To me these questions about our media are as important as any I know. All the other issues members of this audience care about are funneled and filtered, increasingly, through big media. Dumbed-down news is not helping our democracy any more than homogenized music and national play-lists are giving us entertainment truly reflective of the creative genius of this diverse nation. We are paying too heavy a price for the lack of diversity, localism, creativity and competition that so much consolidation has visited upon us. There is a bottom line here and it’s this—the people don’t have enough say as to how their airwaves are being used and it’s time to do something about it.
These words were part of the public statement of FCC Commissioner Michael Copps at the second of six FCC public comment hearings on media consolidation and deregulation held Monday in Nashville, TN.
Nashville was chosen as the second hearing city largely due to the efforts of Republican commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate who is a native Nashvillian (there are five commissioners, three Republicans and two Democrats). While Ms. Tate served as the gracious welcoming hostess, it was Commissioner Michael Copps who was the star of the show.
Copps' opening statement received a spontaneous and sustained standing ovation from the capacity crowd at Belmont University. In fact, Commissioner Tate wisely chose to post her comments to the record rather than read them: Copps was a hard act to follow. Tate has not yet posted her statement to the FCC website, and we hope that it’s revision will reflect the impact that this hearing had on her views.
Copps’ outstanding opening statements at the first session were followed by a panel of music industry experts and celebrities, among them Country Music Legends George Jones and Porter Wagoner, and current country superstars Big and Rich and their running buddy Cowboy Troy. With the exception of two academics, the entire panel, Republican and Democrat, was unified in its objection to media consolidation. The public comment period that followed was also universal (excepting a few broadcast industry representatives) in its disdain for deregulation of media.
Hopefully this hearing will go a long way toward influencing commissioner Tate who may very well be the swing vote we need to hold the line on further deregulation.
Here are a few highlights from Commissioner Copps opening statements:
First he decried the efforts of former Chairman Michael Powell to ram through deregulatory measures with no public input:
we cannot go down the road of contemplating far-reaching changes to this nation’s media environment without first checking with the American people. Three years ago, the FCC learned this lesson the hard way. Then-Chairman Powell decided—under cover of night and over the objections of Commissioner Adelstein and me—to authorize a sea change in the number of media outlets a single corporation could own in a single community. He managed to ram that decision through the FCC on a 3-2 vote. But then the American people, the Congress, and a federal court rose up as with one voice to say "No Way"—that’s not how decisions are made in our democracy, a nation of laws and principles and open exchange, not one of special interests and dollars and closed doors. So those ill-conceived rules were checked and sent back to the FCC to be reworked. Mark that well—because it shows that concerned citizens can still make a difference in this country.
He warned us from his insiders chair of the ongoing efforts of the large broadcast corporations:
And by the way, if anyone tries to tell you that Big Media’s push for more consolidation has gone away, don’t believe it. I’ve seen their recent pleadings. They’re still following that same Pied Piper of Consolidation they followed three years ago. They haven’t gone away, and their lawyers and lobbyists haven’t gone away either. They have money and they have power. So if we are going to succeed on this—and go on from there to a broader national dialogue on the future of the media in our democracy—a discussion that has been too long delayed and too long denied—it will be because of citizen action from millions of Americans and testimony at hearings like this one.
He eloquently described how the marketplace mindset is destructive to our civic life:
I know some believe that buzzwords like economies of scale, leverage, synergy, cross-promotion, diversification, monetization of assets, and so on will somehow save the news business and restore it to glory. That’s journalism reduced to just another business and America’s media—the way we communicate with one another outside our immediate circles—is decidedly not just another business. Local news is democracy’s lifeblood—a precious resource, a public trust, and it demands the most careful stewardship from government and, yes, businessmen and women as well. The nation’s airwaves are the people’s airwaves. Broadcasters are permitted to use the people’s airwaves for free—and they make a very good living doing so—but only if they serve the public interest. We must hold them to that bargain.
And finally he described the appropriate and important role of the FCC:
I don’t think the working press really likes the direction we’re heading—not one bit. I think that, given their druthers, our nation’s TV and radio news directors, producers and reporters would like to produce high-quality, hard-hitting coverage that serves the public interest and not special interests. How can we help these public-spirited professionals to convince their corporate parents to give them the resources they need? The FCC could help—not just by foregoing destructive new rules, but proactively working to reinvigorate the public interest. As the dean of the Columbia School of Journalism pointed out earlier this year, the great network news operations of earlier decades existed in part because corporate parents knew they had to go to the FCC and justify their re-licensing every few years. What I hear now from many members of the working press is that, without a meaningful relicensing process at the FCC, there’s no way to focus the attention of broadcasting’s corporate leadership on the need to comply with meaningful public interest obligations. So we need to restore a sense of balance to the broadcasting bargain. I say to you and I say to my colleagues: it should be the top priority of the FCC to put some life back into our public oversight responsibilities. Let’s act like the future of our media depends on it—because it does.
I encourage the KOS community to follow these hearings closely and maintain pressure on the FCC AND on Congress. The FCC is only capable of holding the line on further deregulation. It is still bound by the 1996 telecommunications bill, and only a repeal of certain provisions of that bill by Congress would truly reverse the damage it did to the broadcast marketplace.