Senate Votes To Revive Ban On Media Cross-Ownership
The Senate voted Thursday night to nullify a Federal Communications Commission rule that allows media companies to own a newspaper and a TV station in the same market.
The unusual “resolution of disapproval,” sponsored by Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) and 24 other senators, was approved on a voice vote.
Republican FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin has described the agency’s action as a “relatively minor loosening” of media ownership restrictions. The FCC approved the rule on a 3-2 vote in December with both Democrats dissenting.
The FCC decision allows one company to own a newspaper and a broadcast station in the nation’s 20 largest metropolitan areas. The TV station may not be among the top four in the market and, post-transaction, at least eight independent media voices must remain. The rule replaced an outright ban on cross-ownership.
Dorgan said the FCC action opened a “gaping loophole for more mergers of newspapers and television stations across the country.”
Martin has said any exception to the ownership rule would face a “very high hurdle.”
The House also is considering a nullification of the rule, but even if supporters are successful, President Bush would probably reject the measure.
On April 1, Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez wrote Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) saying the administration “strongly opposes any attempt to overturn these rules by legislative means” and that senior Bush advisors would recommend that he veto any bill presented to him.
Gutierrez said the FCC’s order “modernizes outdated media ownership regulations to appropriately take into account the plethora of news and information outlets that exist today.”
The FCC’s cross-ownership decision has been met with opposition on both sides. The newspaper industry has complained that the FCC did not go far enough, while activists who want to keep big media companies from getting bigger said the agency went too far.
Among those affected by the regulations is Tribune Co., which owns the Los Angeles Times and KTLA-TV Channel 5 in Southern California, as well as both print and broadcast operations in four other major markets.
To allow Tribune to close its deal to go private in December, the FCC granted it a permanent waiver for its combination in Chicago and two-year waivers for operations in Los Angeles, New York, South Florida and Hartford, Conn.
© 2008 Associated Press
a “relatively minor loosening”, the FCC says. And it’s true. It doesn’t matter if the media is in the hands of 4 people or 40 people, or even 400 people. If those people are all billionaires with a vested interest in maintaining manufacturing growth in the military industrial complex or the oil or auto industry, how can the media possibly be a pillar of democracy? The rules do NOT work, and tweeking them in one direction or another will make little difference.
We need new technology that allows us to access the internet through our living room television screens. This would greatly reduce the monopoly control of our cable lineups.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have thousands of options for history content instead of just having The History Channel that shows people cutting down trees or 24 hours of Hitler programming whenever we are about to go to war?
In the interest of credibility, could CD please try to keep its frontpage headlines consistent with the articles they are linked to, or at least not totally contradictory (”smack down ban” versus “revive ban”).
As for an administration that “strongly opposes any attempt to overturn these rules by legislative means”, we can certainly understand the aversion to any attempt at legislative intervention in monarchical rule by dictatorial fiat. It could set a terribly bad precedent and could even lead to (horror of horrors) something resembling democratic governance.
If you think that PBS would be immune to payolla and other forms of undue influence in the circumstances, I’m afraid you’d be in for a rude awakening. It’s already showing some serious signs of “going along to get along” under the current regime.
Of course, Namaste, your good idea of public elections on public broadcasting (include CSPAN 1,2,&3 in there, too) needs to be accompanied by the return of the Fairness Doctrine
presence: Understood. I’d like very much to agree with your “has got to be millions of times less twisted” assessment, but I don’t think I can. It seems to have its roots in some long-ingrained elements of the American (USan) psyche, not least of which is an awe approaching reverence for certain institutionalized symbols of authority that have come to be confused with nationhood itself.
I would venture to suggest that the confusion is now so great that the true republican (please note small ‘r’) birthright of sovereignty residing in the people has been almost irretrievably lost. I doubt, for example, that any erstwhile European monarch, not excluding George III of England, could ever have dreamed of the unfettered sovereign power that the U.S. has now invested in its presidency. And it seems quite unlikely that that investment will ever be reversed in any (bloodless) revolution against tyranny today.
