The FCC's journalism fiasco

[Commentary] One of the messy things about a free press is that you might not always like what it's reporting. If you're a liberal, Fox News drives you crazy. If you're a conservative, you're not a big fan of MSNBC. If you're an NPR buff, you're appalled when spasms of Biebermania occur elsewhere. OK, so you get upset. Or change the channel. Or click on something else. But the fact that you aren't going to love everything you encounter goes with the territory. Which brings us to the Federal Communications Commission and its misguided plan to stick its unwelcome nose into the newsrooms of America and explore how journalists are doing their jobs.

The FCC decided in its infinite wisdom that it would be a good idea to launch something called a Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs. Fortunately, the FCC, under heavy fire -- particularly in the conservative media and on Capitol Hill -- for this boneheaded, intrusive initiative, is now in full retreat mode. FCC spokeswoman Shannon Gilson ran up the white flag. She said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler "agreed that survey questions in the study directed toward media outlet managers, news directors and reporters overstepped the bounds of what is required." Now he noticed. But that's hardly reassuring. Such an enterprise shouldn't have gotten off the ground. And who knows what would have happened if an FCC commissioner who opposed the study, Ajit Pai, hadn't gone public with a Wall Street Journal op-ed. That's what galvanized the flurry of attention that doomed the ill-advised initiative.