Sen. John Kerry has launched a petition drive asking that the General Accounting Office investigate the Pentagon's role in producing retired military experts to spread favorable press coverage of the Bush administration's prosecution of the Iraq war.

The major TV news outlets have done little if any coverage of this story - which broke two weeks ago - either out of embarrassment or self-preservation. Under federal law, it is illegal for the government to spread propaganda within the borders of the U.S.

Today in Congress, the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet held a hearing on HR 5353, the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act". This is the bill that would make Net Neutrality the law in America.

Network Neutrality -- or "Net Neutrality" for short -- is the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet.

Put simply, Net Neutrality means no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.

Net Neutrality is the reason why the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online. It protects the consumer's right to use any equipment, content, application or service on a non-discriminatory basis without interference from the network provider. With Net Neutrality, the network's only job is to move data -- not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.

A propaganda program run by the Bush administration we reported on last week has been "suspended" by the Pentagon according to news reports out now.

This program was (is) an abuse of our trust in the media, as these military analysts were presented as "unbiased experts" when in fact they were mouthpieces for the administration. The administration abused their control of military contracts to ensure that these analysts would say what they wanted to say.

While it is good that the Pentagon has suspended the program. That doesn't help the fact that this program helped build support for the Iraq War. And given the impact of that on all of our lives, it means there is still justification for Congress to investigate whether laws were broken by this flimflammery.

The New York Times yesterday published an expose' of how the Bush administration manipulated the trust America has in the media and the trust the media has in its analysts.

What this investigation shows is the following:

*    The Pentagon and Donald Rumsfeld recruited former military officials to be their mouthpieces in the media but under the guise of being independent experts;
*    These military analysts were fed talking points by the administration but were not to reveal their relationship with the administration;
*    Many of these analysts were involved with securing military contracts for themselves or others, and benefitted from the increased access - and conversely were intimidated into not straying from the talking points for fear of losing contracts;
*    The development of this propaganda machine began before 9/11 and was utilized to generate support for attacking Iraq and is now being used to make Iran the new boogieman;
*    Former Attorney General Gonzales also used the propaganda machine to justify the use of warrantless wiretapping.

This story is breaking and we expect many more details to emerge. But there are several points to be made here. First, it was wrong for the administration to use the carrot and stick of military contracts to deceive the American public. Second, it was wrong for the administration to betray the trust of the American public by trotting out spokespeople under the guise of being independent. And third, it was wrong for the news networks to not look into the conflicts of interest of their supposed independent analysts.

We encourage Congress to investigate this matter further so the public can understand exactly what happened here. If it is shown that the administration tied government contracts to political support in a public forum, heads should roll.

On Saturday, March 29th, about 150 Californians came together on a beautiful sunny day in Pasadena to discuss how the media impacts their community.

The event was called Media, Democracy and Justice - A Southern California Regional Summit and featured a couple dozen expert speakers and panelists. There was discussion about how journalists are impacted by media consolidation, how communities of color lose their voice in our corporate media system, how the loss of net neutrality would hurt our democracy and many other subjects.

There was also considerable discussion about improve the state of the media and take it into our own hands by such means as Low Power FM radio, supporting alternative press, taking advantage of social networking systems, and coming together to create a media justice movement.

The best thing to come out of the day was that there was a clear sense that people want to stay involved and continue the fight for improving the media. Common Cause will make sure people will stay connected and have a forum in which to work together.

Some photos of the event are available online here.

Many thanks to all who attended, sponsored, and participated in the event!

Tomorrow (Wednesday, April 2nd) the Senate Commerce Committee is expected to vote on the "Resolution of Disapproval" that North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan introduced last month (Senate Joint Resolution 28). With 19 bipartisan co-sponsors, including Alaska's Sen. Ted Stevens, the vice chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, the resolution has a good chance of passing.

Our friends at Free Press have summarized the current situation over on their blog.

We urge you to take action today to let your legislators know they should support this measure to prevent further consolidation of the media.

Please take action today at www.commoncause.org/LetsDoSomething.

Yesterday, the Department of Justice gave their approval for Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.'s proposed $5 billion buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., saying the deal was unlikely to lessen competition or harm consumers.

The transaction was approved without conditions.

We strenuously object to the proposed merger between XM and Sirius satellite radio. Approval of this merger would not only create an unfair monopoly, but could also spark a tidal wave of consolidation among media companies that would leave citizens' informational needs behind. Common Cause, and its 300,000 members and supporters, urges the FCC to put a halt to this merger or at the very least establish conditions to protect consumers now that the Justice Department has dropped the ball.

XM and Sirius received licenses to use the publicly-owned airwaves on the condition that the two companies would not merge. The FCC was presumably concerned then about the hazards of a monopoly in satellite radio service. That concern should be even greater today in the face of increased media consolidation in television, radio and newspapers.

The FCC must ask hard questions - and demand comprehensive answers - as to why the only two national satellite radio companies should be allowed to become one. This merger is about more than what price consumers will be charged for satellite radio, although that is an area that should be examined.

XM and Sirius must also explain how this merger will serve the public interest.

Will there be more diversity and more viewpoints aired?

Will programming that serves the educational and informational needs of both children and adults be promoted?

Will channels be set aside for public service?

Can citizens trust any promises of public interest programming made by the merged companies, given that XM and Sirius have broken other promises to consumers, such as development of interoperable radios?

Speak out at http://www.commoncause.org/StopXMSiriusMerger

Professors at Penn State (my alma mater) have just released a new study showing that the FCC's public hearings on media ownership over the last two years were pretty much just a dog and pony show to make it look like they were listening to the public.

Jonathan Obar and Amit Schejter at Penn State's Institute for Information Policy published this report and point out that "the FCC's actions suggest that they had little interest in what the public had to say. This indifference towards the public's input was made evident not only in the way the events were run, but also by the fact that references to public opinion were almost non-existent in the documentation of the final decision."

Common Cause published a white paper in December co-authored by Gregory Rose and Harold Feld that made recommendations about how to improve processes at the FCC so that the public would actually be heard. This new report by Obar and Schejter is complimentary to our report.

You can read more about the Penn State Report at Free Press's blog.