Bush FCC Chief Plans Big Media Giveaway
By Mark Gruenberg
WASHINGTON (PAI)--Following in the footsteps of his unsuccessful nepotistic predecessor, Bush regime Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin plans to push through a giveaway to Big Media on Dec. 18.
In response, unions and their allies are mobilizing public opinion, and the whole issue may wind up in court--again. And it’ll be before Congress on Dec. 6.
At issue is a Martin plan, which he wants to push through the commission by a 3-2 party-line vote, to let big media conglomerates, such as Time-Warner and the Tribune Company, own more radio and television stations, along with newspapers, in the same metropolitan market, regardless of the uncompetitive impact of such conglomerates.
Martin also wants to give a waiver to Tribune in particular so that the firm can hold onto both its non-union flagship paper, The Chicago Tribune, its monster cable company, WGN, and its television stations there--as well as similar combos elsewhere.
New Tribune owner Sam Zell, a multimillionare real estate mogul, needs the waiver to continue the “grandfather clause” Tribune now has because it owned the papers and stations even before the FCC imposed its original rules years ago.
Some Tribune properties, including the Long Island newspaper Newsday (Graphic Communications Conference/Teamsters) and the Baltimore Sun (The Newspaper Guild) are partially or fully unionized. So are one unit each at the Tribune (truckers with the Teamsters) and the Los Angeles Times (press operators with GCC).
But it’s not just a case of jobs being threatened, but freedom, says GCC President George Tedeschi, on leave from Newsday to run the union. That’s even though Zell could impose job cuts to increase his profits and repay the debt he takes on to buy Tribune, “which is a problem for us as union people,” Tedeschi adds.
“If a lot of the FCC rules” outlawing consolidation of corporate media “go, a lot of the freedom of the press might get stifled,” he warned at a late-October protest before an FCC hearing on media consolidation, held in D.C.
And it’s not just Zell who would benefit from the FCC’s consolidation scheme, Tedeschi explained. “Right behind him seeking the same low bar” to media consolidation and cross-ownership “is Rupert Murdoch,” who owns the Right Wing Fox network and the New York Post and who is about to take over The Wall Street Journal.
“If they gain control of information going out (to the people), just think what they can do in the elections coming up,” Tedeschi warned.
The Newspaper Guild, which led the last successful fight against the consolidation rules proposed by former FCC Chairman Michael Powell--son of Bush’s then-Secretary of State--mounted protests and petitions at FCC hearings and in newsrooms nationwide against Martin’s scheme.
Martin faced stiff questions from both media members and the public at his hearings, especially in the last one, in Seattle just over a month ago. He’ll also face a public grilling from the House Energy and Commerce Committee--and its notoriously tough chairman, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.)--on Dec. 6.
“I would like to thank the FCC, and Kevin Martin, you in particular, for coming to Seattle on such short notice. Running this hearing with 5 days notice and then trying to jam media consolidation through by mid-December to me is damning evidence of the total abuse of the process itself (and) that you’re up to some kind of no good,” Seattle resident Jim Bowman told the commission chairman.
“If this is a legitimate issue, then it deserves and demands a legitimate public process to determine the outcome. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for not respecting the democracy you live in,” Bowman added.
“We told you a year ago, when you came to Seattle, that media consolidation is a patently bad idea, no ifs, ands or buts about it. So with all due respect, I ask you: ‘What part of that didn’t you understand?’” added Susan McCabe. “Do you think that another year of listening to the same homogenized, formulaic, mindless crap that passes for news and entertainment on the commercial dial has suddenly caused us to say, ‘Please, I’d like a little more of that?” she quizzed Martin.
The agency’s two Democrats, Michael Kopps and Jonathan Adelstein, warned the Seattle crowd that Martin and the GOP majority wouldn’t listen.
“Did you ever notice the FCC is always ready to run the fast break for big media, but it’s always the 4-corner stall when it comes to serving the public interest?” Kopps said. Added Adelstein: “Unfortunately, judging from the way this hearing was arranged, it looks like the media conglomerates’ agenda is far ahead of yours at the FCC. Now, if you see a proposal for more consolidation made quickly after this final hearing, you’ll know your input was dismissed.”
Adelstein was proved correct: Martin announced his cross-ownership scheme days later, in a newspaper interview, arguing that consolidation is needed to keep newspapers--subsidized by TV station profits--alive in some markets.
From International Labor Communications Association
