In September 2024, the Federal Communications Commission cut a deal to rescue Audacy Inc. from bankruptcy. Bypassing decades of protocol and procedure, the FCC accepted a $415 billion offer made by Soros Fund Management.
The “Soros Shortcut” allows Audacy to continue broadcast service to 46 media markets in the U.S. Audacy is the second largest radio content provider in the United States, reaching 165 million American listeners.
Audacy filed for Chapter 11 in January 2024, citing debt of $1.5 million, a decline in advertising revenue and tough competition from streaming services. Sensing weakness, George Soros and partners made an offer the FCC could not refuse.
The audacious play for control of the public radio market was met with sharp resistance by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) published a press release saying the normal process for reviewing a transaction by a foreign entity had been breached. The intent to fast track this takeover was seen by many as a grab to gain control of the political narrative to influence the 2024 national election.
Also in September 2024, the FCC quietly tabled the Biden-Harris scheme to provide internet service to all rural America. The celebrated Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program (BEAD), with $42 billion in funding, vanished under a pile of red tape.
At the time, Elon Musk’s Starlink grant to expand broadband service to 640,000 rural homes and businesses was canceled. This was a blatant act of “digital discrimination” to let the FCC micromanage pricing and control the buildout of services.
Recall it was Starlink that provided the connectivity to thousands of victims stranded in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene. Free.
Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha and America’s favorite investor, is in the process of rescuing SiriusXM from serious debt. Once the wealthiest man in America, active in the communications business, he was attracted to the “management style, the subscription model and the Sirius Sinatra channel.” In addition, “SiriusXM has a monopoly on satellite radio in the U.S. and holds a solid spot in the podcast game,” Buffett told Benzinga News.
The domination of public radio and subscription broadcast services by two of the most liberal philanthropic enterprises revealed the next tactic in the contest for the American mind. Debate raged, pitting “hate speech” against the inalienable right to free speech. But the bidding war between the First Amendment and “content moderation” has been trumped. Beginning January 20, 2025, the Federal Communications Commission will have a new leader. Brendan Carr, one of two Republicans on the five-person commission will take the table and change the stakes.
Carr, a commissioner since 2017, has been the voice of dissent during the Biden administration, calling out the lack of transparency and overreach of the commission. His scrutiny exposed the hypocrisy of the “60 Minutes” Kamala Harris interview and the unlawful television appearance of Harris on “Saturday Night Live” in the final desperate days of the presidential election.
He has effectively become the gatekeeper of the FCC mission to protect the “basic tenet of national communications policy: that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the public’s welfare,” said Eugene Volokh, senior fellow at the Hoover Institute.
Climate spokesman John Kerry recently schooled the titans at the World Economic Forum, saying, “It’s really hard to govern anymore. … People self-select where they go for their news. It’s much harder to build consensus.”
Indeed. The Soros-controlled Global Disinformation Index employs its own special brand of discrimination to identify and disrupt any business model deemed too risky for investment due to the “ever-changing disinformation landscape.” Controversial subjects deemed too unpleasant may be modified before entering the public domain.
For example, a rounding error of 818,000 job losses could go unreported. Or publishing the true number of illegal immigrants entering the U.S. as felons (425,000) could be scrubbed as disinformation. Governing would certainly be easier; consensus attainable.
A Magician’s Choice is a technique used to deceive the unsuspecting patsy into thinking he has successfully selected the right card, not knowing that the deck is stacked against him.
Americans must protect the right to receive a “wide dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources.” The Federal Communications Commission must honor the First Amendment principle of free speech. Americans want their information dealt from the top of the deck, not the bottom.
Connie Lovell lives in Pinehurst.
