After our Payola story Thursday, the FCC Commissioner retweeted our link with the following text: “To start, I plan to reach out to music & record industry to determine whether this practice is happening on their end. Payola is against the law.” Hopefully everyone reading this is following the rules.
Of course the FCC has no jurisdiction over the music or record industries, even in terms of payola. If federal law is broken, it’s the realm of the DOJ to ask those questions. But since the article in question has no specifics at all, it’s hard for anyone to proceed. The president himself will often dismiss these kinds of articles as being completely made up. What makes this article any different?