Say Anything Blog

Joseph Goebbels, the brilliant but evil Nazi propagandist, coldly and succinctly stated the fascist’s view on the news media: “It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion.” Studying the record of President Bush’s Federal Communications Commission, one could easily envision the FCC’s commissioner heartily endorsing the quote.

The Bush gang has not yet started goose stepping or wearing arm bands, but the FCC are making proposals that have many folks very concerned . The concern is that they are attempting to consolidate the most important element of a free and democratic state- the news media.

Our FCC is made up of five people, all appointed by the President. Currently we have three Republicans and two Democrats.  The Commissioner is Kevin Martin, a Republican who replaced Michael Powell, the son of Colin Powell, in 2005.  Both Martin and Powell have made every effort to loosen the rules on media ownership that will give major corporations the ability to own more media outlets. 

Evidently they are still not satisfied with how much the media has been consolidated already. Currently six corporations control half of all news and entertainment flows on the planet- Rupert’s News Corp plus Viacom, TimeWarner, Disney, CBS and General Electric. On August 1st, Murdoch put yet another notch in his belt with a hostile takeover of the Wall Street Journal which was a family owned paper for the last 100 years. Murdoch’s News Corp. has an empire of 35 television stations, 26 papers, 5 magazines, and 26 publishing companies . Think of all the fair and balanced reporting that is spread all over the world.

During the reign of Michael Powell, Bush’s first commissioner, the FCC proposed major rule changes which would have allowed companies dual ownership of a daily newspaper and a television station in markets with more than four television stations and cross-ownership in markets with nine or more stations. Further he wanted to give companies the right to own up to three stations in markets with 18 or more and allow a single company to own two stations in markets with five or more. Despite 750,000 comments submitted to the docket (almost all against the proposals) and protests in 14 cities, the FCC voted in favor of the changes. 

Fortunately On September 3, 2003 The Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia granted an emergency order to stay the rules pending a lawsuit against the rules. Lead counsel for the plaintiffs, Andy Schwartzmann, later acknowledges that the stay was granted because the court acknowledged that “a million people” wrote in against the rule changes.  In June of 2004 the same court ruled against the FCC, deeming the rule changes “irrational” and “inconsistent”, keeping the stay in place and requiring the FCC to start anew on its attempt to revise the rules. All subsequent attempts to appeal the ruling in the next two years have failed.

The fight is nowhere nearly over. Despite public resentment of the commissions proposals, Bush’s newest commissioner, Kevin Martin, is pushing the same agenda as his predecessor. It is up to us, the folks who rely on a diverse news media to keep us informed. Some polls conclude that anger over these proposals to consolidate an already shrinking media ranks second only to the Iraq war.  Let’s help prevent the Murdochs and other corporations from being the only ones serving up the news.