I guess Ayn Rand summed it up best back in the '60s. "America's most persecuted minority, Big Business."
A Slap at the Media
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 24, 2003; 8:53 AM
Nobody much likes Big Media these days.
But who woulda thunk that it would become a hot political issue?
Not me.
But the Bush administration's attempt to allow the big media conglomerates to control even more of the television market has sparked something of a rebellion on the Hill.
It's gotten to the point where the FCC had to deny that Chairman Michael Powell would be stepping down soon.
The whole thing smells like a corporate giveaway, allowing big networks (who are licensed by the government in the "public interest," a very old-fashioned concept) to extend their reach.
If this is anything like the deregulation the radio industry won a few years back, we could end up with the equivalent of a handful of companies playing the same tired songs.
The FCC vote would allow big corporations to control stations that reach 45 percent of the national audience, up from 35 percent, and largely end the ban on owning newspapers and TV stations in the same city. But the House rose up yesterday to block the rule by a stunning 400-21 vote.
Yes, there are more media choices (online, for example) than when the Federal Communications Commission wrote these rules decades ago. But that was also before the networks were owned by the likes of Viacom, Disney, GE and Rupert.
The rare move by the Republican-controlled House to buck the administration on a regulatory issue--especially given the clout of the broadcast industry, which hands out plenty of campaign cash--suggests that this issue has struck some kind of nerve.
The Los Angeles Times covers the vote: "'The public furor is totally understandable,' Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) said during the debate. Referring to moviedom's famous fictional press lord, he added: 'No one should have that kind of power. It will make Citizen Kane look like an underachiever.' "
Says the Wall Street Journal: "The White House has threatened a veto but may find it hard to defeat such legislation in the face of broad bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate. Following through on a veto also could hand Democrats a potent political weapon to portray the Bush administration as going out of its way to favor big business interests."
Let's look at how the groundswell began. One media mogul, Mort Zuckerman, wrote in his paper, the New York Daily News: "Three anonymous political appointees to the Federal Communications Commission have delivered a body blow to American democracy. . . . Astonishingly, the FCC has done this without public review, without analyzing the consequences and without the American people getting a dime in return for their public airwaves."
Bill Clinton said in the News that "interesting local coverage will be supplanted by lowest common denominator mass-market mush."
William Safire of the NYT has championed the issue, saying that "CBS's '60 Minutes,' NBC's 'Dateline' and ABC's '20/20' found the rip-off of the public interest by their parent companies too hot to handle."
Writes Safire: "Take the force of right-wingers upholding community standards who are determined to defend local control of the public airwaves; combine that with the force of lefties eager to maintain diversity of opinion in local media; add in the independent voters' mistrust of media manipulation; then let all these people have access to their representatives by e-mail and fax, and voilà! Congress awakens to slap down the power grab."
New York magazine'sMichael Wolff manages to tie the issue to Iraq:
"Every news organization from CNN to Fox to the networks to the big newspaper chains to the New York Times (although, heroically, not the Washington Post) was eagerly petitioning the Bush FCC (led by the secretary of State's son, Michael Powell) for the freedom to substantially alter the economics of the news business. And as the war got under way, everybody knew the decision would come soon after the war ended. . . .
"All right then. The media knows what it wants, and the media knows what the Bush people want.
"So is it a conspiracy? Is that what I'm saying? That the media -- acting in concert -- took a dive on the war for the sake of getting an improved position with regard to the ownership rules? Certainly, every big media company was a cheerleader, as gullible and as empty-headed -- or as accommodating -- on the subject of WMDs as, well, Saddam himself."
Salon's Eric Boehlert analyzes the anti-FCC movement:
"The surprisingly stiff opposition in Congress, where commercial broadcasters have often enjoyed good working relations with politicians, is just the latest example of how the swelling anti-FCC, anti-media-consolidation movement is reverberating around Capitol Hill. In fact, the story behind the media-consolidation battle is the unprecedented grassroots campaign, joined by both liberals and conservatives, that has clearly sparked action inside the Beltway.
"Conservatives are worried about indecent television programming, and how consolidation could further erode standards, while liberals decry how deregulation drives political diversity from the airwaves. During the final days before the FCC's vote, the commission was buried by nearly 800,000 opposition e-mails and postcards from, among others, National Rifle Association members on the right and MoveOn.org readers on the left. . . .
