He won't tell us why, but despite overwhelming objections of Senators and House members from both sides of the aisle, including Senators Kerry, Obama, Lott and Dorgan, and against the warnings of FCC Commissioners Copps and Adelstein and the will of 70% of the public, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is refusing to delay an attempt to relax media ownership rules on Tuesday. If successful, Martin will deliver his gift to big media just in time for Christmas, although the ensuing backlash may look more like the Fourth of July.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) asked Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin to delay a vote on media ownership until the FCC has followed the will of Congress and established a commission to look into minority and women media ownership. Kerry and Obama made clear that if Martin once again bucked the Congress, they would ask the Appropriations Committee to deny funding for implementation of the rule produced by the forced vote.“This is a show-down with an FCC Chairman who is letting the FCC do the bidding of big corporate conglomerates without giving smaller media outlets a chance to fight back,” said Senator John Kerry. “I want to thank Sen. Obama for joining with me to help hold the FCC accountable, and ensuring that it promotes a more diverse, independent media in America.”
The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on Thursday to discuss media ownership. In it, Senator Kerry urged a delay on the rule change pending further scrutiny.
Here's the letter that Senators Kerry and Obama sent:
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December 14, 2007
The Honorable Kevin J. Martin
Chairman
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554
Dear Chairman Martin:
Your testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee on December 13, 2007 restates your intention to move forward aggressively with a proposal that would relax media ownership rules with respect to the Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Rule. We reiterate our call from July of last year and in various forums over the last two months for you to delay this vote for a period of time sufficient for the Commission to examine the status of minority and women media ownership in the United States, and to establish a policy to effectively address the need to promote greater diversity in media markets.
With respect to this issue, the intent of the Senate Commerce Committee was made clear with its decision to unanimously report S. 2332, the Media Ownership Act of 2007. Section 2 of this bill would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to establish and convene an independent panel to make recommendations for specific rules to increase the representation of women and minorities in the ownership of broadcast media. The bill further states that the FCC must act on the panel's recommendations before voting on any changes to its broadcast and newspaper ownership rules.
We recognize the widespread animosity aimed at the direction of the Commission regarding Tuesday’s scheduled vote. We understand that for a variety of reasons you are being asked to postpone the vote to permit more time for the Commission to fully understand how a relaxation in the Cross-Ownership Rule will impact other important issues such as localism. It is our hope that the sum of these objections will convince you to delay this vote until a time following the Commission’s consideration of other pressing matters. Specifically, we believe that moving forward with this change will have a direct and detrimental impact on the state of media diversity. Should you decide to move forward with this vote against the expressed bipartisan, bicameral intent of Congress, we will approach Appropriations Chairman Byrd with a request that funds be denied for the implementation of this rule.
Thank you for your consideration. Should you have any questions regarding this request, please do not hesitate to contact any of us at any time.
Sincerely,
Sen. John Kerry Sen. Barack Obama
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Comments (4)
Posted by wisteria | December 16, 2007 12:33 PM
Good post. I am going to add this to my post at DU.
Of course, your posts here are always a good read.
Thanks for keeping us informed.
Posted by Connie | December 16, 2007 2:15 PM
If ever we needed John Kerry's voice to clearly and forcefully say NO to this administration's attempt to further limit our access to truth, as opposed to being fed a constant diet of their propaganda, that time is NOW. JK has the leadership, the facts, and the know-how to stop this erosion of our access to information. Once again I find myself asking our good senator to speak up for us and bring the halls of congress to a standstill if that's possible, but please don't let these tyrants take any more of the power to inform the people from those in the media still trying to do their job. NO to further consolidation, and NO to those who defy the majority in our congress, and NO to defying the will of the majority of the American people. If congress doesn't stop caving on the important issues, I believe the people will soon to march on Washington to take the power back. It's just so frustrating to see Reid and Pelosi keep caving to the tyrants. Feelings of powerlessness breeds apathy among voters, so if democrats (and I am one) are to feel confident in our elected representatives, they must regain their sense of power to change what's wrong with Washington these days under the republican watch, and that's just about everything. SPEAK FOR US, please Senator, and stop the illegal power grab being conducted by the republicans while we appear to be able to do nothing but watch.
Posted by Karynnj | December 16, 2007 3:30 PM
Senator Kerry did a great job speaking about this in very clear conversational terms on Ed Shultz this week. Here is the audio of the Shultz Kerry interview that was posted on DU.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=EA1D4EAE16AD189B
The hard thing will be to get sufficient coverage for an issue where the media's vested interest is against people hearing it. It will be interesting to see if Obama's support on this will give it more visibility.
Kerry's questioning really brought out that Martin in reality is acting against the public good and that he could not defend doing so for any legitimate reason.
Posted by Connie | December 16, 2007 9:25 PM
Thanks so much for that link, Karennj! I feel much better now having listened to JK . Also very nice to hear Shultz speak so highly of what could have been in a Kerry administration. Thanks also to Faith for keeping us current of JK's active schedule working for da people.