FCC Complaints for Broadcasters

[WRQS621]

I found this on the FCC website. I have witnessed these violations by local broadcasters for years. I overheard on a UHF operation channel on Friday (WTVD) that would qualify as a compliant according to the guidelines below. Why aren't more complaints issued and acted upon by the FCC?

"The Commission's prohibition against the broadcast of hoaxes is set forth at Section 73.1217 of the Commission's rules, 47 C.F.R. § 73.1217. This rule prohibits broadcast licensees or permittees from broadcasting false information concerning a crime or a catastrophe if: (1) the licensee knows this information is false; (2) it is foreseeable that broadcast of the information will cause substantial public harm; and (3) broadcast of the information does in fact directly cause substantial public harm. Any programming accompanied by a disclaimer will be presumed not to pose foreseeable harm if the disclaimer clearly characterizes the program as a fiction and is presented in a way that is reasonable under the circumstances. For purposes of this rule, ``public harm'' must begin immediately, and cause direct and actual damage to property or to the health or safety of the general public, or diversion of law enforcement or other public health and safety authorities from their duties."

 

[reconrider8]

most of it is money talks and bs walks and or people just dont know

 

[GamecockSJ]

WTVD‘s TV signal is on VHF, so I assume you’re talking about a LMR channel for which they are licensed. LMR use is not “broadcasting” and the rule you listed doesn’t apply.

 

[WRQS621]

WTVD‘s TV signal is on VHF, so I assume you’re talking about a LMR channel for which they are licensed. LMR use is not “broadcasting” and the rule you listed doesn’t apply.

What I heard was concerning getting shots of a crowd protesting. The producer I assume was talking and coaching the photographer to get shots and talk to folks to “make the crowd look bigger”. I remember the damage downtown and the businesses that suffered due to the Antifa/BLM riots. I didn’t think this was a very responsible thing for a local TV station to be encouraging protesters. Friday protests were thankfully peaceful. We live in a world where it doesn’t take much for both sides to get violent.

 

[ecps92]

Each and Every media outlet puts their own spin on a story. Not many Report anymore
Ensuring a Camera angle is right, to capture the image they want to portray.

What I heard was concerning getting shots of a crowd protesting. The producer I assume was talking and coaching the photographer to get shots and talk to folks to “make the crowd look bigger”. I remember the damage downtown and the businesses that suffered due to the Antifa/BLM riots. I didn’t think this was a very responsible thing for a local TV station to be encouraging protesters. Friday protests were thankfully peaceful. We live in a world where it doesn’t take much for both sides to get violent.

 

[dlwtrunked]

What I heard was concerning getting shots of a crowd protesting. The producer I assume was talking and coaching the photographer to get shots and talk to folks to “make the crowd look bigger”. I remember the damage downtown and the businesses that suffered due to the Antifa/BLM riots. I didn’t think this was a very responsible thing for a local TV station to be encouraging protesters. Friday protests were thankfully peaceful. We live in a world where it doesn’t take much for both sides to get violent.

“make the crowd look bigger” may mean bigger than they last shot which may have made it look it smaller than it was. The FCC would rightfully ignore the complaint. Encouraging protestors? If a national network does that, why is it wrong for a local TV station to do that? (And from what you said, it does not look like they did.)

 

[ecps92]

but then why are you monitoring a 450/455 channel that is protected from you monitoring via the ECPA

Tongue firmly implanted

I found this on the FCC website. I have witnessed these violations by local broadcasters for years. I overheard on a UHF operation channel on Friday (WTVD) that would qualify as a compliant according to the guidelines below. Why aren't more complaints issued and acted upon by the FCC?

"The Commission's prohibition against the broadcast of hoaxes is set forth at Section 73.1217 of the Commission's rules, 47 C.F.R. § 73.1217. This rule prohibits broadcast licensees or permittees from broadcasting false information concerning a crime or a catastrophe if: (1) the licensee knows this information is false; (2) it is foreseeable that broadcast of the information will cause substantial public harm; and (3) broadcast of the information does in fact directly cause substantial public harm. Any programming accompanied by a disclaimer will be presumed not to pose foreseeable harm if the disclaimer clearly characterizes the program as a fiction and is presented in a way that is reasonable under the circumstances. For purposes of this rule, ``public harm'' must begin immediately, and cause direct and actual damage to property or to the health or safety of the general public, or diversion of law enforcement or other public health and safety authorities from their duties."

 

[Omega-TI]

I found this on the FCC website. I have witnessed these violations by local broadcasters for years. I overheard on a UHF operation channel on Friday (WTVD) that would qualify as a compliant according to the guidelines below. Why aren't more complaints issued and acted upon by the FCC?

"The Commission's prohibition against the broadcast of hoaxes is set forth at Section 73.1217 of the Commission's rules, 47 C.F.R. § 73.1217. This rule prohibits broadcast licensees or permittees from broadcasting false information concerning a crime or a catastrophe if: (1) the licensee knows this information is false; (2) it is foreseeable that broadcast of the information will cause substantial public harm; and (3) broadcast of the information does in fact directly cause substantial public harm. Any programming accompanied by a disclaimer will be presumed not to pose foreseeable harm if the disclaimer clearly characterizes the program as a fiction and is presented in a way that is reasonable under the circumstances. For purposes of this rule, ``public harm'' must begin immediately, and cause direct and actual damage to property or to the health or safety of the general public, or diversion of law enforcement or other public health and safety authorities from their duties."

