The Bottom Line: America Doesn’t Want Bigger Media

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been counting down the “10 Facts Kevin Martin Doesn’t Want You to Know” about his new media ownership rules, as chronicled in our report Devil in the Details.

With just four days to go before Martin insists he’ll vote to gut longstanding media ownership limits, the last fact may be the most obvious and the most important: The American people overwhelmingly oppose letting a few media giants swallow up more local media.

Fact No. 10: The public doesn’t want more media consolidation

It’s déjà vu all over again. The unprecedented public outcry sparked the last time the FCC tried to change the rules in 2003 hasn’t
diminished. Then, under former Chairman Michael Powell, millions contacted Congress and the FCC to oppose the changes, which were ultimately thrown out by the courts. Some 99 percent of the public comments received by the FCC opposed changing the rules.

Since the FCC announced its latest review of media ownership rules in June 2006, hundreds of thousands of public comments have been filed with the FCC. Once again, 99 percent of them oppose loosening media ownership limits. When’s the last time 99 percent of us agreed on anything?

In addition, between October 2006 and September 2007, the FCC held six official public hearings across the country on media ownership and localism. At these events, the vast majority of speakers opposed changing the rules. In fact, Martin admitted at the Oct. 31 FCC meeting that he remembers “only one” public witness calling for relaxation of media ownership rules at the hearings.

Merry X-Mas, Big Media

Yet this undeniable record of public opposition hasn’t slowed down Martin. He scheduled the FCC’s final two public hearings with little public notice, giving communities in Washington, D.C., and Seattle barely a week’s advance warning. Though the two events may have been nothing more than a charade to Martin, hundreds of citizens turned out anyway to make their voices heard.

Chairman Martin has demonstrated an unyielding determination to ignore the public will and any evidence that challenges his predetermined conclusions. And he’s pulling out all the stops to wrap up this early Christmas present to Big Media next week before most people find out what’s happening.

It’s time the FCC and its chairman started listening to their real constituents — the American people — and doing their job to ensure that the public airwaves actually reflect America’s diverse local communities.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 9:10 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.