Sorry for wandering so far from the particular topic, but many of the particulars appear to me as merely symptomatic of a much deeper systemic illness.
Presence, you are so close, a couple slight adjustments.
As has been commented, PBS is subject to strongarming, don’t trust them either. And isolating the political process to one, easily ignorable channel will further tune out potential voters.
Try this: No PAID political ads in Radio or Tv. Not from Candidates or their friends or Unions or Swiftboaters or Peace groups, no bought and paid-for electronic media.
We, the people, own the airwaves and we regulate the Cable monopolies and we shouldn’t be shouted down money. All broadcast and cable outlets are required to do a certain amount of community service to keep their licences. As part of Public Financing of Campaigns, Airtime should be alotted to each of the candidates in some equitable way and carried by the Corporate Media as Public Service Announcements.
Campaigns and other interested parties that want to comment on the political process are free to buy newspaper ads, billboards, reach out through the net, but no Tv or Radio ads.
This is a $billion dollar political cycle! And that’s mostly spent on Electronic Media. By banning paid political advertizement, you take a huge chunk of money out of campaigning.
It’s testimony to the greatness of Bill Moyers that he’s been able to survive in the miasma. Let’s audacially hope that an Obama presidency and a cleansed Congress will rescue PBS from the neocon coup. The media are vital to democracy. I learned in 8th grade how Hitler abused media to control the people.
rumilov: Bill Moyers did NOT survive! When Tomlinson, a Repug political hack, was put in charge of PBS, he canceled Bill’s weekly program and replaced it with a half hour of Conan Doyle (another neocon hack) and a half our of David Brocaccio (a good guy). Even though Tomlinson was forced to step down, he had selected his replacement (a corporate shill). But at least Bill is back on the air.
Question: “almost unanimous vote”. Which Senators voted against reining in the FCC and the MSM? They need to be ousted from Congress.
Resolution of disapproval? I am sure the FCC will be terrified and will reverse course.
“We need new technology that allows us to access the internet through our living room television screens. ”
This technology exists, I have used it in hotels in Hong Kong. But some web pages do not display well, so there are technical issues that need to be overcome still.
MiMiCcS - As I understand it, the recent Senate action, if also passed by the House and signed by the Prez, would have the legal effect of overtuning the FCC reg in question.
But - no suprise - Bush, still haunting the machinery of our government like a Terminator ghoul, promises to veto even this timid Senate resolution and any similar or unified version the House might pass.
It worth noting, though, that concern about media centralization is one of the few issues where many conservatives line up with progressives. So there may be some hope for re-legislating on this issue when the ghoul is gone, and if either Clinton or Obama get elected — and progressives control congress in 2009. Lots of ‘ifs.’
RE new technology solving the problem: I don’t think that problems like media centralization originate in the machines we build, so much as in the wrong intentions in some people’s heads and hearts, about how to use the machines.
If enough people support or tolerate fascist principles in a society, even the newest and best intended machines/technologies will eventually be put to bad use.
The machine’s geist - good or bad — is always first in us. So I think it’s ‘us’ we first have to repair.
Hopefully this action was amongst the first of many to reverse the depredations of Dubya, Cheney, & Co., which are legion. It will also be necessary to keep all legislators feet to fire on this and other issues progressives care about all the time.
Found an interesting fact the other day about ‘public’ radio.
The director of NPR is Kevin Klose: 1998-present.
“Some criticize the choice of Kevin Klose to be the head of NPR because he “used to be the director of all major worldwide US government propaganda dissemination broadcast media including VOA, Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Worldnet Television and the anti-Castro Radio/TV Marti.” [1].”
Also, don’t forget Radio Free Iraq, and Radio Free Afghanistan. Freaking CIA at it again!!!!
Did you know NPR puts out casting calls for actors with regional accents? They quote ACTORS as SOURCES.
Can’t say I’m a fan of the fairness doctrine.
