Even as he condemned the 3-to-2 vote of the Federal Communications Commission to allow media conglomerates to dramatically increase their control over newspapers and radio and television stations, Commissioner Michael Copps closed his twenty-three-page dissent on an optimistic note. "This Commission's drive to loosen the rules and its reluctance to share its proposals with the people before we voted awoke a sleeping giant," Copps said. "American citizens are standing up in never-before-seen numbers to reclaim their airwaves and to call on those who are entrusted to use them to serve the public interest."
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Hands Off the UAW
John Nichols: If he keeps his promises to autoworkers, Obama has the chance to renew the ability of organzed labor to improve the lot of union and non-union workers in the twenty-first century.
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Peach State Promises
John Nichols: Obama should make a serious campaign swing through Georgia to get out the vote for Senate hopeful Jim Martin.
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The Big Sweep
John Nichols: Obama's appeal helped the Democrats secure wide gains in the House and Senate.
When the FCC went ahead with the changes, Congress went ballistic. "The FCC has ignored the public's will and the public interest to enact a massive giveaway of public resources to a few privileged insiders," declared Senator John Edwards, as he and fellow Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry sought to outflank each other as the Senate's chief champion of media diversity. Senator Trent Lott said of the FCC's decision to allow one network to buy up TV stations that reach as much as 45 percent of the national audience: "A lot of Republicans, in fact, probably most of the Republicans in Congress, would not agree with this decision."
If Lott's right, there's hope for Congressional moves to codify a 35 percent cap on national broadcast ownership, for appropriations language to limit the FCC's ability to implement the newly relaxed rules and for a call by senators for antitrust regulators to stop mergers and acquisitions that injure media competition.
And if Commissioner Copps is right that an angry giant has been awakened, that anger must be marshaled to support not just a rollback of the FCC's June 2 action but also challenges to conditions that existed before the vote: hypercommercialization, diminished public service commitments and consolidation of radio station ownership. Copps says that now "we have a chance to settle this issue of who will control our media and for what purposes, and to resolve it in favor of public airwaves of, by and for the people of this great country." That's a chance America can't afford to miss.
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