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An Assault on Media Diversity and Democracy
President Bush is the lamest of lame-duck chief executives, with no moral authority, no legislative majority and no popular domestic or foreign-policy agendas. So what can he do with the remaining months of a failed presidency? Make his corporate allies rich and destroy the essential underpinnings of American democracy.
To that end, Bush's chairman of the Federal Communications Commission has initiated a scheme to radically rewrite media ownership rules so that one corporation can own the daily newspapers, the weekly "alternative" newspaper, the city magazine, suburban publications, the eight largest radio stations, the dominant broadcast and cable television stations, popular internet news and calendar sites, billboards and concert halls in even the largest American city.
This "company-town" scheme, which would be achieved by lifting current limits on media cross-ownership, is the long-held dream of media moguls such as NewsCorp's Rupert Murdoch and Tribune Company-buyer Sam Zell. With one FCC vote, media billionaires will be able to become media multi-billionaires by controlling the entire communications landscapes of major metropolitan areas -- and by extension whole regions and states.
The mogul's dream is the citizen's nightmare. With this rewrite of the rules, local, state and national democratic processes would be run through the wringer of media monopolies designed to reap massive profits - while comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted in a manner that maintains the political and economic status quo. Basic liberties -- freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom to petition for the redress of grievances -- would exist largely within boundaries established and policied by local media managers.
It's an Orwellian scenario that the American people rejected overwhelming in George Bush's first term, when three millions citizens and activist groups of the left and right united to oppose a similar set of rule changes proposed by Martin and then-FCC chair Michael Powell in 2003. The public outcry influenced an intervention by the federal courts that thwarted the hopes of the Bush Administration to deliver on a big promise to big-media owners.
Now, the FCC is attempting in these waning days of the Bush era to meet the demands of its big-media allies. And Martin, an ambitious Republican who hopes to satisfy media corporations sufficiently to secure the campaign money he will need to launch a political career in his native North Carolina, is more sly than Powell. He's trying to rewrite the rules quickly and quietly.
Only this week, in the course of a Senate Commerce Committee hearing, was it revealed that the FCC chair plans to have the committee vote on his radical rule changes before Christmas. Martin has the votes, as he and two other Republican members of the FCC form a majority that can defeat the committee's two dissident Democrats, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein.
Only popular and official outcry, of the sort heard in 2003, will stop the Bush Administration from delivering for big media. And Martin's plan is to move so rapidly that there is no time for serious scrutiny of the implications of the rule changes, and, of course, no time for the opposition to organize.
An official facade of proper procedures will be attached to the administration's radical assault on media diversity and local democracy. But whatever hearings and studies may be rushed out in the coming weeks by an FCC establishment that already has been revealed as determined to game the process will be nothing more than window dressing. As Mark Cooper, the veteran director of research at Consumer Federation of America, says of Martin: "The chairman has already decided what rule changes he wants to make -- he is just going through the motions. The FCC hasn't even received all of the public comment in this proceeding, and Martin is already scheduling a vote."
What will stop Martin and Murdoch? The right signals from Capitol Hill must be sent. And they are starting to come. Two key senators, North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan and Mississippi Republican Trent Lott, have written Martin and other FCC members, declaring that, "We do not believe the Commission has adequately studied the impact of media consolidation. The FCC should not rush forward and repeat mistakes of the past. The Commission is under considerable scrutiny with this proceeding. We strongly encourage you to slow down and proceed with caution."
That's the necessary message. But it must be amplified -- in Congress and in the communities across America that will become media "company towns" if Kevin Martin, George Bush and Rupert Murdoch get their way.
John Nichols is a co-founder of Free Press and the co-author with Robert W. McChesney of TRAGEDY & FARCE: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy — The New Press.
© 2007 The Nation
19 Comments so far
Show AllIn the eyes of the growing 1% club, W's is not a failed presidency. They got everything they wanted and they continue to do so. It is a smashing success on all fronts from their perspective. How wonderful for the democrats that they can still be viewed by some as the good guys. Media consolidation did not start in W's reign.
A Democratic president would not be enabling and encouraging the FCC to give media over to Rupert Murdoch.
Meg is absolutely right. The rich have gotten richer and there are more poor. The democrats are equally to blame for the condition of our country today. But none of this would have happened if we had a truly free media. A passage from jack London's IRON HEEL says it all: "You have forgotten the editors. They draw their salaries for the policy they maintain. Their policy is to print nothing that is a vital menace to the established. The Bishop's utterance was a violent assault upon the established morality. It was heresy. They led him from the platform to prevent him from uttering more heresy. The newspapers will purge his heresy in the oblivion of silence. The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it."
Hoa binh
How in the world is access to the airwaves & ownership consigned to THREE unelected men???
"A Democratic president would not be enabling and encouraging the FCC to give media over to Rupert Murdoch."
