Former FCC chairman: Deregulation is a right-wing power grab

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 22:15:41 -0700
> From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
>
>
>
> Former FCC chairman: Deregulation is a right-wing power grab
>
> Reed Hundt says Monday's historic vote is "the culmination of the attack by
> the right on the media."
>
> http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/05/31/fcc/index.html
> [Note: Better to view the original HTML page as the interview questions are
> differentiated from the responses by font style - Rob]
> - - - - - - - - - - - -
> By Eric Boehlert
>
> May 31, 2003  |  The Federal Communications Commission will meet in
> Washington on Monday for a historic vote on the future of media ownership in
> the United States. By all accounts, the Republican-dominated commission will
> ease long-standing rules so that more and more of the nations newspapers and
> broadcast stations can be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
>
> Underlying that agenda, Clinton-era FCC chairman Reed Hundt sees something
> more primal unfolding: an extraordinary conservative power grab that could
> shape the political landscape for generations.
>
> For all the philosophical conflict over diversity in the media and the
> efficiency of the free market, Hunt told Salon this week, the vote is really
> about an alliance of interests between the political right and the corporate
> media. "Conservatives," he said, "hope Š that the major media will be their
> friends."
>
> In today's political and media environment, there's plenty of evidence that
> those hopes will come true. ABC News recently appointed conservative
> commentator John Stossel to co-host its primetime magazine "20/20." "These
> are conservative times...," an ABC source told TV Guide. "The network wants
> somebody to match the times."
>
> The FCC's two Democrats have strongly opposed the deregulation measure
> that's been pushed by current FCC chairman Michael Powell, a close ally of
> the Bush White House, and public response to the proposal has been heavily
> opposed. But Hundt's radical critique is all the more striking because he is
> an establishment lawyer thoroughly versed in the diplomatic niceties of high
> government office. He attended prep school with Al Gore and law school with
> Bill Clinton and served as FCC chairman under Clinton from 1993 to 1997. He
> is now a senior advisor at McKinsey and Co., the international consulting
> firm.
>
> The FCC has long had rules regulating media ownership, based on the
> assumption that the number of broadcast frequencies is limited. The
> regulations were designed to ensure that radio and television stations
> remained diverse, independent voices and could withstand predatory
> conglomerates. But on Monday the FCC is expected to dump those rules.
>
> A company like the News Corp., owned by conservative world-media mogul
> Rupert Murdoch, will be able to hold newspapers, television stations and
> radio stations in the same market. Conglomerates such as the News Corp. (Fox
> TV, Fox News, Fox Sports, 20th Century Fox Studio, the New York Post,
> HarperCollins Publishers) and Viacom (CBS, MTV, Paramount Studios and the
> Infinity radio network), would be allowed to snatch up more and more local
> TV affiliate stations nationwide. And, critics say, small and medium-size
> broadcast companies and newspaper publishers will likely be swallowed up by
> bigger competitors.
>
> In the telephone interview Wednesday, Hundt warned that the massive media
> deregulation will exacerbate the dangerously close relationship that's
> emerged between sprawling U.S. media companies and the government. "If
> Dwight Eisenhower were alive today," he said, "he'd be warning us about the
> dangers of the military-industry-media complex."
>
> During Hundt's term as FCC chairman, the landmark Telecommunications Act of
> 1996 was passed. As originally drafted by Republicans in Congress, the
> legislation would have virtually stripped away all media-ownership limits.
> In the end, Clinton signed into law a compromise version that allowed only
> the radio industry to be deregulated.
>
> At the time, Hundt was among the few to warn of the consequences. The new
> laws would allow "a few companies to buy all the radio licenses in the
> country," he said then. "I don't believe that's good for this industry or
> for this country."
>
> His words proved prophetic. Since the law's passage, Clear Channel
> Communications, which in 1995 owned approximately 40 radio stations, has
> expanded to approximately 1,200 outlets, nearly 1,000 more than its closest
> competitor. Together with Viacom-owned Infinity Broadcasting, it dominates
> an industry once made up of hundreds of competitors. Few people -- other
> than employees of Clear Channel and Viacom -- would suggest that radio as a
> source of news, information or entertainment has improved in any way because
> of consolidation. In fact, most would say it's become noticeably worse.
>
> And that, Hundt told Salon, plays directly into conservatives' agenda.
>
> What do you think is behind the push for deregulation?
>
> I think that fundamentally what we have here is a political debate. And
> let's just say that the [Bush] administration does not think that the big
> winners in the media consolidation game will be either the New York Times or
> the Washington Post.
>
> Who will be the big winners?
>
> Well, the conservative movement owns the FCC, the courts, Congress, the
> White House.
