Media Activists Challenge FCC

D ressed as mad scientists with large cardboard TVs on their heads, a group of protesters gathered outside a recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) public hearing on February 27. Declaring that “Communication is a human right,” the activists called for greater public participation in a controversial new policy debate. 

The FCC is considering eliminating rules that prohibit the same company from owning daily newspapers and TV stations in the same market and that bar broadcast companies from owning enough stations to reach more than a combined 35 percent of U.S. households. Prometheus Radio Project, which brought a delegation from Philadelphia to the hearing, has described the proceedings leading to these potential rollbacks as “the most comprehensive reexamination of rules affecting media ownership in the agency’s history.” 

Media democracy organizations from around the country, including upstate New York, Maryland, Michigan, and Chicago, traveled to Richmond, Virginia for the hearings and a morning demonstration. They were joined by activists from several local organizations, including Free Radio Richmond. 

Before the February hearings, the FCC had received more than 13,000 comments filed by the public concerning the upcoming decision, the vast majority of which opposed loosening of media ownership rules. The protesters dressed as mad scientists in response to FCC chair Michael Powell’s earlier statement that much of the input from the public regarding the upcoming decision had been too “emotional” and “political.” He said he was only interested in “scientific” and “empirical” studies. 

In a pamphlet handed out at the hearings, the media-activist group Media Alliance argued, “the withdrawal of official involvement in official hearings called for by Commissioner Michael Copps signals a clear rejection of the public’s opinion.” Arguing against more hearings, Powell said, “...in the digital age, you don’t need a 19th century whistle stop tour to hear from America.” 

Shivaani Selvaraj, lead organizer with Prometheus Radio stated, “This will be a landmark decision that could radically change the landscape of media in this country. We’re here to show the Commissioners that the public refuses to be left out of this debate. It’s not that we’re against science. We don’t think that the FCC’s 12 commissioned studies focusing exclusively on markets and consumers constitute science. Commissioner Copps earlier warned us that they don’t know the potential implications for their actions. The FCC must extend their period for research and to hear more from the public.” 

Media democracy activists linked media issues to many different political issues. Many addressed the role the media plays in U.S. foreign policy. One protester had recently returned from Palestine where she acted as a human shield to deter Israeli military violence on Palestinians. She told me, “The realities of the military occupation of Palestine really aren’t presented by the media we see in this country. We hear about terrorists and the language of fear mongering promoted by the government. We really don’t see what the daily lives of Palestinians are like—three million Palestinians are living under siege, but we are led to believe the opposite: that Israel (funded by billions of U.S. dollars) is under siege from Palestinian attacks. U.S. citizens bear a great responsibility in that part of the world because so many tax dollars are going there.”

Inside the hearing, several speakers from the public argued that U.S. corporate media censorship has silenced those challenging President Bush’s (then pending) escalation of the conflict with Iraq. Two representatives from the Anti- War Video Fund spoke about Comcast Corporation’s recent blocking of a video they produced. Set to be aired the night of Bush’s State of the Union Address, where he was making his case for war, the video contained interviews with mainstream U.S. citizens voicing their opposition to the war drive. 

During the open-mic session inside the hearings, Herb Avram, editor of Philadelphia’s INSUBORDINATION magazine spoke about the lack of diversity in regards to the media’s coverage of the war on Iraq. 

Part of the “mad scientist” contingent from Philadelphia, Avram addressed the FCC chairperson’s stated desire to see “scientific” criticism. “One of the clearest empirical examples of U.S. military ties to the media machine is the fact that FCC chair Michael Powell is the son of Colin Powell. When the Secretary of State presented supposedly rock solid proof of the imminent threat from Iraq, the corporate media did not challenge his statements.” 

When Avram was beginning to cite UN Inspector Hans Blix’s description of U.S. intelligence on Iraq as “garbage,” he was cut off a minute early. 

