Your FCC At Work

In the most bizarre example yet of GOP corporate welfare, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has taken to the op-ed page of the New York Times to propose that -- in order to save the newspaper industry -- big-city papers should now be permitted to purchase a television or radio station in their market.

His rationale is breathtaking. To appreciate it, you first have to set aside some inconvenient truths. Like the finding of one of the FCC's own studies of localism (a quality that the law mandates the FCC to encourage) -- a study suppressed because they didn't like the results -- that television stations with distant owners (like, say, corporations that own chains of newspapers) do a worse job at localism than locally-owned stations. Or the finding of another FCC study that radio-newspaper cross-ownership "is associated with significantly less news coverage" on the radio station. Or the analysis of the FCC's own data that shows that cross ownership leads to less total newsgathering in a market, because the other stations realize they can't compete on news, so they focus on sports, weather or something else, like freeway chases or celebrity crime. You also have to ignore the underlying economic facts of the newspaper industry, which totally undermine Chairman Martin's "endangered species" argument.

But just put all that out of your mind, and focus instead on the nub of his argument: the reason that newspapers should be allowed to own television or radio stations is that those broadcast outlets are cash cows. And just why are they so profitable? Chairman Martin doesn't connect these dots, but let's do it for him.

It's because the FCC doesn't require them to pay a penny in exchange for their licenses to broadcast over the public's airwaves.

It's because the FCC lets television stations renew their licenses every eight years by sending a postcard to Washington, rather than requiring them to demonstrate that they serve the public interest.

It's because television and radio stations can broadcast whatever they want on the public's airwaves, without regard to fair representation of diverse points of view.

It's because the FCC has allowed television and radio station ownership to become a white boys' club, without regard to the public interest that might be served by minority or women ownership.

It's because those stations not only have largely abandoned, with impunity, their obligation to cover local politics and public affairs -- they have found in political advertising a gusher of revenue.

So let's put Chairman Martin's argument together.

The public has given away, for free, its airwaves, to stations that generally do a dreadful job covering politics in their news programming, but that reap big bucks from political candidates, who in turn get the billions they spend on political ads from the public, and now the public is being asked to cut the newspaper industry in on that extortion racket in order to save democracy.

Next thing you know, we'll be asked to give tax breaks to oil companies. Oh, wait.

Follow Marty Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martykaplan

Comments

[castlerider]

I absolutely cannot wait for the big change that has to come to our country after 2008...

Hopefully the average intelligence you proclaim in quite effective terms will take hold and send these thieves home, or better yet, find the way to justly prosecute them for crimes against the wellbeing of our nation.
This is one of those issues that give me outrage fatigue. ... I get so damn mad at people's stupidity for putting up with this crap, and for having voted in the idiots like Bush who have given us this FCC chairman who has absolutely no concern for the well being of our normal hard working people and middle class, I can hardly stand it.
My goodness, how much we have lost.
People have no idea. We all work so hard, those of us in the middle class, that we can hardly notice how the world is changing for the worse around us. But it's criminals like this Martin idiot that is selling our intelligence and capacity to think clearly to make educated choices to the highest rich elite bidder that wants to consolidate control over the masses without giving a good hot damn about the consequences it inflicts on the public.
The most typical and common of all Rethuglican criminal garbage..

Thanks Marty, great post.

[champions1]

I'm kinda thinking....what are Native Americans thinking, well someday this was all gonna happen, The rich and powerful will always have everything they want, not so much what they need, greed is a very powerful weapon it was used against the first people and know it will be used on the second people's. I'm not so sure i feel sorry for anyone in this country usually what goes around comes around..looks alot like know its your turn..sad but true

[j0hnwi11iams]

How perverted is it to get enterainment from news channels (FOX) and news from entertainment channels (COMEDY)?

[Nutcase]

And we're surprised at this?

[DKLA]

re-elect nobody for the next 20 years.
that should flush the system.
AND, never elect the decendent of a president to any public office, ever.
no more Bushies or Cheney's, ever!!
Impeachment starts at home, a failed impeachment is better than none at all.
just ask Bill Clinton.

[provoice]

There was a time when television stations not only had to maintain a public file of letters comments from their viewers, but the FCC ACTUALLY LOOKED at those comments to get a feel for how well a station was serving it's community.

I think the stations are still required to keep those files, but they are no longer used by an FCC that has become an agency staffed with people who are either appointed to be repaid for their political favors, or the nephews and sons-in-law of powerful political figures who are otherwise unemployable.

I think Reagan once considered appointing George W. Bush to the FCC.

Once upon a time, the government regulation of the broadcast industry was carefully designed to prevent undue influence by unscrupulous individuals who could manipulate the media to craft a government to their liking.

Perhaps someone like Rupert Murdoch.

[ibsteve2u]

I lived in a large city when the local newspaper bought one of the TV stations associated with a MSM network.

Wasn't long before I could pick up their paper, glance at their editorial page, and predict which stories they would cover and the slant they would take on their broadcasts of the local news.

