FCC Prepares to Make Broadcasting Even More Corporate

The Federal Communications Commission, which is supposed to enforce the Communications Act of 1934, is reviewing its rules on ownership of multiple media outlets.

Repeat after me: Consolidation is not Diversity.

Officials expect the proposed rules to be issued in the next few months, and the commission would then consider them. The proposed changes come after heavy lobbying by some of the nation's largest broadcasting and newspaper companies, which have big stakes in trying to hold onto recently acquired TV companies.

"Heavy lobbying", huh? No suprise there.

Here's a man who doesn't get it. What he's saying makes perfect sense, but it just doesn't jive with what he just did:

"The majority of Americans still get most of their news and public affairs information from broadcast stations, and in a participatory democracy like ours, it is vitally important that we encourage the widest possible dissemination of this information from diverse and antagonistic sources," [FCC Chairman William E. Kennard] said. "Our structural ownership restrictions seek to promote this First Amendment principle."

Let's review:

For the purpose of regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio so as to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, a rapid, efficient, nationwide and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges, for the purpose of the national defense, for the purpose of promoting safety of life and property through the use of wire and radio communication, and for the purpose of securing a more effective execution of this policy by centralizing authority heretofore granted by law to several agencies and by granting additional authority with respect to interstate and foreign commerce in wire and radio communication, there is hereby created a commission to be known as the "Federal Communications Commission," which shall be constituted as hereinafter provided, and which shall execute and enforce the provisions of this Act.

Now, where did it say the FCC was supposed to "promote consolidation for the purpose of increased revenue for the really big corporations who own most of the media outlets at the expense of local, community-based media"?