July 11, 2011
The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia handed the
public a huge victory last Thursday, and giant corporations a rare loss,
in
their decision [PDF]
on a case that (ironically enough, given the subject matter) most of
the public knew nothing about, but one which has the potential to
benefit real people with better quality news and information for decades
to come.
The case, Prometheus Radio Project v FCC, pitted "Citizen
Petitioners" who seek more persons owning local media outlets to ensure
diversity in viewpoints and news coverage, versus "Deregulatory
Petitioners" who want fewer persons (spell that "corporations") to own
local media outlets, and the publicly-owned broadcast airwaves that go
with them, in order to enhance their profits.
At stake were the rules determining how many local TV and radio
stations one company can own in a single market; whether a newspaper
owner can also own a TV or radio station in the same town; and how
broadcast ownership by minorities and women should be handled.
The Deregulators challenged the FCC's constitutional and legal
authority to set rules and restrictions on ownership of broadcast
spectrum licenses, while the Citizen Petitioners sought to protect the
FCC's authority, even while challenging a number of new rules the agency
speciously attempted to enact without appropriate public input.
Six attorneys representing Free Press, Media Alliance, The United
Church of Christ, and Prometheus Radio Project went up against 48
lawyers representing such corporate behemoths as Clear Channel, CBS,
Belo, FOX, Cox, Sinclair, Tribune, and Gannett, and groups including the
National Association of Broadcasters, plus another 8 attorneys for the
FCC and 5 more from the US Department of Justice. The case became a
classic David v. Goliath struggle.
The good news this time around, at least for the moment, David finally won one...
The case dealt with current ownership rules, as determined by the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC). There are a myriad of rules, among them these, which now allow
that one party may own no more than:
- two TV stations and six radio stations in the same market (or one and seven);
- three TV stations in large markets where 18 or more stations exist;
- up to eight radio stations in the same town.
The FCC is tasked with making sure the broadcast media --- via the
limited broadcast spectrum which is owned by we, the people --- serves
the public interest. Every four years, as required by the 1996
Telecommunications Act, the FCC must revisit the issue of public
interest in media ownership (the "Quadrennial Review.")
In 2003, the FCC Commissioners held public hearings on media
ownership, then essentially ignored what the public told them. The FCC,
chaired at the time by Republican Michael Powell, next laid out a group
of rules that put more broadcast media stations into fewer hands. The
public rose in protest (as covered in my 2009 documentary,
Broadcast Blues.)
After Powell's hearings, Prometheus Radio went to court to challenge
the new rules. They won a Third Circuit Court ruling which found that
the FCC had not properly listened to the public and would need to start
from scratch.
So, four years later, from October 2006 to November 2007, the FCC,
this time under Republican chair Kevin Martin, once again held a series
of public hearings on media ownership, but in some cases, as the court
find this time around, they offered the public as little as 10 calendar
days notice before the meetings. Worse, as revealed during the trial,
the FCC actually buried studies with findings which undercut
their own advisement for relaxation of ownership rules. (An Inspector
General's report even found that the FCC had a research strategy
specifically designed to justify their preconceived goal: the repeal of
the newspaper-media cross-ownership rule.)
Then Martin, on November 13, 2007, just four days
after the final public hearing, issued an
Op-Ed in the New York Times
which outlined the newspaper/broadcast ownership rules he was
considering. Until then, neither the public --- nor even fellow FCC
commissioners --- knew what rules he was considering.
Déjà vu. Hold public hearings, then ignore the public. Just as Powell had done four years earlier.