That appears to have been noticed at higher levels, because later, post-Rupert, I could take a look at Fox News on cable and predict the local news stories that would be covered as well as the slant that would be used by the local (and often strangely interwoven) broadcast affiliates of that massive propaganda machine.

[HearNoWeasel]

There's a way to get this topic into the upcoming CNN/Youtube presidential debate:

Vote for the video question "What will you do to protect independent media?" by clicking the green "Thumbs Up" icon.

http://www­.10questio­ns.com/?se­arch=faT38­EmqR18&l=c­cforum&ans­=quest&all­=1&menu=

The 10 most popular questions will get asked.

Check out other questions by clicking on the link "Show all videos I haven't voted on".

[Heyman]

Doesn't Rupert Murdock own FOX and many news rags? Such as the Boston Herald, Chicago Sun Times, NY Post, Wall Street Journal, etc...
Mainstream media is garbage. Lies for the minds. THEY tell you what THEY want you to hear. Just like smellyvision. Want to watch good television? Good luck! What the FCC should do? Stop the monopoly on television. And NO to newspapers buying up television stations. C-Span is the only television station worth watching. The viewers comments are more interesting than the 5:00 news! (Sometimes.)
The FCC needs to be an entity that WE vote in every four years. NOT Republicrats appointed. Cause both parties are Corporate controlled.

[Producer1]

What concerns me is that no candidate for the presidency on either side has taken a position on this, nor has any moderator ever posed a question to them (gee, I wonder why?) If I am ever allowed to ask them any questions the first one will be "How do you intend to remedy the corporate stranglehold on the media and how do you intend to make the FCC more responsive in the public's interest?"

Most candidates have pretty similar answers to the questions on the war and the economy, etc. according to their party lines, but no one it seems wants to talk about how media distortion and control affects all of us in an adverse way. I will not vote for any candidate that doesn't want to break up the corporate media. Where's our generation's Theodore Roosevelt ?

[Openeyes]

Marty, all the problems you point out about radio/tv are true, and then some. However, I think you've missed the more insidious part of this proposal.

It's obvious that the current FCC wants to protect large corporations over small independents in broadcasting, as you note. However, it would make no sense to let newspapers in on the deal, trying to buy these "cash cows." There has been enormous consolidation in the broadcast industry since Bush came to power. They aren't going to allow anything to interfere with that, including allowing newspapers to buy tv/radio. So it seems odd that this FCC board would push anything to upset the apple cart of monolithic corporate ownership of broadcast media.

So here's my take on it:
THIS WILL ALLOW BROADCASTERS TO OWN NEWSPAPERS, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. The ban is to prevent print media from owning broadcast media and "dominating" the market. Presumably, the ban is RECIPROCAL for that very policy reason. Eliminating the ban would mean broadcasters can scoop up the papers.

That would fit perfectly with their approach to monopolize the market. They already can own multiple radio and tv stations in the same market - this will allow control of the newspapers, which in many markets means the ONLY newspaper.

That's what this is really about, not saving papers by allowing them to buy into broadcasting - the broadcaster's have far more money than the papers do.

[meljomur]

Apparently there were over 1100 people in attendance at the FCC Hearing here in Seattle last Friday. I guess there might as well have been 2, for all that they seemed to listen.
The scary thing is no one is talking about this, and I am beginning to think the internet (and sites like this) will be next.
You know they have the same centralized ownership of media in Russia and China. So just in case you want to know how much worse our media can get.
By the way, I can't get on the site,
reclaimthemedia.org

[CatfishJohn]

...The Corporate Plutocracy has already arrived. The once reasonably credible MSM has morphed into the plutocracy's mouthpiece­,inexorabl­y dumbing down the populace with vapid celebrity pablum as national news, endless wilingness to uncritically foist the bushco. fearmongering angle and obfuscating the core corruption of any semblance of actual democratic process that is the reagan>clinton>bush trajectory and legacy. acts like these- of course white house approved- only allow the "corporations and plutocrats first" zeitgeist to strengthen its grip on america's already narrow and slanted political dialogue....we slowly are moving in America towards Mussolini's vision of corporate facism, as Exxon's soon to be released untaxed profit margins will attest and powerful K Street lobbyists will continue to toast....

[hopeless277]

Why even bother to point out the hypocracy of these people(Rep­ublicans). They do not mean what they say. Every action is meant to consolidate power for the upper 1%. Every breath they take is for that ONE GOAL. This country is over. When the elecetions of 08 are 'postponed', remember you heard it here first. RIP America.

[NoPCZone]

The old rules that served us well limited owners to 5 TV stations, 7 AM & 7 FM stations period. The same rules were later modified to prevent Newspapers from owning broadcast interests in the same market unless grandfathered. That is a policy we should return to.

We should also mandate that radio programming, news gathering and production be done locally (in-market)- no exceptions. Music was at it's best when local program directors chose playlists that reflected local and regional tastes. When Lee Abrams and others began remote-control formula programming, popular music of all kinds started the long slide to our current state of mediocrity.