Obama plans to illegally put government bureaucrats inside TV stations and newspaper offices to monitor their activities

Ajit Pai, a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, recently wrote the following in the Wall St. Journal:

Last May the FCC proposed an initiative to thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country. With its “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” or CIN, the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run.

… the FCC’s queries may be hard for the broadcasters to ignore. They would be out of business without an FCC license…

… why does the CIN study include newspapers when the FCC has no authority to regulate print media?

The Washington Examiner recently wrote:

The First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” But under the Obama administration, the Federal Communications Commission is planning to send government contractors into the nation’s newsrooms to determine whether journalists are producing articles, television reports, Internet content, and commentary that meets the public’s “critical information needs.” Those “needs” will be defined by the administration, and news outlets that do not comply with the government’s standards could face an uncertain future. It’s hard to imagine a project more at odds with the First Amendment.

If the FCC goes forward, it’s not clear what will happen to news organizations that fall short of the new government standards. Perhaps they will be disciplined. Or perhaps the very threat of investigating their methods will nudge them into compliance with the administration’s journalistic agenda. What is sure is that it will be a gross violation of constitutional rights.