Not one speaker from the public open-mic session expressed support for further relaxation of laws restricting media consolidation. They were joined by a handful of the 15 panelists invited to speak by the FCC who opposed the decision. Among the four Commissioners that sat with FCC chair Powell, Congressperson Michael Copps (one of the main figures pushing for the public hearings) was the most sympathetic. At one point he accused a panelist representing the Bear Stearns Corporation of evading his question of whether or not the FCC move would concentrate the media in the hands of only a few people. When he later made a joke about media consolidation, he drew loud applause  from the crowd. 

The FCC’s decision on this controversial issue remains to be seen. Other media democracy organizations have organized around the country to make sure that they have some input in the decisions. On March 7, Public Enemy rapper and writer Chuck D and others appeared at an unofficial hearing in Seattle, Washington, one of the many community-organized forums that have occurred around the country. 

 An example of the numerous nationwide demonstrations organized in the last few years was the March 22, 2002 event. Earlier, Michael Powell stated, “The night after I was sworn in, I waited for a visit from the angel of public interest. I waited all night, but she did not come.” He went on to say, “I still have had no divine awakening and no one has issued me my public interest crystal ball.” In response to what they felt was an arrogant and anti-democratic sentiment, media activists from Philadelphia and around the country dressed up as angels and descended on FCC headquarters in Washington, DC to deliver their homemade “public interest crystal ball.” Speakers included DeeDee Halleck of Paper Tiger TV, War Cry of the Information Liberation Front, and the Reverend Billy. When the angels attempted to enter the building and request a meeting with Powell, they were blocked by police. 

Media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has documented the mainstream media bias and slander of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal over the years. One of the worst examples of this was Sam Donald- son’s “20/20” report on Mumia’s case. In its analysis FAIR concluded that the program relied on both the propagation of white supremacist stereotypes of Blacks as well as overt misrepresentation of the facts. A few years earlier, the airing of Abu-Jamal’s radio essays on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” was cancelled under pressure from the police and Senator Bob Dole. 

The Kensington Welfare Rights Union in Philadelphia organized the October 2002 “Break the Media Blackout” conference which explicitly connected the struggle to abolish poverty in the U.S. to the issue of media democracy. KWRU's Cheri Honkala believes that the “mainstream media has consciously made the poor disappear and doesn’t talk about the daily struggles of poor people in the U.S.” Honkala explains that KWRU “supports independent media in the U.S. and we also see ourselves as reporters, make use of the Internet, and see the importance of documenting everything our selves.” 

Norman Solomon, a long-time journalist writing about the U.S. media, sees media issues as being part of a larger picture. He argues, “if democracy is going to come into being in this country it needs to tear down the economic inequities that are making democracy in many respects impossible.” 

On March 22 media activists organized a “feeder march” demonstration outside of CNN before joining the hundreds of thousands of other protesters that had gathered that day in New York City to express their opposition to the escalation of the war on Iraq that had begun earlier that week. These anti-war protesters argued that CNN and other corporate media outlets’ coverage of the war on Iraq helped the Bush administration by slanting their news and not providing the public with the information to make an informed decision. 

Another prominent Philadelphia media-activist group organizing against U.S. militarism is AWOL magazine (a project of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors and the War Resisters League). AWOL employs alternative media in their effort to challenge the U.S. military’s recruitment of youth of color, they publish a magazine and a mostly hip-hop CD. Speaking for AWOL , Kevin Ramirez argues that “the media by and large has become a funnel for information for the Pentagon and the Department of Defense to manufacture consent and create the atmosphere of mainstream approval for the way Bush is executing the war on terrorism and the imperial aggression in Iraq. It is clear that the media is being held accountable to the corporations that own it, that are also involved in the industries of arms manufacturing. I oppose the possible FCC decision because further media consolidation will only make this worse.” 

While the current moves by the FCC towards the legalization of further consolidating the mass media in the hands of even fewer corporations is quite scary, resistance to it has also created an atmosphere of hope. 

Hans Bennett is an anarchist and independent photojournalist currently working with Philadelphia’s INSUBORDINATION and AWOL magazines.