When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to relax the media ownership rules in 2003, a broad public took notice. Normally the FCC toils in obscurity...except when Howard Stern calls them names for fining him for obscenities. But in June of 2003, over two million people from across the political spectrum took the initiative to file comments with the agency. Why did so many people take notice of the proceedings and fight to maintain the current limits on how big a media company can get? Some felt the media was just plain biased and that concentration would make it worse. I think for many it was a perfect storm of sorts where the public perceived the media hadn't been doing a great job in covering the march to the war in Iraq, coupled with the perception that the rule-making was being done behind closed doors.
It's true that there was little opportunity for the public to participate in the process in a meaningful way; the public didn't even get to see the actual rule-making until the day of the vote itself. In the end, what did the FCC do with all those comments? It ignored them, it seems, because the only thing that stopped the rule making from taking effect was a vote by a Philadelphia Court directing the FCC to revisit the whole process.
How big is too big, and how much influence do we want any one company to have? Take News Corporation: I looked it up, and they own an astounding amount of different media, including 35 local Fox affiliates, in big markets too like NYC, LA, Boston and DC, 19 Cable and Satellite companies worldwide including DirectTV, the famous Fox News Channel, and Sky Italia. They own four film companies, including 20th Century Fox, and 26 newspapers worldwide, including the New York Post, News International in the UK, and the Sunday Herald Sun in Australia. They own 23 publishing companies, and the list goes on. Murdoch's conservative views are well known, and he hasn't hesitated to assert them via his mass global media empire. Check out this article in Time from a while back to learn more.
It's bad enough already if you ask me, but big media is looking to the FCC to own more, and to earn more, without regard to the information needs of the public. We're going to be working hard to make sure the public has a voice in the upcoming proceedings, and we've written a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin explaining our position. You can read the letter and sign on to it. I hope you will join us in this important campaign to hold back big media.
