USA takes another step towards banana republic status

Per Mediaite (I'd link to the Wall Street Journal piece but it's behind a paywall) the FCC wants to put monitors in the newsroom to study these issues:

• What is the news philosophy of the station?
• How do you define critical information that the community needs?
• Who decides which stories are covered?
• Have you ever suggested coverage of what you consider a story with critical information for your customers (viewers, listeners, readers) that was rejected by management

All of these questions lead to a single question from me: What the hell?

I'm sure the idea, as proposed on paper, is to gather important information for a great study that will cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and will hopefully be put in a file cabinet a la Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Or not.

For broadcast media, an FCC license is life. Losing it is a death sentence.

So what happens if the government decides it doesn't like who decides the content of stories or what the content is?

Paranoia?

Ask the conservatives audited by the IRS.

We are witnessing the weaponizing of the federal bureaucracy. Citizens in Ukraine are rising up against that.

What are we doing?