Letter to the FCC

Dear FCC,

I’m so glad we have people in the FCC that have had a Communication class. You know then, about the FCC’s sacred calling to protect the public interest from monopolies and the long-fought history of this protection. Of course you are familiar with this history, as it is the very history of the FCC itself. God bless you for making the right decisions on protecting local interests from monopolies.

I’m sure you would do your historic duty to the people by not allowing ownership of the newspaper and a radio or TV station in the same market. Otherwise, that would break the entire reason for the FCC’s being, wouldn’t it?

However, I must warn you, that some influential leaders and thinkers are loudly espousing their beliefs that your FCC is “making information safe for monopolies” (Al Gore, The Assault on Reason). Bill Moyers said on his show the other week: “Kevin Martin isn’t letting up in his relentless push to allow a handful of media giants swallow up more of your local media.” Other communication scientists have shown relationships between the media’s conglomerates hiring of FCC officials and making favorable decisions for those media conglomerates who hire you (the revolving door theory). Maybe you ought to give these influential leaders a call to reassure them that you are on the side of the people who value diversity of information over supposed cost-saving consolidations and not on the side of media conglomerates.

Best of luck in your decision to roll back putting concentrated information power in the hands of the few. That is a hard fight today with all of the consolidation. Yet, it is an heroic struggle for the survival of our precious democracy. As you stand up to these media conglomerates, just remember you are standing up for democracy itself.

It is so great to live in a country where freedom of information and opposing viewpoints is honored for the very existence of our democracy. Can you imagine what it is like in China, where all of the information is owned by one monopoly – the state?


Happy Holidays.