The FCC was charged in 1934 with the clear mission of protecting the "public interest" from profiteers and propagandists. That mission was enhanced and extended over time. It was threatened, as well -- but never so aggressively, nor so dramatically, as it is now threatened. It is dangerous. It threatens the discourse that sustains democracy at the local, state and national levels.

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From The Nation

It has rewritten media-ownership rules to benefit giant corporations, including the pro-Trump Sinclair Broadcasting.

Eighty years ago, the dawn of the modern communications age coincided with the rise of authoritarian leaders who controlled and manipulated communications in Europe. President Franklin Roosevelt recognized the danger, declaring that...

"If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands, they must be made brighter in our own. If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free. If in other lands the eternal truths of the past are threatened by intolerance, we must provide a safe place for their perpetuation."

Roosevelt and his aides were determined to guard against media-ownership structures that might place control of broadcast media in the United States in the hands of a tiny circle of elite individuals or corporations. To that end, they advocated for a muscular Federal Communications Commission that would guard against consolidation of media ownership and assure that all Americans had access to the information and ideas that sustain democracy.

The FCC was charged in 1934 with the clear mission of protecting the "public interest" from profiteers and propagandists. That mission was enhanced and extended over time. It was threatened, as well -- but never so aggressively, nor so dramatically, as it is now threatened.

President Donald Trump's chair of the FCC, Ajit Pai, and the Trump-aligned majority on a commission is bent on clearing the way for precisely the sort of media monopoly that FDR and the small-"d" democrats of his time feared.

Last week, the FCC voted 3-2 for a radical rewrite of media-ownership rules that will benefit corporate conglomerates, while diminishing the character and quality of the discourse in communities across the United States. In so doing, they strengthened the hand of at least one conglomerate that is closely aligned with Trump.

Pai, who is also moving to eliminate Net Neutrality protections that serve as "the First Amendment of the Internet," portrayed Thursday's vote as an updating of "stale" regulations. But the truth was well stated by John Bergmayer, the senior counsel with the group Public Knowledge, who told CNN "the FCC did not vote to 'modernize' the rules, but rather 'to abandon them.'"

A dissenting commissioner, Jessica Rosenworcel, bluntly charged that, "Instead of engaging in thoughtful reform, which we should do, the agency sets its most basic values on fire. They are gone."

There was no hyperbole in Rosenworcel's assessment, as watchdog groups explained.

Free Press, the nation's media-reform network, noted that...

"The agency rolled back a local television-ownership rule that barred a broadcaster from owning multiple stations in smaller local markets and weakened the standards against owning more than one top-rated station in the same market.

"The FCC also gave its blessing to so-called joint sales agreements, or JSAs, which allow a single company to run the news operations of multiple stations in a single market that would otherwise compete against each other. The vote also overturned the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules, which prevented a single company from owning a daily newspaper, TV and radio stations in the same market.

"[These] moves clear the way for the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group's proposed $3.9 billion merger with Tribune Media, a deal government agencies including the FCC are now reviewing. Should regulators approve the merger, the resulting broadcast giant would control more than 233 local-TV stations reaching 72 percent of the country's population, far in excess of national limits set by Congress on broadcast-TV ownership."

Free Press President Craig Aaron explained,

Sinclair's unabashed goal is to move toward a drastically consolidated news market in which only a few broadcast goliaths can afford to compete. And the result of today's actions will be a new wave of media consolidation as other firms race to keep up. Any pretense that this vote will help journalism or increase ownership diversity is cynical and offensive. Today's vote will lead to more mergers, more layoffs and more communities that have no news outlets in place to cover important stories and hold officials accountable."

"You don't have to dislike Sinclair's politics to see what's wrong with this deal," he continued...

"Anyone who believes in a functioning democracy can see it's a terrible idea to let one company amass this much media power. The FCC has abandoned its responsibilities to protect the public interest."

Michael Copps, the former commissioner who for many years attempted to renew and extend the FCC's "public interest" mission, expressed deep frustration with its abandonment by Pai and the Trump partisans on the commission.

"Even for this craven FCC majority, today's vote to bless more media consolidation represents an awful new low," said Copps, who argues that...

"The FCC just wiped away time-tested and common sense safeguards that promote vibrant local media by ensuring voters have access to competing sources of news. By blessing consolidation this majority has ensured newsroom redundancy, meaning fewer working journalists to hold the powerful to account. And if that were not enough, let Big Broadcast get even bigger means cable customers nationwide will pay higher bills.

"There is no credible rationale for this odious decision which runs flagrantly afoul of the public interest. Once again, this FCC majority is serving the interests of Trump-connected firms, namely Sinclair and Tribune. Disgraceful."

It is disgraceful. And it is dangerous. It threatens the discourse that sustains democracy at the local, state and national levels.

"This act," says Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, "will pave the wave for massive broadcast conglomerates to increasingly provide local viewers with nationalized cookie-cutter news and corporate propaganda that's produced elsewhere."

But it won't be implemented without a fight.

"Free Press will take the FCC to court to challenge [the] vote, as we have in the past when the agency weakened its ownership rules. The FCC has again failed to run a fair and transparent process, listen to public input, do the necessary research, or answer for how gutting these rules will impact the already abysmally low levels of broadcast ownership by women and people of color, says Aaron.

"The FCC has repeatedly lost in court on this very issue for ignoring these concerns. It can't keep ignoring them and hope to escape court scrutiny and public outrage."

Copyright - 2017 thenation.com -- distributed by Agence Global

Authors Bio:

John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.


Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers.


Nichols is a frequent guest on radio and television programs as a commentator on politics and media issues. He was featured in Robert Greenwald's documentary, "Outfoxed," and in the documentaries Joan Sekler's "Unprecedented," Matt Kohn's "Call It Democracy" and Robert Pappas' "Orwell Rolls in his Grave." The keynote speaker at the 2004 Congress of the International Federation of Journalists in Athens, Nichols has been a featured presenter at conventions, conferences and public forums on media issues sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Consumers International, the Future of Music Coalition, the AFL-CIO, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Newspaper Guild [CWA] and dozens of other organizations.


Nichols is the author of the upcoming book The Genius of Impeachment (The New Press), as well as a critically-acclaimed analysis of the Florida recount fight of 2000, Jews for Buchanan (The New Press) and a best-selling biography of Vice President Dick Cheney, Dick: The Man Who is President (The New Press), which has recently been published in French and Arabic. He edited Against the Beast: A Documentary History of American Opposition to Empire (Nation Books), of which historian Howard Zinn said: "At exactly the time when we need it most, John Nichols gives us a special gift--a collection of writings, speeches, poems, and songs from throughout American history--that reminds us that our revulsion to war and empire has a long and noble tradition in this country."


With Robert W. McChesney, Nichols has co-authored the books, It's the Media, Stupid! (Seven Stories), Our Media, Not Theirs (Seven Stories) and Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy (The New Press). McChesney and Nichols are the co-founders of Free Press, the nation's media-reform network, which organized the 2003 and 2005 National Conferences on Media Reform.


Of Nichols, author Gore Vidal says: "Of all the giant slayers now afoot in the great American desert, John Nichols's sword is the sharpest."