MESSAGE
| DATE | 2003-09-16 |
| FROM | Ruben I Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] FCC is being undressed in a broad way. Can the RIAA be far behind?
|
September 17, 2003
The Senate Says No
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
How are a majority of Americans, standing with a bipartisan majority of
both houses of Congress, going to stop the Federal Communications
Commission from making the biggest mistake in its existence?
A handful of media giants want to further concentrate their power by
gobbling up more local TV and radio stations, beyond the
35-percent-of-penetration limit. The F.C.C. chairman has called
arguments for local diversity "garbage" and this week branded the
proposed Senate resolution disapproving of his anything-goes ruling as
"bordering on the absurd."
The Senate answered this arrogance yesterday by voting, 55 to 40, for
Senator Byron Dorgan's resolution to disapprove the F.C.C.'s green light
for power-grabbing. Though a House majority would agree, the G.O.P.
leadership there declared the Senate bill "dead on arrival" and will
block a vote. Therefore, the Senate's expression becomes a dramatic
gesture, but not law.
Meanwhile, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia has put a hold on the
F.C.C.'s ruling. When administration lawyers tried to yank the case over
to a D.C. appeals court ? more likely to rubber-stamp the order ? the
Philadelphia judges said nothing doing. That gives Congress time to pass
legislation directing the F.C.C. to hold the line against the
Disney-G.E.-Fox-Viacom takeovers.
The F.C.C. chairman, Michael Powell, sensing that not even his
friendship with Senator John McCain nor his backing by Big Media is
stopping the popular groundswell, has resorted to a fear appeal: that
stopping more gobbling up of local stations by the broadcast networks
will be the ruination of "free TV."
That's the ludicrous party line being peddled by G.E., which owns NBC.
But four-fifths of broadcast network TV is now delivered to homes by
cable or satellite ? not free ? and NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox are making
money hand over fist. "Powell's Last Stand" on this false argument has
become an embarrassment to the Bush White House, which has been
foolishly threatening to veto any disapproval of the F.C.C.'s abdication
of the public interest. (The G.O.P. leader Tom DeLay still can't get 148
signatures on a letter promising to sustain what would be Bush's first
veto.)
How do we break out of this impasse, with the mediopoly and its
political trained seals on the merger side, and with the most diverse
coalition of lefties and righties ever assembled on the other?
Senator Trent Lott, a Republican, knows how these things work; I
crosshatched his analysis with that of a savvy Democratic mole in the
House.
Yesterday's Senate expression of disapproval was a good sign, but will
die in the House. The bill already passed by McCain's Senate Commerce
Committee detailing what the F.C.C. must do to protect diversity in TV
as well as radio, and to restrict new cross-ownership of TV and
newspapers, will not soon get a floor vote as the majority leader, Bill
Frist, goes along with White House wishes.
But thanks to the canny Alaskan Ted Stevens, the rollback of the Powell
abomination will appear in the Senate appropriations bill for the
Commerce, Justice and State Departments. It is already in the House bill
funding those departments, and Democrats will not let it be stripped out
behind closed doors in conference. Thus even restraint of
cross-ownership of newspapers and TV ? which those of us in diversity's
ranks thought a lost cause ? may be carried along in the wave of
resentment against the 45-percent-of-TV-audience penetrators.
"Today's victory ? and don't kid yourself, it stunned 'em ? is just one
step in the process," says Lott. "The final step will be even harder for
the president or the leadership to stop. An appropriations bill for
Commerce-Justice-State ? that would be hard to veto over the issue of a
regulatory review."
Why would the president want to bring the financing of the war on terror
to a grinding halt to rescue an appointee aching to resign? Or to curry
favor with a tight bunch of media biggies who might use their
ever-greater power to turn on him when he least expects it? The first
Bush veto should advance a principle, not be wasted on a bow to a
muscular Mickey Mouse.
Libertarians of the left and right are resisting the concentration of
power and insisting on the preservation of competition. This strange
bedfellowship will not equivocate, and we will be heard.
--
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