The FCC is moving forward with its insane plan to relax media-concentration rules, which will ensure that all the TV, newspaper and radio news available in various regions will come from one or two companies, often with interlocking directorships. The Commission isn't even holding public hearings on the subject, on the Orwellian grounds that the huge amount of public outcry over this (18,000 comments filed!) has eliminated the need for hearings (i.e., "This issue is so controversial that we don't need hearings on it").
"We're going to have a handful of people providing the news for the entire country," Woolsey said. "We will be losing the diversity of intellect and ideas and opinions. We'll be cutting off minority opinions and dissent, and it's not our founding fathers intended."
The FCC takes a critical step this week, when commissioners receive specific proposals for deregulation. The proposals, which are not to be released, will come up for a vote June 2.
In a phone interview last week, Copps said that of roughly 18,000 public comments on the proposed changes — not counting the hundred or so from media companies or organized coalitions — "I haven't seen any that say, 'Let's relax the rules further.' "
"In the media landscape we have now, if a new Ted Turner sprang from the earth with a new idea for CNN, I don't know that he could go very far," Copps said.
(Thanks, Larry!)
