John Nichols

FCC: Public Be Damned

Sun May 18 15:53:36 2003
208.152.73.113

FCC: Public Be Damned

by John Nichols & Robert W. McChesney

http://thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030602&s=nichols

Cheered on by the Bush Administration and powerful media
conglomerates, Federal Communications Commission chair
Michael Powell is pushing ahead with a June 2 vote to
gut longstanding rules designed to prevent the growth of
media monopolies. If successful, Powell's push could, in
the words of dissident commissioner Michael Copps,
"dramatically [alter] our nation's media landscape
without the kind of debate and analysis that these
issues clearly merit." Copps and the other Democratic
commissioner, Jonathan Adelstein, have asked for a
thirty-day delay in the vote, but Powell has the upper
hand--he and two other Republican commissioners form a
majority on the five-member FCC. The chairman will not
win without a fight, however, as his decision to force a
vote on rule changes that have not been broadly debated
or analyzed has provoked a fierce response from the
widest coalition of critics ever to weigh in on an FCC
rule-making decision.

Powell's contempt for public opinion, evidenced by his
scheduling of only one official hearing on the proposed
rule changes, is so great that he refused invitations to
nine semiofficial hearings at which other commissioners
were present. The hearings drew thousands of citizens
and close to universal condemnation of the rule changes.
Likewise, an examination of roughly half the 18,000
public statements filed electronically with the FCC show
that 97 percent of them oppose permitting more media
concentration. Even media moguls Barry Diller and Ted
Turner have raised objections, with Turner complaining,
"There's really five companies that control 90 percent
of what we read, see and hear. It's not healthy."

Outraged by Powell's antidemocratic approach, Common
Cause has launched a national petition drive demanding a
delay in the vote, while web activists at MoveOn.org are
highlighting the issue in bulletins and calling on the
"media corps" they organized to monitor media bias
during the Iraq war to turn its energies toward stopping
the FCC vote. Consumers Union and Free Press, a national
media-reform network, have launched a letter-writing
campaign to Congress and the FCC from
http://www.mediareform.net

Local governments are also getting
involved; the Chicago City Council urged rejection of
the proposed changes in a resolution that declared:
"Unchecked media consolidation benefits a small number
of corporate interests at the expense of the public
interest."

Noting that the consolidation of radio ownership that
followed passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act has
proven disastrous for pop music, journalism and local
communities, Bonnie Raitt, Billy Joel, Don Henley, Patti
Smith, Pearl Jam and other musicians signed a letter
telling Powell they were "extremely concerned as
American citizens that increased concentration of media
ownership will have a negative impact on access to
diverse viewpoints and will impede the functioning of
our democracy." Nearly 300 academics signed a letter to
the FCC protesting Powell's refusal to allow an
evaluation of the "research" he has talked of using to
justify relaxing the media ownership rules. The national
associations of Hispanic and black journalists called on
the FCC to delay action until more study of threats to
diversity could be completed. Leaders of the AFL-CIO,
the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Consumer
Federation of America and many other groups argued that
Powell had not allowed enough time to analyze the
potential damage to democracy.

On Capitol Hill, nearly 100 House Democrats signed a
letter by Representatives Bernie Sanders, Maurice
Hinchey and Sherrod Brown calling on Powell to delay the
June 2 vote on the rules, open the process to public
comment and demonstrate how his proposed changes in
ownership limits will serve the public interest by
promoting diversity, competition and localism. Fifteen
senators, led by Maine Republican Olympia Snowe,
declared in a letter to the FCC: "We believe it is
virtually impossible to serve the public interest in
this extremely important and highly complex proceeding
without letting the public know about and comment on the
changes you intend to make to these critical rules."

The stirrings in Congress prodded the Bush
Administration and its allies. Commerce Secretary Don
Evans urged Powell to proceed with the June 2 vote
regardless of the opposition, and business-friendly
members of the House echoed that call. But the political
climate surrounding media ownership has become so
electric that nothing should be taken for granted.
Twelve of the fifteen senators who signed the Snowe
letter to Powell are members of the Commerce Committee,
and committee chair John McCain--though he did not sign
the letter--has overseen three recent hearings at which
sharp criticisms of FCC moves promoting media
consolidation were raised both by Democratic and
Republican senators. McCain says he will call the FCC
commissioners to a hearing after June 2, and he may yet
join efforts to have Congress renew at least some of the
rules. In addition, Senate Appropriations Committee
chair Ted Stevens and David Obey, the ranking Democrat
on the House Appropriations Committee, are making noises
about having Congress step in to defend controls against
monopoly. Even if Powell prevails on June 2, the tempest
will continue to grow. He may ultimately be remembered
not for loosening the rules but for pushing so hard he
woke America up, forcing public-interest concerns back
into the debate over media ownership.

=============================

about
John Nichols
Washington Correspondent

John Nichols, The Nation's Washington correspondent, has covered progressive politics and activism in the United States and abroad for more than a decade. He is currently the editor of the editorial page of Madison, Wisconsin's Capital Times. Nichols is the author of two books: It's the Media, Stupid and Jews for Buchanan.
more...
http://thenation.com/directory/bios/bio.mhtml?id=4

related sites
Corporate Media & Consolidation

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
http://www.fair.org

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