposition (to the decision) has increased sharply" in the last few months, as more Americans have learned about the plan. "Overall, half say the FCC decision would have a negative impact on the country, up from 34 percent in February. Just 10 percent believe the effect of the rules change will be positive, largely unchanged from February."