Is there anybody who doesn't work for Fox or Clearchannel FOR media deregulation?

Even bill safire, the armchair otto van bismarck of the NYT is whining about it.


The New York Times
May 22, 2003

The Great Media Gulp
By WILLIAM SAFIRE


WASHINGTON


The future formation of American public opinion has fallen into the lap of an ambitious 36-year-old lawyer whose name you never heard. On June 2, after deliberations conducted behind closed doors, he will decide the fate of media large and small, print and broadcast. No other decision made in Washington will more directly affect how you will be informed, persuaded and entertained.

His name is Kevin Martin. He and his wife, Catherine, now Vice President Dick Cheney's public affairs adviser, are the most puissant young "power couple" in the capital. He is one of three Republican members of the five-person Federal Communications Commission, and because he recently broke ranks with his chairman, Michael Powell (Colin's son), on a telecom controversy, this engaging North Carolinian has become the swing vote on the power play that has media moguls salivating.

The F.C.C. proposal remains officially secret to avoid public comment but was forced into the open by the two commission Democrats. It would end the ban in most cities of cross-ownership of television stations and newspapers, allowing such companies as The New York Times, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune to gobble up ever more electronic outlets. It would permit Viacom, Disney and AOL Time Warner to control TV stations with nearly half the national audience. In the largest cities, it would allow owners of "only" two TV stations to buy a third.

We've already seen what happened when the F.C.C. allowed the monopolization of local radio: today three companies own half the stations in America, delivering a homogenized product that neglects local news coverage and dictates music sales.

And the F.C.C. has abdicated enforcement of the "public interest" requirement in issuing licenses. Time was, broadcasters had to regularly reapply and show public-interest programming to earn continuance; now they mail the F.C.C. a postcard every eight years that nobody reads.

Ah, but aren't viewers and readers now blessed with a whole new world of hot competition through cable and the Internet? That's the shucks-we're-no-monopolists line that Rupert Murdoch will take today in testimony before the pussycats of John McCain's Senate Commerce Committee.

The answer is no. Many artists, consumers, musicians and journalists know that such protestations of cable and Internet competition by the huge dominators of content and communication are malarkey. The overwhelming amount of news and entertainment comes via broadcast and print. Putting those outlets in fewer and bigger hands profits the few at the cost of the many.

Does that sound un-conservative? Not to me. The concentration of power — political, corporate, media, cultural — should be anathema to conservatives. The diffusion of power through local control, thereby encouraging individual participation, is the essence of federalism and the greatest expression of democracy.

Why do we have more channels but fewer real choices today? Because the ownership of our means of communication is shrinking. Moguls glory in amalgamation, but more individuals than they realize resent the loss of local control and community identity.

We opponents of megamergers and cross-ownership are afflicted with what sociologists call "pluralistic ignorance." Libertarians pop off from what we assume to be the fringes of the left and right wings, but do not yet realize that we outnumber the exponents of the new collectivist efficiency.

That's why I march uncomfortably alongside CodePink Women for Peace and the National Rifle Association, between liberal Olympia Snowe and conservative Ted Stevens under the banner of "localism, competition and diversity of views." That's why, too, we resent the conflicted refusal of most networks, stations and their putative purchasers to report fully and in prime time on their owners' power grab scheduled for June 2.

Must broadcasters of news act only on behalf of the powerful broadcast lobby? Are they not obligated, in the long-forgotten "public interest," to call to the attention of viewers and readers the arrogance of a regulatory commission that will not hold extended public hearings on the most controversial decision in its history?

So much of our lives should not be in the hands of one swing-vote commissioner. Let's debate this out in the open, take polls, get the president on the record and turn up the heat.

 

Radio is not going to become homogenized, it already is homogenized. Listen to any commerciall radio station for 2 hours, then drive anywhere in the country, find a radio station with the same format, and listen to it.

 

Yeah, the suspense of where Tom Hicks, Rupert Murdoch, and George W. Bush stand on this issue is killing me!

 

Fox news is run by former reagan campaign manager/guru/spin doctor Roger Ailes; Tom Hicks is the guy from clear channel you're thinkg of.

 

This deserves a bump after the Admin sold us out to its cronies again yesterday.

I especially liked the fact that they tried to do this in secret but got busted on it. Fortunately for them, the "liberal" media barely reported this story cause their bosses had too much money at stake.