I heard it was this broadcast of War of the Worlds that originally got people all riled up about hoaxes on the radio,even though it wasn't a hoax, but a dramatization. Apparently those tuning in late missed the part about it being an audio play, and now there needs to be reminders every 10 minutes IIRC.

 

[a417]

I heard

Not a rumor, well researched phenomenon.

 

[WRQS621]

To the trolls above: Why do you listen to scanners? Locution tones? Riveting NOAA radio broadcasts? I bet if your local Police went DE you would be the first to complain. Imagine the outrage on this forum if Railroads went Zello. Imagine the horror when you find out a paperclip is a better antenna than your high dollar Remtronix. I remember the outrage when Walmart and Target went digital. How your thoughts about the superhet and SDR debate regrading simulcast distortion (easily fixed by using that ATT button). Or how about how using a 9:1 Unun and a rain gutter is a pretty damn good HF antenna after you spent thousands on beam.

We do this hobby to learn about our world by listening to invisible waves. I shared something cause I believe integrity in broadcast TV and radio is a valuable resource for our country. Sorry to offend.

 

[Omega-TI]

I wouldn't worry too much about offending anyone, there is always someone out there who will take offense to anything, or use it as an opportunity to exploit for personal jollies. If everyone stopped posting messages out of fear of offending someone, this place would be awfully quiet.

 

[AJAT]

The Commission's prohibition against the broadcast of hoaxes is set forth at Section 73.1217 of the Commission's rules, 47 C.F.R. § 73.1217. This rule prohibits broadcast licensees or permittees from broadcasting false information concerning a crime or a catastrophe if:

If this was enforced it would be an end to all “news” broadcasts. Journalism if full of hoaxes.

 

[mkewman]

Hi. I work in TV news. Without hearing what you heard, it lacks quite a bit of context. Did you pull the recording from your scanner?

It appears you're talking about this report: Abortion rights supporters lead protest in Cary
That package seems to show a pretty medium size protest, not quite sure how someone can "make it look bigger."

As someone who has worked in TV news and has covered protests, It's pretty hard to make a small protest look "big." Secondly, as someone who has covered protests, crews don't have time to find fancy angles at a protest to do any sort of stylization of how it looks. They can maybe make sure there's no shadow on the subject's face they're shooting, and maybe get a white balance, and that's it. There's just no time. Often, producers will ask crews to zoom out to show scale, but that doesn't do anything to make it look "bigger." Besides, there are other ways of communicating with a field crew other than a Remote Pickup frequency. It would be really stupid to fabricate something over public airwaves that stations and producers are aware people can hear, especially the competition. Boy, wouldn't it be a fantastic promo for WRAL to run with that audio if ABC11 was fabricating stories?

It's like hearing "get him!" on a police scanner. Is that officer saying "kill him? shoot him? cuff him? detain him? stop and talk to them for a moment?" There's probably no sinister plot. I'm not saying you didn't hear what you heard, I'm just saying it lacks context, and that phrase is often used in television and it means a lot of different things, but one thing it doesn't mean is "make stuff up."

Secondly, TV news folks work very hard to cover the news as accurately and fairly as possible. People who sensationalize and make things up to get eyeballs or clicked are usually drummed out of the industry pretty quickly. There's no real benefit to making things up.

There are a lot of people who hear things or read things like this and instantly make a judgment about what TV news is all about. I encourage you to take a tour of your local TV station and find out how news is made and see it with your own eyeballs. I assure you, it's much more different in reality. Look, I'm not saying that every station and every reporter is different, sure there are some bad apples, I've worked with a couple of 'em, but there's no conspiracy afoot. But despite this, we receive death threats, bomb threats and threats of physical violence on a daily basis. In 2016, we had to have 24hr security guards, gates, and fencing put up that we never had to put up before because of political rhetoric that weaponized what we do. We're just everyday people who go to work, try to cover what's going on in our communities, and then we go home. It's completely different than cable "news", where opinion reins over facts.

 

[Omega-TI]

I remember when I was much younger and Mt. St. Helens went off, all the footage on the national news showed houses floating down the river and crashing into bridges, tons of logs floating down the river and piling up in Kelso, but if they had just turned the camera angle 20 degrees away from the river bank everything looked completely NORMAL. With all the footage they showed, one would think Southwest Washington turned into a moonscape or something, when in all reality most of the damage remained near the mountain itself and half-way down the Toutle river.

Sure, we had a few days of ash, but even then after a week or two most of it was gone, except for the stuff the dregers were pulling out of the river months after the fact. About the only major thing I had to worry about was the wind direction, because if you went flying that stuff could really mess up your engine.

The cool thing was all that ash they took from the Cowlitz river made great landfill material, much of which ended up being used for a golf course and what the Three Rivers Mall now sits on.

 

[spacellamaman]

Imagine the horror when you find out a paperclip is a better antenna than your high dollar Remtronix.

Boy, lemme tell you what, that one still burns my arse.