>
> So you think that politics is more than a small part of what's going on?
>
> Politics is always the greater part of all antitrust, and the debate now is,
> How do you apply antitrust to the media, which traditionally has been the
> job of the FCC? So it's not surprising that politics is the greatest single
> shaping influence on the outcome here.
>
> Michael Powell and the proponents of deregulation say, "Look, if we don't do
> this, if we don't change the ownership rules, the courts will" -- and that
> federal courts have already struck down a number of the current ownership
> limits.
>
> Well, it's the same crowd. The courts we're talking about here are made up
> of just a handful of people who are throwing parties in their Georgetown
> mansions for the commissioners who are casting the votes. It's the same
> club. It's not some kind of independent, objective authority we're talking
> about.
>
> You seem to see much larger forces at work here.
>
> I'm seeing democracy at work. People are getting what they voted for or what
> they let other people vote for.
>
> But back to Powell's argument -- how as chairman would you handle this
> differently?
>
> Any competent appellate lawyer could build a case for media diversity and
> win it in any fair court in the country. Period.
>
> So you don't think the FCC has doggedly pursued a legal challenge?
>
> They haven't even taken it to the Supreme Court. When the Court of Appeals
> votes the right way -- pun intended -- then this FCC doesn't take the case
> to the Supreme Court, which is a much closer call on all issues. They don't
> ever try.
>
> If you were chairman would you have taken them to the Supreme Court?
>
> Big matters should go to the big court.
>
> Back to 1995 when the Telecom Act was pending: A lot of the ownership limits
> about to be implemented were part of that proposed legislation, correct?
>
> When Newt Gingrich was running the House of Representatives, effective in
> the fall of 1994, he called all the media owners together in a room down on
> Capitol Hill, and according to what people who were there told me, he told
> them he'd give them relaxed rules allowing media concentration in exchange
> for favorable coverage. Now I wasn't there, but that's what they said they
> understood he meant.
>
> But in the end, those provisions for cross-ownership for newspaper and
> television, they didn't survive the Telecom Act, right?
>
> In the end, President Clinton allowed only the radio industry to be
> consolidated. Not because he wanted it, but because he used up his political
> capital fighting consolidation in the other media groups.
>
> And why was he opposed to cross-ownership for newspaper and television?
>
> Because he believed all different points of view should have a voice in the
> mass media. That's not a very radical idea. In times past, Republicans
> believed in that also.
>
> Did he have any practical experience in his past that led him to that?
>
> He used to tell people there were only two major media outlets in Arkansas
> and if they were both owned by the same guy who hated him, then neither he
> nor any other progressive would ever get their message across.
>
> But this is a different world today. Progressives would be better off going
> to a Ouija board to channel the spirits of Upton Sinclair and Ida Tarbell,
> rather than trying to shake the conservative majority at the FCC. There's no
> way the three votes there are going to be altered in any way by any kind of
> popular protest. You can walk the streets of the United States and you will
> never find a single person who's in favor of more consolidated media, unless
> by chance you happened to bump into one of Rupert Murdoch's children.
>
> So the vote on Monday will be a culmination of what Newt Gingrich set in
> motion nearly 10 years ago after the Republican Revolution?
>
> It's the culmination of the attack by the right on the media since the
> independent media challenged and helped topple Richard Nixon.
>
> But in a sense aren't conservatives suspicious of the media? Why would they
> want media companies to become more powerful?
>
> Conservatives hope, with some reason, that the major media will be their
> friends. That's what Dwight Eisenhower was talking about when he warned
> against the military-industrial complex in his last speech before leaving
> office. If Dwight Eisenhower were alive today he'd be warning us about the
> dangers of the military-industrial-media complex.
>
> The concern was that that complex would not be a separate stand-alone one,
> and that it would soon morph into a quasi-governmental one?
>
> Ever since the invention of the printing press, governments have tried to
> make an ally out of owners of the means of information distribution. That's
> as old a story as when the powers that be tried to suppress Gutenberg's
> Bible. Not because they didn't believe in the Bible, but because they didn't
> believe everyone should be able to get one.
>
> This is a 600-year-old story. It's not a new story. But it's news to the
> United States that one side should get this close to that goal.
>
> When did the FCC in effect get out of the regulation business?
>
> I don't think it's out of the business, at least not until the June 2 vote.
> It's regulation to insist on market structures that provide multiple voices.
> That's good, healthy regulation. We don't need regulations that tell people
> what to say. But antitrust policy has always been used to promote diversity
> in all industries. And there's never been any industry where that's been
> more important than the media.
>
>
> --
> Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
> Voice: 408-882-4755 eFax: +1-408-490-2868
> http://www.ibd.com


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