We want the airwaves
Last Monday my friend Robert passed on something from one of the
listserves he's on. I avoid listserves when I can. It was an invitation
to join an online petition from a sub group of civil rights org. Twenty
Million Americans Demand a Seat at the Table When Congress Makes New
Telecomm Policy Press Release, May 9, 2005 : Media and Democracy Coalition. The petition itself would sign one on to the Bill of Media Rights. This document makes three essential requests from the FCC:
- Media That Provide "An Uninhibited Marketplace of Ideas"
- Media That Use The Public's Airwaves To Serve The Public Interest
- Media That Reflect And Respond To Their Local Communities
By public interest they mean: "Meaningful participation in
government media policy, including disclosure of the ways broadcasters
comply with their public interest obligations, ascertain their
community[base ']s needs, and create programming to serve those needs." By
response to local communities: " Public broadcasting insulated from
political and commercial interests that is well-funded and especially
serves communities under served by privately-owned broadcasters."
It
seems that it's time for congress to review the FCC's chartering
legislation. I am a little confused by this petition; though. It seems to only
be asking for persons who can pledge an organization to sign it. It's not
a public petition. Maybe Robert can talk the Dean into signing on
behalf of UMCP libraries. I see the United Church of Christ
(Congregationalists - my church) has already signed.
There is also an accompanying document; a 24 page report written by
the advocacy group Common Cause "Fallout from the telecommunications
act of 1996 : Unintended consequences and lessons learned".
A three
page executive summary (much of what was also in the body of the press
release) at the beginning hits the high lights. It gives bulleted
points against two headings: who the industry players are and what they
want out of the legislation, and the legacy of the Telecommunications
act of 1996. In between there are tables that list campaign donations
and lobbying expenditures by these industry players. I recommend this
much highly even to the casual reader. The FCC oversees a big chunk of
the media
and the media is American life. The impact of consolidation of media on
news reporting and the political marketplace of idea's is what led me
to read
through the whole document. The body of the report examines the FCC's
mandate by its main areas of oversight with sections on radio, cable
television, broadcast television, digital broadcast, and
telephony. I'm vaguely aware that the 1996 Telecommunications act
was the culmination of a 25 year long de-regulation effort and this
document revisits some of the sweeping claims that were made on its
behalf. These do not appear to have materialized. In words from the
report:
Over ten years, the legislation was supposed to save
consumers $550 billion, including $333 billion in lower long-distance
rates, $32 billion in lower local phone rates, and $78 billion in lower
cable bills.11 But most of those savings never materialized. Indeed,
Sen. John McCain (R AZ), who opposed the legislation, noted in 2003:
"From January 1996 to the present, the consumer price index has risen
17.4 percent ... Cable rates are up 47.2 percent. Local phone rates are
up 23.2 percent."12
The rosy predictions that passage of the Telecom Act would create 1.4
million jobs and increase the nation[not equal]'s Gross Domestic Product by as
much as $2 trillion also proved false.13
It's easy to look at this counterfactual documentation as refuting
de-regulations claims, but the concept of de-regulation is so ingrained
and internal to conservative views of the free market that as a
practical matter they don't. There are always reasons to explain
apparent failure and the cure inevitably is more de-regulation. The
market has not just an invisible hand, it has invisible benefits to go
with it. Part of this difficulty is in mistaking the cheerleaders
of the market for genuine adherents - they make such convincing and
stalwart champions it is easy to overlook that actual rigorous open
markets is the last thing any of them want. They want their markets to
be regarded as a private matter, of concern only among themselves.This
they see as the existing set of players and any new entity willing to
barter or bargain (but never break) into the game.
Out of this certain pernicious effects seem to have materialized, again
from the report: "Obeisance to the bottom line has meant that local TV
stations,
increasingly owned by out-of-town corporations, are producing less
local news or none at all...The law extended the terms of
broadcasters[not equal]'' TV licenses, and made it much more difficult for those
licenses to be revoked"
Cable companies vertically assemble and produce more of their
own content, less to little or no programming comes from new sources of
entry into media-casting. The giveaway of the digital broadcast
spectrum is an especially egregious instance. Broadcasters won the
right of being given HDTV spectrum free for putting it in place, but
now envision using much less of it for digital broadcast, carving the
rest up for secondary revenue streams and seem bent on keeping their
current analog spectrum the return of which to the FCC was part of the
original trade.the baby bells did not live up to their bargains and
even aggressively went against them using the courts and legislature to
change the terms of agreements made. SBC's campaign to buy ATT fits
here. More broadly the authors quote a Clinton Administration official:
"But the lesson we learned was that you have to lean more on the
side of the public interest because the companies will push back after
the law is passed in the courts and in Congress".
One of the last things I want to pull out of this report is
where it
notes: "Equally important, the law directed the FCC to re-evaluate its
telecommunications regulations every two years, and to[not equal] "determine
whether regulation is no longer necessary in the public interest" If
the FCC makes that determination, it must streamline or eliminate the
regulation in question.70" From the onset of the 1996 act and certainly
under the current administration the FCC has followed a policy that the
only correct route to the 'public interest' is through the market. The market those
who it regulates ask for. The Telecommunication of
1996 and every iteration previous to its founding relied on FCC to be
watchdog regulatory body. What rulings it has issued show tendency to
see organized public interest bodies as mere special interests, but not
corporate bodies. The only notable exceptions lay entirely among the
organized social conservative groups that impact vote totals for
republican candidates. The Public Interest as named and desired by
Media Bill of Rights simply does not exist to the current FCC. They
have vacated their trust and need to be told this.
11:32:00 PM  ;;
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