"Corporations have been enthroned. An era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudice of the people until wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the public is destroyed." Abraham Lincoln, 1865. (cited in Green Cross, Summer, 1996)
These days, it is almost impossible not to find an article about the privatizing of public space that begins something like this: "Possibly the most egregious example" or "Arguably the most harmful example" or the more bold, "Definitely the most outrageous example…" followed by a critique of the privatizing of education or health care or art. All of these articles describe the things we have to pay for because the public assets are not being funded or maintained properly. A sampling include bottled water, art and music programs in public schools, security guards, admission to parks, and the list goes on.
An interesting thing to consider is what, if privatized, will we no longer have access to no matter how much money we have? One thing is a range of information and a diversity of viewpoints. The Federal Communications Commission, as part of its biennial review process, is examining a large and fundamental set of rules that currently prevent one broadcast network from owning another broadcast network, limit the number of local broadcast stations that any one broadcaster can own to systems serving 35 percent of the TV-viewing households, and prohibit a company from owning cable TV systems and TV stations in the same community.
One of those restrictions prevents common ownership of newspaper and television or radio stations in a single geographical market. If deregulation changes currently under consideration pass, a wave of massive media consolidation is expected; at local levels it is wholly possible one firm could acquire the vast majority of media outlets including daily newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, and cable TV systems. Radio, which had its ownership rules relaxed in 1996, is now dominated by ten parent companies nationwide: Clear Channel and Viacom alone control 42% of listeners and 45% of industry revenues.
The FCC is under the leadership of Michael Powell, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Michael is a big believer in the "the invisible hand." In fact columnist Molly Ivins quoted him as saying, "My religion is the market."
Consumers Union reports that we are returning to the philosophy of Mark Fowler, President Reagan's first FCC chairman, who is famous for saying that public interest rules for television were unnecessary, since TV was just another appliance, "a toaster with pictures." Like Fowler, Michael Powell sees a media world in which public policies are unnecessary and diversity of viewpoints is more about having a large number of sitcoms to choose from than having citizen participation in the airwaves or in the printed media. The problems with media consolidation are obvious: it reduces competition, promotes over-commercialization, censors politically unpopular views and creates barriers to access by independent media.
The proof that those who oppose the relaxation of rules are probably correct is the lack of coverage in the mainstream media of this issue. There have been public hearings in various cities around the country, but if you were trying to follow this story through mainstream press or commercial radio, you would have little idea what was happening. At the public hearings in San Francisco, only one television station was present and all the network owned stations were absent. The hearing was not covered by the San Francisco Chronicle, owned by the Hearst corporation, which also owns 27 TV stations in California.
"The meta-issue here is actually corporate domination of the civic culture," said Peter Coyote at the hearing in San Francisco. At the same hearing, University of California Professor Iain Boal called for "reappropriation of the commons…a siezing back of the electronic spectrum."
Nonprofits often find it hard enough to get our issues covered even in the alternative media, and we need to be very concerned about this. If you were able to follow all the of the anti-war actions and work–the number of demonstrations, the speak-outs, town meetings, school strikes and so on that went on, you would correctly think that this was a large movement and represented a significant cross section of public opinion. However, if you followed all this in the mainstream news, you would not have nearly the sense of the size of the movement, nor would you have access to analysis and criticism of the war from across the spectrum. This corporatism becomes a form of censorship.
Public radio stations, such as the Pacifica Network, or the many very local stations that operate in various communities around the country are themselves nonprofits. They often have a hard time raising money, but are also often the only source of local news, of critiques of public policy or legislation, or of so-called "unpatriotic" viewpoints (i.e. anything critical of the Bush administration). Further they are usually the only source of promotion for alternative arts and culture events. Many communities don’t have access to these stations, and many other communities don’t have alternative written press. Consolidation means homogenization of information, even information about music, plays, or art exhibits that have no political meaning, but are from artists who are new and emerging.
Powell is bolstered in his efforts by a powerful media industry lobby, which includes some of the most powerful companies in the US: GE/NBC, AOL Time Warner, Comcast, News Corp/Fox, and the Tribune Company. Powell has announced a vote will be held on these rule changes on June 2, 2003.
You need to express your views to Mr. Powell and the FCC, as well as to your own Congresspeople. For more on this, and suggestions of wording in letters, and a wonderful statement on digital democracy, visit the following websites:
www.democraticmedia.org
www.mediareform.net
www.consumerfed.org
www.consumerunion.org
