Subject: [NEXTEL-1] FCC: Public Be Damned

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 11:13:15 -0400

FCC: Public Be Damned
By John Nichols & Robert W. McChesney

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 [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 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.

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

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