For once, media activists are not the only ones paying attention to the FCC! Led by conservative talk show host Glenn Beck, rightwing media personalities have been drumming up controversy about new FCC Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd. Their fabricated claims about Lloyd’s policy positions—spurred by a genuine fear that a diverse and locally accountable media system would cut into their profits—demonstrate why media reform is such a critical fight.

In the wake of their success in ousting Van Jones from his position as green jobs advisor, Beck and his minions have targeted Mark Lloyd as the next progressive black leader to take down, falsely calling him a diversity “czar” and making outrageous accusations about his policies. Although we at the Prometheus Radio Project are always happy to see more public engagement with the agency that regulates our media, we’ve been disappointed in the quality of the debate on Mark Lloyd. Debate, in fact, is overstating it.

Rightwing radio hosts Michael Savage and Glenn Beck have sunk to McCarthyism, calling Lloyd a communist, a Marxist, and “the new KGB.” Savage goes beyond this when he calls Lloyd a “neo-Nazi,” and dehumanizes him as “vermin” and “a piece of garbage.” Hate speech on Glenn Beck and other conservative talk shows is nothing new, but these attacks aren’t simply racist. (Although that’s part of the story.)

The attacks are a coordinated assault on the principles of localism and diversity, organized by the rightwing Media Research Center’s Orwellian “Free Speech Alliance.”  Members include media giants like Clear Channel and the National Religious Broadcasters along with a slew of anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-choice, and anti-Muslim groups. Their “save talk radio” campaign mobilizes “social conservative” grassroots to fight for the economic interests of the country’s largest broadcasters.

To rally the radical rightwingers, Beck, Limbaugh, and Savage are propagating a ludicrous Media Research Center claim that Lloyd supports a $250 million fine on commercial broadcasters, equal to 100% of their operating budgets, that would go to fund NPR.

The claim is a distorted reference to a 2007 report that Lloyd co-authored, "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio." Published by Free Press and the Center for American Progress, the report recommends that commercial broadcasters who do not meet their public interest obligations (suggested obligations include local public affairs broadcasting and more public oversight of license renewals) pay a fine—not 100%, but 1% (in medium markets) or 5% (in large markets) of their budget. The fine would be earmarked for local public affairs programming on public broadcasting. In other words, if you don’t want to cover locally relevant issues and or be accountable to community feedback on your own airtime, you can pay someone else to do it for you. The $250 million figure that Beck cites is the total sum that this fee could net nationwide, not the fee itself.

Mark Lloyd’s position at the FCC will not relate to media ownership anyway, and the diversity and localism under attack aren’t Obama-era inventions; they have been part of the FCC’s mandate since its inception in 1934. And while he’s no czar, Mark Lloyd brings an impressive background in telecom policy to the job, including positions at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Georgetown, MIT, and the Benton Foundation, and a career as an Emmy award-winning journalist. More than 50 civil rights and public interest organizations have expressed their support for Mark Lloyd and his work.

Unfortunately, it’s not just Minutemen and media moguls who are joining the witch hunt. Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) used a September 18 Congressional oversight hearing to go after Lloyd by questioning his bosses at the FCC. Although Chairman Genokowski and Commissioner Copps defended Lloyd’s character and qualifications, Commissioner McDowell said he shared concerns about Lloyd’s writings and promised to be “very vigilant” against the supposed threat he represents.

A diverse and locally accountable media isn’t a threat to free speech. But it would threaten the profit margins of the small group of broadcasters who have our public airwaves on lockdown. And that’s what makes Beck and Limbaugh so afraid. For those who value free speech, not just for Rush but for the rest of us (including those who have historically been shut out of the media), localism and diversity are values worth defending.