"A recent poll by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that the more Americans learn about the FCC's move to relax caps on how many newspapers and TV stations a media corporation can own in local markets, the less they like it. Fifty percent of Americans today see further media consolidation as a negative development. Just 10 percent view it positively. And among Americans who have followed the issue closely, the negative percentage balloons to 70."
That shooting in New York was nothing short of chilling:
"A New York City councilman was killed inside City Hall yesterday afternoon by a political opponent who accompanied him to a Council meeting, pulled out a pistol and shot him in front of scores of stunned lawmakers and onlookers, officials said," the New York Times reports.
"The gunman was instantly shot and killed by a police officer assigned to City Hall, who fired six shots from the Council floor to the balcony where Mr. Davis had been shot, officials said.
"The shooting stirred panic in the nearly 200-year-old seat of city government as officials initially believed that a gunman was still loose. City Hall was sealed, the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges were briefly closed, subway trains bypassed stops near City Hall, and several nearby streets were barricaded. The crush of heavily armed police officers flooding the area -- just blocks from the World Trade Center site -- once again had New Yorkers fearing that a terrorist attack had taken place."
So much for tight security.
Here's the latest Kobe outrage: Syndicated radio host Tom Leykis has named Bryant's accuser on his radio. While we have questions about the woman's friends coming out and trashing the Lakers star while she remains shrouded in anonymity, what gives Leykis the right to out her?
Reuters . interviews the host: " 'We're told that rape is violence, not sex, and if that's true there's no reason she should feel shame or embarrassment," Leykis said, adding that he felt it unfair to name Bryant but not his accuser.
"The talk-show host, who is heard on 60 stations across the country, also said he did not believe the woman's claims. He said he believes the woman was seeking attention and money and that Bryant could be the 'real victim' in the case."
Could be, sure. But how does he know?
"If we report on people who are murdered, people who are carjacked . . . then I don't see why one crime should stick out among all the others," Leykis told MSNBC's Dan Abrams. "What about the stigma of Kobe Bryant being accused?"
MSNBC, meanwhile, interviewed an acquaintance who says that the woman, at a party, was "even giving details about Kobe Bryant's physique."
"She was bragging about it, kind of," said Steve Evancho.
Quite a spectacle.
And is this how you say you're sorry? The New York Post picks up a story from People:
"NBA superstar Kobe Bryant bought his wife, Vanessa, an eye-popping $4 million, eight-carat purple diamond ring just days after admitting adultery and being accused of raping a Colorado hotel worker, says a new report."
Take notes, guys.
The California recall is now official, and the Philadelphia Inquirer has the Democratic spin:
"Terry McAuliffe, the national Democratic Party chairman, has been monitoring the latest political earthquake in California, and yesterday, from his perspective, the news was all bad.
"He learned that angry Golden State voters will soon get the chance to kick Democratic Gov. Gray Davis out of office. He learned that this statewide recall election -- the first in the nation since 1921 -- will likely happen this autumn. The official announcement came last night, when state officials said there were enough valid petition signatures for a recall vote.
"So earlier yesterday McAuliffe set up a conference call with 1,000 Democratic donors and activists, and he coached them on the party's new national message: A twice-elected governor is fighting for survival against a small cadre of right-wing Republicans who have bankrolled this recall, in a bid to engineer a virtual coup d'etat, so don't let them win."
Remember the predictions that killing the Hussein brothers would blow away the State of the Union controversy? USA Today says no:
"The White House can't seem to put an end to questions about disputed intelligence on Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The issue dominated the daily White House news briefing again yesterday. . . .
"Democrats say the controversy is eroding Americans' confidence in Bush's honesty, something polls have long shown is a key facet of his support. In his slipping job-approval rating -- now at 59%, its lowest mark since March -- they see signs that voters are rethinking their support for him. Coupled with concerns about the economy and the instability of Iraq, many Democrats say, these new doubts could help them defeat Bush next year."
Andrew Sullivanhails the killing of Uday and Qusay:
"But of course this focus -- on our current progress and on how we now move from one success to another -- is exactly the kind of topic the anti-war left (and right) want to avoid. It is vital to them that we forget just how evil the Saddam regime was, that we ignore the immeasurably better life Iraqis (and Afghans) now have, that we do not build on this success to take the cause to Iran and Syria and Saudi Arabia. Why? Because all that will merely strengthen Bush and weakening Bush -- regardless of its effects on the wider world -- is the prime obsession of the antis. . . .