The relation of truth to equity and balance is tenuous at best and focussing on the latter two instead of the former indexes everything to some centre of gravity in presumed public opinion, which is a matrix of bureaucratic and corporate media artifical reality.
Such soil yields the worst thorns of propaganda because the most vital truths are weeded out as too “one-sided.”
The grossest lies are the least persuasive and the most unvarnished truth has the greatest impact. So what merit is there in applying bias as opposed to veracity standards to content? Let the worst lies battle it out with the starkest truth, no holds barred. Deceit readily masters every standard and protocol, while truth has to cramp itself to fit. Set it free. So long as it isn’t gagged and bound it gives peak performance.
You can’t consistently treat the masses as mentally helpess children and expect them to resist demagogy.
“On April 1, Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez wrote Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) saying the administration “strongly opposes any attempt to overturn these rules by legislative means” and that senior Bush advisors would recommend that he veto any bill presented to him.”
So!
The Bush regime continues to ignore “anti-trust” laws and Congress refuses to hold this dictatorial regime accountable.
Don’t look now, but if the elite parasites in this alleged “Democratic” government give-in to this one, there will be no question they are equally complicit in the destruction of democratic rule and the “rule of law”.
According the US Constitution, Congress is suppose to make the laws and the Executive Branch is suppose to carry them out.
fakedemocracy, can you provide a source for “Did you know NPR puts out casting calls for actors with regional accents? They quote ACTORS as SOURCES.”
Thanks.
The ongoing trend to ever greater uniformity in news coverage will continue despite this momentary setback. Even so a complete Orwellian control over all the news requires a costly administrative system, as in the URSS, so bits of real news can always get through. The problem is that an ordinary reader cannot go through all the papers and TV news just to get 2 or 3 important items that slipped through in different outlets. So, we rely on CD and other like-minded efforts to do all this hard work and get them all together in one place on the Internet where we can go to quickly and find out what is really going on. With ever greater MSM uniformity CD will have more work to do; we will have more need; and CD etc. must grow as the MSM readership declines.
Presence, Zen was a good book and you’re right that this is a “quality” issue but I’m thinking that standards here (beyond what can be quantified and managed in terms of fact-checking and language competence) are bound to be counterproductive.
I do see how the “Fairness Doctrine” can be self-defeating if it results in the banal, superficial, and empty practice of reducing every issue to a Point-Counterpoint in which teevee producers mechanically select what they perceive as competing views in matched pairs.
I think that the PBS “News Hour” is a good example of this, although Jim Lehrer’s crypto-reactionary, by-the-numbers mentality also contributed to its decline. They’ve simply done the “on the one hand X, on the other hand, anti-X” shtick to death– never mind that more often than not, it’s more of an “on the one hand capital X, on the other hand feebly X-skeptical” dialogue.
I believe that the nostalgia for the FD is understandable, though, given the status quo of a cabal of mega-wealthy media owners wholly devoting their considerable resources towards manufacturing consent.
The Quality of reporting, analysis, and debate is the only meaningful criterion, ultimately. But this presupposes a context in which all viewpoints have access to the media soapbox, pulpit, or dais. Perhaps regressing back to a “Fairness Doctrine” is a necessary step towards moving forward to this end.
PS: Why am I not surprised that “presence” speaks highly of “Zen…”. (”Lila” was not as successful, but I still incorporate the idea of a Metaphysics of Quality into my thinking, such as it is.)
Return the fairness Doctrine!!!
Thank God, now if only we can get enough support to withstand the Bush’s veto!
What we need is more amateur radio and TV stations. This can be done through several technologies. It is possible to put together a low power radio broadcasting station from off the shelf components from any radio shack. Total cost is in the three to five hundred dollar range. I don’t know about TV broadcasting but I bet it wouldn’t be cost prohibited.
I don’t subscribe to cable or satellite TV, it would be nice to get more options from more individuals on the public airways. If channel 28 is not being used by anybody within a couple of hundred miles of where I live seems to me a low power station should be allowed to broad cast to a limed range in my area.