Oh, and by the way, chalk up bleeding hearts Trent Lott and John McCain as against this disgrace also.

EDIT: McCain is backtracking I think on this.

 

Washington-AP) -- Demonstrators gathered outside the Federal Communications Commission to protest against looser media ownership rules.

Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson told the crowd that the FCC's decision opens the floodgates wider for the powerful and is a blow against democracy and diversity. He says courts and Congress must undo what the regulators have done.

On Capitol Hill, some senators are already talking about trying to stop the new rules before they can take effect. Senator Byron Dorgan calls the FCC's vote "dumb and dangerous," and Senator Trent Lott says letting one company have control over the print and broadcast media in one city isn't fair to its citizens.




(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

 

Well, it's difficult to get too worked up over this one because it stinks so bad that even our resident Bush admin apologists won't touch this one with a ten foot pole.

 

I going to keep bumping this thread until somebody takes the bait.

 

I dare one of the usual suspects to defend the Bush adminstration here. I out and out dare you.

June 5, 2003
Cozy With the F.C.C.
By BOB HERBERT


The latest government giveaway to big business came Monday when the Federal Communications Commission eased a number of media ownership restrictions that had been designed to enhance competition, foster independence and provide the public with a wider variety of views and perspectives across the media landscape.

What we will get instead is a further consolidation of news and entertainment outlets under the control of a handful of giant corporations. The assets and the tremendous power of these media biggies were enhanced — and the interests of the viewing, listening and reading public were eroded — by the controversial 3-to-2 vote of the F.C.C. commissioners.

This was, understandably, a big story.

Not so widely covered was an interesting and enlightening study by the Center for Public Integrity on the "cozy" relationship between F.C.C. officials and the telecommunications and broadcasting industries they are supposed to be regulating.

The center examined the travel records of F.C.C. employees and found that over the last eight years, commissioners and staff members have taken 2,500 trips costing $2.8 million that were "primarily" paid for by members of the telecommunications and broadcast industries.

Can you say conflict of interest? Can you imagine how maybe — just maybe — the interests of ordinary men and women, who don't have the money or the entree to lobby the F.C.C. and entertain its staffers, could be overlooked? How about trampled?

"This shows us just how close, how incestuous, the industry and its regulating agency are," said Charles Lewis, the center's executive director.

According to the study:

"The top destination was Las Vegas, with 330 trips. Second was New Orleans, with 173 trips. And third was New York, with 102 trips." Other "popular" destinations were London (98 trips), San Francisco, Palm Springs, Buenos Aires and Beijing.

I wish I could tell you this was unusual. But the fact is that many government agencies accept millions of dollars annually from industries and other special interests for trips to meetings, conferences, retreats, whatever. The government beneficiaries of this largess are frequently wined and dined in luxurious settings. They network. They party. And they will tell you they are not influenced at all by this wonderful treatment.

The F.C.C. is overridden — "like locusts, really" said Mr. Lewis — by lobbyists and top industry executives. Control of the nation's airwaves, which is the most direct and effective way of controlling how we think and feel and vote and spend our cash, is one of the great prizes America has to offer. Each opportunity to grab additional control is seized upon ferociously by the big media honchos.

The Center for Public Integrity reported that there were more than 70 closed-door meetings in recent months between F.C.C. officials and representatives of the nation's top broadcasters, including very powerful chief executives, to discuss the relaxation of media ownership restrictions, the key issue that was voted on Monday.

The two major groups that represented the public on this issue were Consumers Union and the Media Access Project. Representatives of those groups met just five times with F.C.C. officials.

A particularly revealing moment occurred Sunday, the day before the vote, on the ABC program "This Week." During an interview with F.C.C. chairman, Michael Powell, the moderator, George Stephanopoulos, noted that a survey of 500,000 comments on the F.C.C. Web site showed that more than 97 percent "were opposed to the new rules."

"Doesn't that make you wonder," Mr. Stephanopoulos asked, "whether you might be misreading the public interest here?"

Mr. Powell said he didn't think so. He said the F.C.C. had "taken those comments into deep consideration." He even said, "I think that they're valid."

Oh?

"But unfortunately," said Mr. Powell, "as you can understand, most of the comments are `I'm not for consolidation.' Well, Mike Powell is not for consolidation either. But that is not the specific task we have before us."

You can understand that, can't you?




Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company