Pulling Fox News from the Cable System
The NY Times reports that members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter on Monday to Comcast, AT&T, Spectrum, Dish, Verizon, Cox and Altice, asking about their role in “the spread of dangerous misinformation.”
It appears that members of the House are taking aim at right-wing outlets like Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN.
“To our knowledge, the cable, satellite and over-the-top companies that disseminate these media outlets to American viewers have done nothing in response to the misinformation aired by these outlets,” two Democratic representatives from California, Anna G. Eshoo and Jerry McNerney, wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by The New York Times.
“Are you planning to continue carrying Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax on your platform both now and beyond the renewal date?” the letter continues. “If so, why?”
But, what should also be pointed out is Comcast owns MSNBC and AT&T owns CNN.
Fox News denounced the congressional effort. “For individual members of Congress to highlight political speech they do not like and demand cable distributors engage in viewpoint discrimination sets a terrible precedent,” the network said in a statement.
I’m not sure politicians should be deciding on what is, or is not acceptable programming to them.
How about working more on making it so we the consumer can order up just the channels we want on cable and not let those companies shove 50 channels we don’t care to watch into our package deal?
Just saying…