Except a Democratic president already passed the Communications act that allowed the present level of consolidation.
Meg is right. Media consolidation did not start on W's watch, it got its first big boost in 1996, near the end of Bill Clinton's first term.
MANIPULATED ECONOMICS TO KILL FREE SPEECH
The last time this happened under FCC Chair Michael Powell, a repressed study by staff surfaced later that contradicted the economics Powell used in attempting to allow the consolidation. Martin is probaby too savy to allow something like this to threaten the outcome.
The economics of this issue are easily overwhelming to the few average readers who bother to look into it. Defining market area is one key determinant and another is which players can compete effectively in those areas. Either of these can easily be manipulated to arrive at just about any degree of consolidation one wants to justify.
For example, if one claims that print newspapers, radio stations over-the-air and internet services are highly substitutable among users in a particular area, that means owning any two of them is not a threat to the third since users see all three as equally available.
Further, many times actual market share is ignored and replaced by the simple number of players in a market, or even the number that "potentially" could be there. For example, if one newspaper has 95% share and two others have 3% and 2%, the conclusion may be the market is "competitive" based on the assumption that the two smaller players serve to deter market power of the large player.
To understand how ridiculous this can get, past testimony from a Bell Telephone Company (RBOC) once claimed "snail mail" via the US Post Office qualified as a substitute for voice grade telephone service, designed to allow the RBOC to jack up local phone rates in an "expanded, competitive" market.
Dr. Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America is an excellent source for the details on this issue. He's a rare find - in a world of consumer advocacy that has been heavily undermined and co-opted by the industry and politics, he stands out as a true independent expert in the public utilities and related areas who understands and speaks to market power in all its subtle forms. This means he also understands what effective competition is and when regulation is needed where it does not exist.
Like net neutrality, the issue of media ownership consolidation threatens our last great access to speak out. When that goes, the rest will follow like lemmings over a cliff. Deregulation does not mean the market is competitive. Stop the lies. The bedfellows against more consolidation were unusually diverse last time around and managed to stop it. We need a repeat performance.
Barry Payne, Economist Ph.D., former FCC staff, bbpayne@earthlink.net
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO ANTI-TRUST LAWS?
And just think---The police will come and arrest you if you run an "unlicensed" radio station. Meaning one that is not already bought and paid for by a rich parasite who wants only to get fatter. And, you might get on the air and urge people to invade other countries for no good reason at all...
What's with the executive branch legislating, this should be in the hands of congress. Too bad they abandoned their responsibility a long time ago.
A time in the not-too-distant future we will see a small group of moguls own all of the media in this country, we will see an even tighter grip by the medical insurance companies (when was the last major medical cure? They don't want cures, they want treatments), and of course shopping will be done either at Wal-Mart or Wal-Malls. Choice will be gone. So will any sense of real freedom. The media has to be the first step in order to "sell" the rest of it.
The politicians of both parties will be owned just like the other properties.
Oh and Common Dreams? Long gone.
I hope I'm wrong.
Thomas J. Comer
Nothing good will come from Rush. Given his politics I bet the charity is a major fake or worse yet a nice sounding front name for a pack of right wing nuts.
We probably shouldn't even start discussing this, because there's no way that Reid did not take the whole situation and make himself and his party ~ look like a drooling idiots. From start to finish it was pathetic. There are plenty of real charges, real issues and substantive ways to take Limbaugh to task without doing something like this. Harry Reid doesn't seem to have any more room left in his mouth that isn't filled with shoe. He furthers the Right every time he speaks. What an embarrassment he is.
Stewart Colbert and Olbermann will be allowed on for some time after to appease the public.
Then we will only have Couric Carlson and the like.
I have already noticed a strange bent on NPR, even reluctantly, to sound neutral and avoid the facts. They need their donations.
Or am I just leaning too far to the truth? I would not say left, as the furthest left implies communism, and I am a communist by any standard.
Daniel David: You are right unless the president is Hillary Clinton.
The REAL assault on media diversity and the first ammendment was Harry Reid's thuggish letter trying to get Clear Channel to can Rush Limbaugh by indirectly threatening their broadcasting licenses.
But, hey, it's Rush, so that's OK.
SonOfPowerslave;
"The REAL assault" was one "letter"?
Let them own it all! then when the economics of it goes belly up they will all go broke. Then we can have a monopoly on public broadcasting.
Media consolidation has been proceeding apace since 1980, with both major parties cheering it on. See also: Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian.
Any assertion that Democrats are better than Republicans on this issue is laughable. They are merely different shades of terrible.
The US Congress was holding special sessions on this topic as far back as 1983. I remember reading a report about it when I was 18.
25 years later the groundwork has been laid and the democracy is all but gone.
De Tocqueville once said, "When tryanny comes to America it will happen very quietly." Meaning, it will be from within and in secrecy. We are witnessing a prophecy folks!