The FCC gives away the farm

Cowboy hat By Jim Hightower - Fri., 6/30/06

You’ve got to love the rhetoric employed about the FCC’s recent rewriting of our country’s media-ownership rules. News reports gingerly said the rules had been “relaxed” or “eased”—as though it was a minor adjustment.

It wasn’t. The FCC trashed the rules that protect our airwaves from monopoly control. It was a move plotted by three Republican nuts on the FCC and by top media executives—who gave generously to George’s election and are now collecting their due at the expense of democracy.

The FCC’s new rules mean that if you live in a sizable city, Mickey Mouse at ABC or Rupert Murdoch at Fox can dictate your daily mass-market news feed. In any city, a single conglomerate can now own two or three TV stations, eight radio stations, the cable-TV system, and the only daily newspaper. In fact, one of these giants can buy up enough local TV stations to control broadcasting to 90% of U.S. households.

The Center for Public Integrity reports that since the proposed rewrite of the rules first surfaced eight months ago, the CEOs and lobbyists for Fox, CBS, ABC, and other broadcasters held 71 private, off-the-record meetings with FCC commissioners and top staff.

To learn how you can help stop this dirty deal, call the Media Access Project: 202-232-4300.