Media Updates

Media Reform in the United States

By Leslie Regan Shade
October 15, 2005

The night after I was sworn in, I waited for a visit from the angel of the public interest. I waited all night, but she did not come…I still have had no divine awakening and no one has issued me my public interest crystal ball (Powell, 1998).

Five months after U.S. President George W. Bush appointed Michael K. Powell to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Powell addressed the American Bar Association. His speech, “The Public Interest Standard: A New Regulator's Search for Enlightenment” was widely disseminated in the media and ridiculed by public interest activists. In his speech, Powell was responding to queries as to why the FCC was embarking on major decisions impacting upon open access to the Internet and increased media concentration, without public consultation and inquiry. Traditionally, the FCC has been designed to protect the public from such media monopolies, but in the 1990s the wave of technological convergence, globalization, and increased neoliberal policies in the communications and telecommunication sector – liberalization, privatization, increased commercialization, deregulation, and an evisceration of support for public service broadcasting – set the stage for a global media system wherein a handful of companies are the conduits for our broadcasting and publishing outlets (Bettig and Hall, 2003).

Sparked by an FCC decision that allowed cable companies to offer high-speed Internet service without having to open up their network to new or competitive Internet providers, thus allowing for the further dominance of large media companies (Stern, 2002), and a federal court ruling that eliminated restrictions on broadcast ownership (Chaudrey, 2002), on March, 22, 2002, the Angels of the Public Interest descended upon FCC headquarters in Washington D.C. to protest these and other FCC initiatives. Inja Coates, one of the co-founders of Media Tank and a participant in the demonstration, challenged Powell on his definition of the public interest: “The FCC was created to protect the public from monopoly interests, not the other way around. It’s Powell’s job to stand up for diversity and access, and ensure the public’s resources actually benefit the public–not just a few elite corporations.” <Press release, March 19, 2002, available URL: http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/random-bits/2002-March/000790.html>.

An array of media reform activists garbed in angel gear–white flowing robes, translucent wings, tinsel halos and harps– with many of them armed with digital video recorders for rebroadcast on the Internet, braved the chilly weather, singing of freedom from corporate-dominated media:

… With every word that Powell speaks the Moguls they rejoice
But O the poor con-su-mer who never has a choice
Minorities, Communities are left without a voice
No more rulings that just serve industry.
Industry
No more rulings that just serve industry
(to the tune of “God Bless Ye Merry Gentlemen”)…
<see Media Tank at http://www.mediatank.org/Angels2.html>

Activists called for a vibrant public media sector and a roll-back of media concentration:

The airwaves are the property of the American public and they do not belong to Michael Powell, they do not belong to Rupert Murdoch …they are a public commons like the oceans or space…the FCC has leased out the airwaves to a handful of billionaires who serve the needs of the corporate fascist empire… that is not about to change unless the American people assert their demands and reclaim what belongs to us…
<Warcry, IndyMedia Center in NYC, from Democracy Now, March 25, 2002>

Despite the patience of the Angels of the Public Interest, who waited all afternoon, Michael Powell–who was then Chairman Powell– did not come out to address his citizens. Instead, throughout the following year he led the FCC through a series of more controversial decisions on media ownership caps, in particular those on Broadcast-Newspaper Cross-Ownership Rule and the Local Radio Ownership Rule. In June 2003 the FCC approved a series of new media ownership rules that paved the way for broadcasters to own more local affiliates and for companies to own newspapers and television stations in the same market. (Dreazen and Flint, 2003, A1). Widely supported by large media firms, the issue also brought together a surprising array of groups ideologically polarized, but all opposed to the FCC proposals, including the National Rifle Association and the National Organization for Women. Groups were concerned with preserving and expanding community control of broadcasting content, ensuring diversity in content and voices, and with curbing commercial content. (Beckerman, 2003).

