Making the Case Against Media Giants

Joined by a growing chorus of voices opposed to letting big media companies get even bigger, CWA leaders testified in January at a New York City forum on proposed changes in Federal Communications Commission rules that were created to ensure that TV, radio and newspapers would be in the hands of many diverse owners.

"We urge you to take seriously the criticisms of some of the nation's most prominent journalists and scholars who keep warning about the negative relationship between media consolidation and the quality and diversity of news," said Juan Gonzalez, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and member of CWA Local 31003. "Nothing less than the future of democratic discourse and the role of a free press is at stake."

Four of the five FCC commissioners attended the forum at Columbia Law School, which featured five panels of presenters. A few spoke for and many - writers, broadcasters, actors, musicians, minority advocates and others - spoke against changing what ownership rules still exist to protect media diversity.

"The variety of voices from different segments of the New York community is just a snapshot of the groups and individuals who need to be heard on this issue before a decision is made by the FCC," said The Newspaper Guild-CWA President Linda Foley, who coordinated the panel that included Gonzalez.

"No matter whether they were supporters of the rules or supporters of deregulation, everyone who was there and the commissioners themselves certainly understand that this is an issue that will have profound effects on the future of media and the future of our country," she said.

The ownership rules have been chipped away at over the years, resulting in a handful of major media companies - including Time Warner/AOL, Disney, General Electric, Gannett and Clear Channel - controlling the bulk of local, network and cable TV, radio stations and newspapers in the United States.

Clear Channel, for example, owned just 30 radio stations before the Telecommunications Act of 1996 dramatically changed ownership rules. The company now owns more than 1,200 stations, controlling many of the largest stations in the country's biggest markets. Radio news coverage has shrunk or been cut altogether, and taped programming and corporate-provided play lists have replaced disc jockeys and request lines.

Among the proposed changes, companies could be allowed to own even more TV and radio stations in a single community, networks could be allowed to merge and the cross-ownership rule that generally bars a single company from owning both a TV station and newspaper in one community could be lifted.

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, the most outspoken critic of further changes and the one commissioner who has pushed for public discourse, said the Jan. 16 forum "may well be the most important meeting taking place in America today."

"I don't say that lightly," Copps told the audience of about 200 people. "Certainly no issue before the FCC is so important. At stake are core values of localism, diversity, competition and maintaining the multiplicity of voices and choices that under gird our precious marketplace of ideas and that sustain American democracy."

Michael Powell, commission chairman and son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, said the issue "is a difficult one, filled with emotion." He blamed federal law that requires the FCC to review the rules every two years.

"The statute requires the FCC to presume each rule is no longer needed unless we prove otherwise," he said. "Unless we can re-justify each broadcast ownership rule under current market conditions, the rule goes away." If the FCC fails to act, he said, the courts would step in and eliminate the rules.

Powell's explanation was applauded by business members of the panel, most of who argued vigorously against any rules governing ownership other than existing anti-trust laws. Ellen Agress, senior vice president of Fox Entertainment, demanded hard data proving that ownership rules had hurt diversity, saying, "We must move away from anecdotes and emotions that 'big must be bad."'

But Richard Masur, an actor and past president of the Screen Actors Guild, said, "There are some things you can't find scientific, quantifiable evidence for. Some things can't be put down into an equation. But that doesn't mean it can't be proven."

Jim Joyce, vice president of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA, said consolidation has already affected jobs and the quality and quantity of local news programming in New York and Los Angeles, citing what's happened since Fox merged station and news management at two stations in each city. Among the consequences, one newscast has been reduced, news footage is being shared and a New Jersey station is being shut down.

"Merged and reduced news production, staff reductions, interstate job transfers and changes in union representation are just some of the tangible results NABET-CWA has seen rising from the Fox New York and Los Angeles duopolies," Joyce said. "While these changes may be more 'efficient,' they do not advance the goals of diversity and localism."

Panelists representing minority groups said lifting ownership caps means that even fewer African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities will be among media owners, and that will further reduce media coverage for and about them.

"Black voices are not heard in proportion to their numbers," said Florence Rice of the Harlem Consumer Education Committee. "Freedom of the press is supposed to be for all people, not just for corporations."

Gonzalez said an annual report" commissioned by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists showed that less than 1 percent of stories on the evening network newscasts in 2001 were about Latino-related issues. And most of those stories were about violence and slums. Further, he said 92 percent of news sources quoted on television were white, with less than 1 percent of sources Hispanic.

In early January, CWA filed a brief with the FCC challenging the proposed rule changes and the commission's narrowly done studies that generally support the changes.

Gonzalez, a New York Daily News reporter, said issues of quality and fairness are paramount to journalists. "Journalism is not just some consumer product like cornflakes or cars," he said. "At its best, it is a noble profession and a public service. It helps to right wrongs. It gives strength to the powerless.

"But at its worst, journalism becomes the bait for the commercials. It distorts reality, inflames passions, reinforces stereotypes, marginalizes dissenting views and functions as a mouthpiece for the powerful," he said.

He told the FCC members that his group hasn't taken a final stand on each rule under review, but is "deeply troubled by the speed at which you are moving forward. You proposed in September to revamp a half-dozen complex regulations before this spring, permanently altering the shape of the mass media in less time than it takes to complete an NBA season."

Ironically, a story so media-centered is getting little media coverage. Critics say media giants want the rules to go away fast and quietly, far more concerned with their business interests than the public's need and right to know.

The FCC's Powell wasn't planning to have any public debate on the issue until CWA and a coalition of concerned activists began pushing for it. Now, Powell has called a formal hearing for Feb. 27 in Richmond, Va. Additionally, a second forum is being hosted by the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on Feb. 18.

Copps posed a series of questions that he said the FCC can't begin to answer yet. "In fact, the more information that comes into the FCC, the more convinced I am that not only have we not provided many answers, we're just realizing how many more questions there are," he said.

For more information about proposed FCC rule changes, and dates for future hearings, go to www.saveourmedia.org.