Long story short: tell our FCC to hold Sinclair accountable for abandoning local news, tell Google and YouTube to enforce their policies against climate change denialism, and tell our USDA to enact the most vigorous school meal nutrition standards possible. Use the email/petition tools in the following paragraphs to communicate your will.
Free Press helps you tell our Federal Communications Commission (or FCC) to hold Sinclair accountable for wiping out local newsrooms. Local news serving the public interest isn’t just a good idea, it’s the law, and it would be hard to see how gutting five local TV station newsrooms and filling the resulting gap with nationally-produced product (which will inevitably reflect the right-wing views of Sinclair’s owners) serves the public interest, let alone follows the law. No use retorting that there are so many news sources out there that local public newsrooms don’t matter, because most news sources chase sensationalism and don’t serve local communities. So let’s remind our FCC of its job here.
The Union of Concerned Scientists helps you tell Google and YouTube to enforce their stated policy against climate change denialism. Yes, they do have policies against that, yet at least 200 videos totaling over 73 million views still remain on YouTube, while Google still places ads with climate change denialist articles, so clearly they have some way to go before they fulfill their promises to us. Used to be editors took care of this sort of thing, not least because of the lawsuits that might result. Think people won’t sue over climate change denialism? They already have! And when more folks find their homes underwater or their loved ones dead from heat exhaustion, there’ll be a lot more lawsuits!
Finally, the Center for Science in the Public Interest helps you tell our U.S. Department of Agriculture (or USDA) to enact stricter school meal nutrition standards. The one accomplishment of Tom Vilsack’s first go-round as USDA Secretary was stronger school meal standards, which Republicans tried to scuttle because haters gonna hate. One can actually be conservative and pro-nutrition at the same time! Anyway, Mr. Vilsack’s second go-round has already improved on his first, since he’s on board with the Biden anti-monopoly program and now has proposed to cap sugar in school meals. The proposed rule could do better on salt and grains, but that’s why we speak out.
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