"Here's how [the BBC] headlined the news about the killing of Saddam's sons: 'US celebrates "good" Iraq news.' Yes, that 'good' again. The Beebers must be truly sad to see two mass murderers brought to justice. One BBC journalist even pronounced that the deaths might cause an intensification of anti-American violence. Wishful thinking."
The AP'sestimable Ron Fournier also finds the president's popularity slipping:
"For the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, rank-and-file Republicans say they are worried about President Bush's re-election chances based on the feeble economy, the rising death toll in Iraq and questions about his credibility.
" 'Of course it alarms me to see his poll figures below the safe margins,' said Ruth Griffin, co-chair of Bush's 2000 campaign steering committee in New Hampshire. 'If he isn't concerned, and we strong believers in the Bush administration aren't concerned, we must have blinders on.'
"The worries emerged as Griffin and nearly two dozen other GOP stalwarts were interviewed by The Associated Press in advance of the Republican National Committee's meeting this week in New York, site of the 2004 GOP presidential convention and the starting point of Bush's wartime surge in popularity.
The New Republic'sMichael Crowley says John Kerry needs to tighten things up just a tad:
"People who talk about Kerry's ability to connect with voters typically focus on his 'aloofness' and patrician bearings. But Kerry's most off-putting quality may be his tedious long-windedness. The man desperately needs an editor lobe in his brain. When Kerry finally announced his position on Iraq last fall, for instance, he did so with a 45-minute Senate-floor sermon that threw off other senators' time slots. But the problem isn't just his big speeches; Kerry's television interviews are just as bad. Take, for example, his appearance on CNN's 'Inside Politics' yesterday. When the show's host, Judy Woodruff, asked him about the Howard Dean surge, Kerry rambled for what felt like three minutes."
We'll spare you the long monologue.
"Kerry did work in a nice swipe at Dean ('we don't need a learning curve in the presidency'). But it was buried under 20 lungfuls of blather. Kerry would do well to stop claiming that he speaks 'straight-forward, candid, with a clarity' and, like his nemesis from Vermont, actually start doing it."
Send that man to sound-bite school!.
The American Prospect finds the key to John Edwards's fundraising:
"The second-quarter FEC report showed that 30 Edwards staffers, advisers and individuals at firms consulting on the campaign donated money to the Edwards effort -- as did the candidate himself -- during the final five days of the filing period; what's more, 22 of them gave on the final day. Without these donations, the Edwards campaign, which fell short by $500,000 of its second-quarter goal of $5 million, would not have reached $4.5 million.
"Donations to the campaign on June 30 included $2,000 from 'not employed homemaker' Elizabeth Anania Edwards, the candidate's frequently traveling wife, and another $2,000 from 'US Senator' John Edwards, the candidate himself. . . .
Edwards' press secretary, Jennifer Palmieri, fund-raising director, E. Scott Darling, campaign manager, Nick Baldick, and attorney, Jennifer Anne Kinder, were among 16 campaign operatives, three advisers and two consultants who gave to the campaign on June 30. . . . Even youngster Hunter Pruette, recently hired as Edwards' traveling chief of staff, ponied up on June 30 -- despite a listed profession of 'not employed college student.' "
Hmmm . . .
If you want to know how much the Democrats resent Fox, check out this statement from DNC chief Terry McAuliffe:
"As if Americans needed any more evidence of its political bias, Fox became the only network in Wisconsin to reject as new Democratic National Committee ad that calls for an investigation of President Bush's misleading statements in the State of the Union address. Apparently Fox has changed its slogan from 'We Report, You Decide' to 'We let Bush decide what we air. . . . This is a crushing blow to the First Amendment and another effort to silence opposition. . . . This isn't simply poor judgment on the part of Fox; this is a blatant, partisan attempt to aid the Bush White House. Any fair-minded person at Fox ought to hang their head in shame. The Bush sycophants are going to have to make a lot of room in the White House because the Fox people are moving in, and they're not leaving until the words 'Fox' and 'Bush' are interchangeable."
Talk about going nuclear.
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