Left, right team up against media giants
jewishworldreview.com | (KRT) WASHINGTON - Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., a political strategist in the Clinton administration, likes to think of himself as a keen observer of political trends.
But he was caught off guard when letters and phone calls began flooding his office, all in protest of the Federal Communications Commission's decision to loosen broadcast ownership regulations.
"I was shocked," said Emanuel, who opposes the FCC action. "I didn't see it coming as a grass-roots issue."
It was just a few weeks ago that the controversial plan to relax media ownership rules appeared to be a done deal. Despite intense criticism surrounding the commission's June 2 vote, the House Republican leadership vowed to oppose attempts to overturn the matter. And a senior administration official threatened that President Bush would veto legislation reversing the FCC's action.
But since the agency's decision, a strange coalition has emerged to push Congress to reverse the FCC's plans. For example, the National Organization for Women, a liberal, feminist advocacy group, has joined forces with the National Rifle Association, a conservative pro-gun group, as well as the Christian Coalition, which espouses socially conservative views.
Ordinary people began to swamp lawmakers on Capitol Hill with letters and e-mail. Citizens stopped their congressmen on the streets at home to complain. Lawmakers began to take note of the political potency of the issue.
"I have had average citizens say, `What about this too much ownership of the media?' " said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz. "I never expected it to be on the radar screen."
Several senators had warned the FCC in writing to slow down and hold more hearings before taking the vote.
"The Congress was trying to get word to the FCC (that) we don't agree with where you are headed," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., a staunch opponent of the new rules allowing a company to own television stations that reach as much as 45 percent of the national market, up from the current 35 percent. "Now they are shocked that we are making an effort to keep it from taking effect."
The FCC's plan to increase corporate ownership of media properties appears to be in deep peril on Capitol Hill. Last week, the House added a line to an appropriations bill that would prohibit the FCC from spending money to put its new ownership rules into effect. House Republican leaders decided against trying to strip out the provision, realizing that they would fail, a senior leadership aide said.
Now, senators are considering legislation that would go even further than the House. Last month, the Senate Commerce Committee approved a bill that would retain the 35 percent limit, as well as resurrect the cross-ownership ban that prohibits media companies from owning a newspaper and broadcast outlets in the same market. Tribune Co., the company that publishes the Chicago Tribune, has sought the lifting of the cross-ownership ban.
The concern shared by such disparate lawmakers as Emanuel and Lott is that media giants will gobble up all the radio, television and newspaper properties, eliminating divergent views and ending local control.
"People in small communities are saying, `Wait a minute. We don't want all our media controlled by East Coast or West Coast firms,' " said Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., who was first alerted to the problem by concert venue owners in Madison who felt threatened by Clear Channel Communications Inc. of San Antonio.
Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., who was first elected to the Senate in 1966, said he remembers his long-ago campaigns when he would swing by the radio station and give an interview.
"Now the door is locked," he said, complaining that the programming is frequently controlled from outside the state.
In the case of Emanuel, he has received 479 letters, phone calls, faxes and e-mails about the matter. The only issue of more pressing concern to his constituents seems to be the preservation of Social Security, about which he has had 558 contacts.
In a smattering of letters made available to the Tribune, constituents urged Emanuel to overturn the FCC's decision.
"I am concerned about local news, community programming and preserving diverse voices on the airwaves," one writer said. "The FCC decision serves business interests but not the public interest."
Meanwhile, groups such as the National Organization for Women and the Christian Coalition posted notices on their Web sites urging members to speak out against the FCC action.
"Did you know that five giant corporations control most of the news and entertainment you see on TV?" asked the NOW Web site. "Did you know that just four companies control 90 percent of U.S. radio? That most of this country's newspapers are owned by only 14 companies?
"What if things got worse? What if one of these mega-corporations could own multiple TV stations, radio stations and newspapers in your city?"
Jim Backlin, the Christian Coalition's director of legislative affairs, said many of his organization's 2 million members became energized and called their members of Congress once the impending ownership rule changes were explained to them in the coalition's Weekly Washington Review.
"Channel 25 in Hagerstown, Md., which has more common-sense standards than New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, should not have out-of-touch media giants forcing their vacuous television programs on communities which do not wish to have their children see them," the review said in one dispatch.
Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois journalism professor and co-founder of Free Press, an organization devoted to media diversity, said his organization coordinated a last-minute phone campaign during the week before the House vote.
Free Press members also contacted other groups in the diverse coalition opposed to relaxing media ownership rules: Move On, Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, Common Cause, National Rifle Association, and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.
"A number of groups have large e-mail lists," McChesney said. "And we asked them to send out an alert."
The alert asked people to call their representative in Congress and tell him or her to support an amendment in the House that would have not only reinstated the 35 percent cap but the ban on cross-ownership. Move On, for example, estimated that its list alone generated 14,000 to 28,000 phone calls, McChesney said.
Michael Copps, one of two Democratic members on the five-member FCC, said he saw evidence that the issue had taken off when commission Chairman Michael Powell refused to hold additional hearings to listen to the public's views on media ownership.
Copps and his fellow Democrat on the commission, Jonathan Adelstein, held unofficial hearings instead.
"You would have 500, 600 people show up," Copps said. "It just kind of hit you over the head that, wow, this was a grass-roots issue.
"People, when they are reminded that they own the airwaves, take a very proprietary interest in them and how they are used, as well they should."
So many people e-mailed the FCC that the agency's computers bogged down, Copps said. Critics who opposed the FCC decision estimate that opponents of the new rules sent out almost 2 million mailings to both the commission and Congress.
"A button clicked for a lot of Americans this spring," McChesney said. "And it had dramatic effect. To the point where I think the unthinkable is now at hand. There's a very good chance that we will overturn the entirety of the FCC decision in September." |