Public condemnation of the FCC proposals was swift. In July the House of Representatives voted 400-21 for an appropriations bill that included language restoring the pre-June FCC ruling on broadcast television station ownership (Labaton, 2003), and in September a federal appeals court granted an emergency stay that barred the FCC from implementing its new rules. The appeal was led by Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project, a nonprofit public interest law firm in Washington D.C. (Dreazen, 2003). Congress has since passed measures that would either eliminate or soften the proposed measures. (Epstein, 2003). One year later, the U.S. Senate voted to repeal the FCC rules. Attached to a Department of Defense authorization bill, the proposal is expected to be adopted soon, and then go on for approval to a House-Senate conference committee (Labaton, 2004). The FCC proposals were also overturned by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which sent them back to the FCC because the evidence and reasoning did not justify change that served the public interest (Labaton, 2004).

In January 2005 the Federal Communications Commission announced that the U.S. Solicitor General would not appeal the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision to the Supreme Court.

For many, such as scholar Robert McChesney, the events of 2003 signaled a vital media reform movement. Certainly there were many progressive groups that had been involved in analyzing the mainstream media before 2003, and many would claim that independent media were catalysts for media activism (for instance, Indymedia), but the idea of media reform “did not exist in the minds of the overwhelming majority of the American people” (McChesney, 2004, 255).The ‘movement’ engaged the public, and for the first time in many years, media policy issues “were taken from behind closed doors and made the stuff of democratic discourse and political engagement” (295).

In the US, the first National Conference on Media Reform was held in November 2003. Over 2,000 people attended the event, which brought together politicians, policymakers, academics, civil society groups, journalists, and many citizens. The FreePress website, developed during the FCC media ownership debates, has since grown to encompass a variety of media reform issues.

In a recent book, Nichols and McChesney (2005, 178-186) characterize the media reform movement into three components. The first consists of media criticism, education, and literacy. The second is producing and distributing independent media. The third is media policy activism.

References
Bettig, Ronald V. and Jeanne Lynn Hall. (2003) Big Media, Big Money: Cultural Texts and Political Economics. Lanham. MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Chaudrey, Lakshmi. February 20, 2002. Mega Media Merger Mania. Alternet. URL: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12451

Dreazen, Yochi J. and Joe Flint. June 3, 2003. FCC Eases Media-Ownership Caps, Clearing the Way for New Mergers. The Wall Street Journal, p. A1.

Epstein, Edward. October 14, 2003. Congress tries to put clamps on media mergers. San Francisco Chronicle. URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/10/14/MNG3P2AS9J1.DTL

Labaton, Stephen. June 25, 2004. Court Orders Rethinking of Rules Allowing Large Media Companies to Expand. The New York Times, pp. --

Labaton, Stephen. June 23, 2004. Senate Votes to Repeal Media Rules. The New York Times.

Labaton, Stephen. July 24, 2003. FCC Media Rule Blocked in House 400-to-21 Vote. The New York Times: A1.

McChesney, Robert and John Nichols. (December 20, 2001). The Making of a Movement. The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020107/mcchesney

McChesney, Robert. (2004). The Problem of the Media: US Communication Politics in the 21st Century. NY: Monthly Review Press. URL: http://www.mediaproblem.org/

McChesney, Robert, Russell Newman, and Ben Scott. (2005). The Future of Media: Resistance and Reform in the 21st Century. NY: Seven Stories Press.

Nichols, John and Robert McChesney. (2005). Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media ell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy. NY: The New Press.

Powell, Michael K. April 8, 1998. The Public Interest Standard: A New Regulator's Search for Enlightenment. Speech Given to the American Bar Association 17th Annual Legal Forum on Communications Law, Las Vegas, Nevada. URL: http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Powell/spmkp806.html

Skinner, David, James Compton, and Mike Gasher. (2005). Converging Media, Diverging Politics: A Political Economy of News Media in the United States and Canada. Lexington Books, edited by David Skinner, James R. Compton, and Michael Gasher. NY: Lexington Books.

Stern, Christopher. March 15, 2002. FCC Gives Cable Firms Net Rights. Washington Post: E1.

Web Resources

Media Reform Information Center

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

Media Channel

Media Access Project

Media Alliance

Center for Public Integrity, Well Connected

Free Press

Action Coalition for Media Education