Reply #19: 2003: FCC: Public Be Damned (Not much has changed.)

[seafan]

During the blanket of propaganda aimed at the public over the Iraq invasion and WMDs, John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney wrote in The Nation:


May 15, 2003

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 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 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.

.....

As long as corporatists control our government, this battle will not be resolved any time soon, much less for the good of the people.




The unimpeded Internet is crucial to the free flow of information. That is exactly why the corporatists want ultimate control over its content and speed; the people must not be allowed to have full access.


The people are a threat to their empire.