FCC commissioner Michael Copps vs. "Big Media"

FCC chairman Kevin Martin wants to relax rules on how many media outlets one company can own in one market. Democratic commissioner Copps wants to rally the public to stop media consolidation.

By Louise Witt

Read more: Wall Street Journal, Politics, FOX, Rupert Murdoch, News, FCC

Photo: AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta

FCC commissioner Michael J. Copps testifies Feb. 1, 2007, before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

Dec. 3, 2007 | Michael Copps doesn't want to be called a crusader. But as one of the two Democrats on the five-member Federal Communications Commission, he's not shy about sounding biblical. He says he's "blowing a loud trumpet" for a "call to battle" to stop the FCC from giving big media a generous Christmas present.

Copps is trying to defeat FCC chairman Kevin J. Martin's last-minute proposal to loosen media ownership rules, which will be voted on by Dec. 18. As it stands now, a company can't own both a daily newspaper and a broadcast outlet -- a radio or TV station -- in the same market without a waiver. In an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times on Nov. 13, Martin wrote that media companies in the 20 largest markets should be allowed to own both in the same market to bolster journalism. "If we don't act to improve the health of the ... industry," he wrote, "we will see newspapers wither and die ... and have fewer outlets for the expression of independent thinking and diversity of viewpoints."

The public, however, won't have much time to express its own diverse viewpoints on Martin's proposed rules. He unveiled his plan in the Times four days after the FCC's sixth, and last, hearing of the year on media ownership. The public has only until Dec. 11 to comment on the new rules, with the FCC voting on them within the following week. The push for a quick decision prompted Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Trent Lott, R-Miss., to introduce bipartisan-sponsored legislation to halt the FCC's "fast march" toward easing media ownership rules. Why the rush? Last time the FCC proposed a relaxation of the rules in 2003, public outcry killed the plan. Copps thinks Martin wants to push them through now when voters -- and politicians -- are distracted by holiday hoopla and before the first presidential primaries and caucuses. Once everyone sobers up in January, Copps says, the issue will become a " hot potato." Copps, 67, was chief of staff to former Democratic Sen. Fritz Hollings of South Carolina and was an assistant secretary of commerce in the Clinton administration. He was sworn in as an FCC commissioner in 2001. Salon recently spoke with him by phone:

In his Op-Ed in the Times, FCC chairman Kevin Martin wrote that the loosening of the ban on cross ownership of newspaper and TV stations was "relatively minor." You have characterized these new rules as the "camel's nose in the tent." What do you mean by that?

Number one, it's not the modest proposal that he would have us believe, because I find it is riven with loopholes. For example, he says that it is only going to affect the top 20 markets. That, by the way, is 42 or 43 percent of all of our households. But point in fact, there is a major loophole that would allow companies in smaller markets, just about any market, to apply for a similar exception on the basis of meeting a few loose criteria. So what you could wind up with is newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership in many, many more markets.

And number two, I said it was the camel's nose in the tent because I think that if they get away with this one proposal with newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership, they'll come back for changes in more of the rules, like allowing more duopolies or triopolies like the ones [FCC] chairman [Michael] Powell proposed back in 2003. You might remember that his scheme, which he actually succeeded in getting through the FCC, though it was later reversed by Congress and the courts, would have allowed in some of the larger markets a company to own up to three television stations, eight radio stations, a newspaper -- which is already a monopoly in most cities -- a cable system, and even an Internet provider. I just fail to understand how that kind of control over our media enhances democracy or works to the benefit of the American people.

What do you think could be the effect of these rules on the political system?

It's bad for the political system whether you're a liberal, a conservative or a moderate, when the number of voices and diversity is diminished in our country. That's bad for our civic dialogue, if a few companies have too much control. We've witnessed a tremendous amount of consolidation already. This consolidation involves not just owning the various channels of distribution, stations and the channels, but also vertical concentration, so they control the production and the content. If you have a lock on the content and a lock on the distribution, that's a recipe, and it always has been, for a monopoly or at least an oligopoly. That's what we have in our media.

Our Communications Act is premised on the idea that we should have more localism in our programming, that we should have more diversity of content, diversity of voices, and that includes diversity of ownership and competition. We're going in exactly the wrong way. And I might point out, I've been pretty adamant that we should not vote until we do something about minority ownership and localism.

Before we vote to loosen old rules, governing media ownership, we should take proposals that have been pending for so long on how we can increase minority ownership of our media properties. We live in a country that is one-third minority right now in the United States of America. People of color own 3.26 percent of all full-power commercial television stations, so is it any wonder then that their issues are not given the kind of coverage that they may like to have? Is it any wonder that they're so characterized that when you see a news story about an African-American it's often about crime? Or when you see a news story about a Latino, it's about jumping over a fence to get into the United States? What about the many million more stories that have to do with the contributions that these groups make to the country and what's going on in their communities? And what are their issues? And this applies to women when it comes to ownership too. Diversity of voices depends on ownership. If you don't have diversity of ownership, you're not going to have diversity of voices. So it's important to the future of our country. Our future is our diversity. That's our strength. That's our opportunity going forward. Why should we have a media that doesn't reflect that?

Next page: "They might have gone even further if the political environment hadn't changed a year ago in Washington"