Mark Lloyd
Mark Lloyd, Chief Diversity Officer at the FCC, worked before that with the Center for American
Progress focused on "communications policy issues, including universal service,
advanced telecommunications deployment, media concentration and diversity." (from
the Mark Lloyd bio on Netcaucus.org)
On their face, we're unsure what most of these focuses actually mean in practical terms.
But in Mark Lloyd's 2006 book Prologue to a Farce: Communication and Democracy in America, Mark Lloyd puts
his philosophy in these terms:
It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the
press. . . . This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. . . . At the very least,
blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the
critical examination of other communications policies.
Perhaps this rings most true in a report Mark Lloyd co-authored in 2007 for the Center For
American Progress called "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio"
(read the report co-authored by Mark Lloyd).
In the report Mark Lloyd reaches the conclusion that neither the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine nor market demand
adequately explain the dominance of conservative talk radio. Rather, Mark Lloyd wrote that the issue lies with the
structure of government content regulation, as described here:
Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is
the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly
the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination
of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of
ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management.
This analysis suggests that any effort to encourage more responsive and balanced
radio programming will first require steps to increase localism and diversify radio
station ownership to better meet local and community needs. We suggest three
ways to accomplish this:
- Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations.
- Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing.
- Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest
obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.
Mark Lloyd's views on how his agenda dovetails (or doesn't) with the First Amendment are
clear. It's difficult to believe that Mark Lloyd's role in the FCC will be anything other
than to move this agenda forward -- namely, to override market demand and, through
the guise of "localism", to control broadcast content by pushing burdensome
regulations and disproportionate fees for undesirable content. It appears to be a
direct attack on free-market talk radio.
We'll also point out that Glenn Beck, on his Fox News program, featured video
(watch Mark Lloyd praise Castro and Chavez)
of a talk Mark Lloyd gave in 2008 referring to the Hugo Chavez crackdown and takeover in
Venezuela as "an incredible revolution -- a democratic revolution." A democratic revolution?
Bottom line: Mark Lloyd is tooled to enact oppression of free speech to support his own
views supportive of and/or sympathetic to anti-capitalism and communism. Mark Lloyd works directly for
the President.
Click here to see all Obama czars, Obama appointments, and Obama associates
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Coming This Week:
The basic principles for which we stand -- can you disagree?
The people surrounding the Congress
Central government as a necessary evil ...our view
The history of the federal income tax
Why slippery slope theory is REAL
Our read of the Constitution
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