Introduction by Bill Moyer…

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps:

Did you ever notice that the FCC is always ready to run a fast break to serve corporations and a 4-corner stall when it comes to public interest?

Traditional media, newspapers, TV, radio, have long since fallen victim to the excesses of a new guilded age…media has gone down a suicidal road of hyper speculation, stifling consolidation and Wall Street pandering that has gutted journalism's ranks and journalism's resources cutting deep, deep into the bone.

What happened to media was prologue to the collapse of so many other institutions and businesses…those station owners and business owners who tried to resist came under irresistible pressure to cave.  

Old ideas of stewardship were pushed aside and demolished.  The private sector debacle was aided and abetted by the public sector, the saddest part of the tale…the FCC blessed it all, encouraged consolidation mania and went beyond that to eviscerate the public interest policy so hard-fought for over the years.  One FCC chair in 1981 said there was nothing special about the media…TV was really “nothing but a toaster”…so much for the people's airwaves or the delicate news and information infrastructure which is the lifeblood of society's conversation with itself.

The Internet:

Today, businesses are clearly  dreaming about on ramps with toll booths dotting the information highway…arguments rage over the right to secretly manage and prioritize content and to favor the affluent few at the expense of the many…Increasingly, the private interests who design and control our 21st century media infrastructure resemble those who seized the master switch of the last century's communications networks.

As the doors were opened to the seemingly limitless prospects of the new media age, public policy makers once again became the willing accomplices of the special interests. Indeed the FCC spent the first 8 years of this century removing broadband from any meaningful public policy oversight, deregulating the telecom-cable duopoly, to let it do pretty much what it wanted and blessing the ever more competition-killing consolidation that narrowed consumer choice and inflated consumer bills.

FACTS:

We've lost 35,000 members of the news industry in the past 3 years.

Hundreds of newspapers have closed their doors and 327 magazines have gone under.

27 states have no full-time reporter to cover capital hill.

Statehouse coverage has been slashed by a third in the past 6 years.

In an average 30 minute local TV broadcast there was only 22 seconds of hard coverage of local news.. if it bleeds it leads but if it's democracy's lifeblood let it hemorrhage.

In the past week the Washington Independent folded.

Newspaper and broadcast newsrooms still provide the overwhelming bulk of the news that people receive, whether its through newspaper, over the air, or online….  95% of the news people get online originates from these traditional sources.  The problem is, there's less of it.

What can we do about it?

Let's recognize up front that it gets harder and harder all the time…I subscribe to the theory that times of change alternate with times of action and inaction..

How can we make some down payments on some substantive reforms?

Ideas generated from a front row seat at the FCC:

How to help media help democracy:

1 – Traditional media – a public value test of every broadcast station at re-licensure time which should occur every 4 years. If a station passes, it keeps its license; if not, put it on probation for a year…if it fails again, give that license to someone who will use it to serve the public interest.

2 – “Enhanced disclosure” – requiring information about what the station airs allows citizens to decide if the station should be subsidized…info required on the station's public file is laughable..public has a right to easy access to the files…enhanced disclosure recommendation has been sitting at FCC for 2 years

3 – Political avertising disclosure – we the people had no idea who paid for the 3 billion dollars worh of poliitical ads this past election season…

4 – Reflecting diversity – America's minority groups are faring poorly on our nation's media…speaks to how groups are depicted, and to what roles minorities and women have in owning and managing media companies.

5 – Community discovery – back when stations were locally owned and the licensee actually lived in the community of license, he was required to talk to watchers; now with absentee landlords we no longer even ask licensees to take the public pulse

6 – Local and independent programming – more local news and information, less streamed in homogenized music and entertainment; more localized public service announcements.

7 – Public safety – every station as a condition of license must have an approved plan to be staffed and go on the air when there is a local emergency.

These guidelines are neither excessive or onerous but would get us back to the licensees serving the public interest as good stewards of a precious national resource, the broadcast airwaves.  We can do this now.  If not now, when? If not us, who?

In the long-term, ownership will have to be examined.  There needs to be increased support for public broadcasting.  The sad reality is that in this country we spend per capita per annum $1.42 for supporting public media.  Public media enjoys high levels of public trust and investing in its future is an investment in our future.

Free and open internet…digital literacy…k-12… curriculum… access… private/public partnership to get up and running within the next 2 years

FCC should be honest-to-goodness consumer protection agency.

This is not a new challenge – founders knew full well that an informed citizenry depended upon media…free use of airwaves was later iteration of the same public policy…democratic challenge the same now even though technology is new..to serve the needs of the people…do not know of a greater need right now.

Getting our media landscape right is not just the job of agencies, congress or the president – it is the job of all of us.  

I for one do not despair.

Powerful interests spend billions of dollars to make sure that truth does not flow but citizens can counter that even today.  It will take dreams, but we've dreamed before.  It will take hard work but we've worked hard before.  I have seen citizen action work in my lifetime even at the FCC.  Committing to a cause, moving our country forward – it's never easy; it's just necessary and this is one of those necessary times.

My challenge to you is to act as though your democracy depends upon it because it does. ~