Media Rants
Tony Palmeri
from the July 2011 edition of The SCENE
The Communications Act of 1934 created the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an independent agency charged with ensuring media owners operate in the public interest. The FCC rarely meets that charge, in part because like other federal regulatory agencies it tends to be controlled and/or coopted by the entities it allegedly regulates. The FCC’s own Working Group on the Information Needs of Communities in a recent report admits as much:
“Over the FCC’s 75-year existence, it has renewed more than 100,000 licenses. It has denied only four renewal applications due to the licensee’s failure to meet its public interest programming obligation. No license renewals have been denied on those grounds in the past 30 years. The current system operates neither as a free market nor as an effectively regulated one; and it does not achieve the public interest goals set out by Congress or the FCC.”
The FCC is run by 5 commissioners appointed by the President of the United States and approved by the Senate. One commissioner is selected by the president to serve as chair. As noted by mediahistorian Bob McChesney, the FCC’s an industry friendly outfit surrounded by corporate CEOs, lawyers and lobbyists; over the years they’ve studiously avoided meaningful input from the public in whose interest they supposedly operate.
In the FCC’s entire history three commissioners stand out for their commitment to the public interest. Newton Minow served as FCC chair from 1961 to 1963. His depiction of commercial television broadcasting as a “vast wasteland” inspired generations of educators and activists to advocate for higher media standards and media literacy as a mandatory part of the school curriculum.
Nicholas Johnson served from 1966 to 1973. Known for his dissent from business as usual at the FCC, Johnson in 1970 authored How to Talk Back to Your Television Set , a classic statement of the perils of corporate media ownership and a prescription for how to fight back.
Commissioner Michael Copps will leave the FCC at the end of this year. Since 2001 he’s been the FCC’s most articulate and principled voice in favor of forceful defense of the public interest. In 2003, when then FCC chair Michael Powell led the ill-conceived charge to ease restrictions on media consolidation, Copps and commissioner Jonathan Adelstein held unprecedented public hearings in 13 cities. They sparked 3 million letters and mass protests. The Powell faction still had enough votes to loosen media ownership rules, but opponents successfully challenged them in court.
With his typical clarity and force, Copps at the National Conference for Media Reform in April of this year sounded a clarion call for continued activism against media consolidation:
“The big money crowd keeps telling us media consolidation has run its course. Hmm, I wonder if Comcast and AT&T just didn’t get the memo? Don’t believe it for a second; the binge continues. And it’s even more dangerous because they’re now after new media, too, broadband and the Internet, which we all hoped would be the bulwark against more consolidation in radio, television and cable. So now it’s visions of gated Internet communities that dance in their heads. And to keep reformers at bay, they’ve come up with the rallying cry of ‘Don’t regulate the Internet.’ What they really mean, of course, is ‘Don’t let anyone but us control the Internet.’ So regardless of whether it’s a traditional or new media context, the real question remains the same: will we allow a few huge companies to control consumers’ access to information? Well, without vastly increased public outcry, the answer is clearly ‘yes, we will.’
Let me ask: Is there anyone here who wants a consolidated, cable-ized Internet controlled by a few corporate gatekeepers?
Is there anyone here who believes new media should suffer the same sad fate that decimated big radio, television and cable?
Is there anyone here who believes our civic dialogue, that precious and essential conversation we have with ourselves to keep democracy alive, can survive any more of this reckless folly?”
Challenging the aforementioned recent FCC Working Group report assertion that American news media is mostly vibrant, Copps says, “Where is the vibrancy when hundreds of newsrooms have been decimated and tens of thousands of reporters are walking the street in search of a job instead of working the beat in search of a story?” Copps has called for at least 3 public hearings on the Working Group Report; as I write this in mid June none have been scheduled.
Copps argues that media reform is not likely absent the creation of a sense of urgency. As he told the New America Foundation: “Knowing that our news and information system is not, right now, supplying the depth and breadth of information a functioning democracy requires for informed decision making, we must push hard for action. We need to be really engaged on this. . . This is no time to be timid. There is no need to be deflected or defensive or scared off by those whose vested interests, economic and political, argue against any and all public interest oversight.”
Michael Copps is originally from Milwaukee. Like every Badger should be, he is informed by a “Forward” mindset. If we had 5 Copps on the FCC, we’d have a more robust, accountable media.
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