[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 73 (Thursday, May 15, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H4179-H4184]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              THE GROWING CONCENTRATION OF MEDIA OWNERSHIP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, in my view the issue that I and some of my 
colleagues are about to discuss, which is concentration of ownership in 
the media and the implications of more media deregulation as proposed 
by the Bush administration and FCC Chairman Michael Powell, is one of 
the very most important issues facing this country. One of the ways 
that we can know how important this issue is is precisely by how 
relatively little media attention has been paid to it. The growing 
concentration of corporate ownership of media in the United States is 
in fact one of the least discussed major issues in this country because 
the media itself is in a major conflict of interest and chooses not to 
discuss it.
  As bad as the situation is today, and when we examine this chart we 
will find out how bad it is, how few major multinational conglomerates 
like Viacom, AOL Time Warner, Disney, Clear Channel, News Corporation 
and a few others, to what degree a few major corporations control what 
we see, hear and read, as bad as it is, it is likely to become much 
worse, much more dangerous for the future of democracy in this country 
if, as is proposed on June 2, the FCC votes for further media 
deregulation, regulations that have been on the books for years to 
protect localism, to protect diversity of opinion, to protect the clash 
of ideas.
  Needless to say, there are many people and many organizations all 
across this country regardless of political orientation who are 
strongly opposed to changing these regulations and who do not want to 
see more media consolidation in this country. Millions of Americans do 
not want to see the handful of corporations who determine what we see, 
hear and read become three, become two, become one perhaps as a result 
of mergers and takeovers. These groups range across the political 
spectrum from progressive groups to conservative groups. According to 
the Associated Press yesterday, and I quote, ``The National Rifle 
Association joined the ranks of consumer groups, musicians, writers and 
academics who oppose easing the restrictions.

                              {time}  1530

  ``The NRA asked its members to write Powell,'' that is the FCC 
Chairman, ``and lawmakers in support of the existing rules, said Wayne 
LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president.'' Quote from Mr. 
LaPierre: ``These big media conglomerates are already pushing out 
diversity of political opinion.''
  Further, we have heard recently from organizations representing black 
broadcasters and Latino broadcasters. We have heard from musicians. We 
have heard from a wide spectrum of people who say what America is about 
is freedom, and we cannot have freedom if we do not have a clash of 
ideas. And it will be very dangerous for this country when a tiny 
number of multi-multibillion-dollar international conglomerates own 
virtually all of our newspapers, all of our radio stations, all of our 
television stations, all of our book publishing companies, all of the 
companies that produce the films that we observe.
  At issue now is the FCC's review of rules that seek to protect 
localism so that back home they will have local news, that there will 
be a local radio station telling them what is going on in their 
community, that will preserve competition and diversity. These rules, 
among other things, currently limit a single corporation from 
dominating local TV markets. Do people want to live in a community 
where all of the local television stations are owned by one company? 
These rules that we have in place right now will prevent the merging of 
local television stations, radio stations, and a newspaper. Do people 
want to live in a community where one company owns their local TV 
station, owns the newspaper and owns radio stations? Do they think they 
are going to hear different points of view when that happens?
  These regulations deal with the merging of two major television 
networks so that we will have just a few networks controlling all of 
the TV stations facing our country. Honest people might have 
differences of opinion on this issue, but one would think that there 
would be massive amounts of public discussion all over America. I can 
tell the Members that in my small State, the State of Vermont, which is 
one of the smallest States in this country, we recently had a town 
meeting on this issue, and 600 people came out to hear FCC Commissioner 
Michael Copps talk about that issue. We should be having town meetings 
like that all over America, and in my view and in the view of many of 
us in Congress, the FCC should delay making any decisions on June 2 and 
let the American people get involved in the process.
  Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege now to yield to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Woolsey) who has been very active on this issue. I 
thank the gentlewoman for being with us.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I am here today to join my colleagues and to thank the 
gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) for pulling this evening together 
so that we can speak out against a threat to America. It is not a 
threat to American lives, but a threat to American values. It is a 
threat to everything that this Nation stands for, every principle that 
this Nation was founded on, and every memory of every soldier that has 
fought and died or been harmed for the free exchange of ideas.

[[Page H4180]]

  Today bureaucrats of the FCC and the overwhelming complacency of this 
Congress threaten that freedom. This past Monday I hosted a forum in my 
district, which is the two counties north of San Francisco across the 
Golden Gate Bridge. We had a forum with Federal Communications 
Commissioner Michael Copps about his agency's rules on media ownership. 
Nearly 400 of my constituents at 1 o'clock in afternoon, packed into an 
auditorium at Dominican University in San Rafael, were there to declare 
their opinions about what the FCC rules on media ownership will mean, 
and their opinion was that this is extremely important. This is an 
issue, however, that has been underreported by the very media that will 
be most affected.
  In fact, as proof of that very underreporting, yesterday over a dozen 
concerned Democratic Members of Congress held a press conference right 
here on the Hill on the issue of media consolidation. I suppose no 
surprise, but not one member of the broadcast press showed up, and 
until a reporter from Roll Call, our newspaper here on the Hill, came 
to experience a press conference without press, we did not have 
anybody. So we disbanded and came back in honor of the person that was 
there from Roll Call.
  It reminds me of the cliche about a tree falling in the forest. If 
Members of Congress speak out about media ownership, and the media does 
not cover the event, is democracy already dead?
  No newspaper, radio station, or TV network is perfect. Allowing 
single corporations to monopolize the information that average 
Americans receive give big corporations like Rupert Murdoch and Ted 
Turner absolutely too much power.
  On June 2 the Federal Communications Commission has scheduled a vote 
on new regulations that would break down the decades-long firewall 
between media ownership and single markets. Gone will be the 
prohibition against corporations owning newspapers and TV stations in 
the same town or cable TV networks and TV stations in the same town. 
Gone also will be the limits on number of TV stations and cable 
stations a corporation can own nationally.
  The threat of a veto by President Clinton kept these rules from being 
changed in 1996, but now under the Bush Administration, FCC Chairman 
Michael Powell and a Republican majority on the Commission that is 
drunk on the ideology of the free market, these changes are very likely 
to be approved.
  It is a sham and it is a shame that in a Nation of 280 million 
people, the FCC has held only one official hearing on this subject, 
just outside the Beltway in Virginia. If it was not for the FCC 
Commissioners, Commissioner Michael Copps and Commissioner Jonathan 
Adelstein, it is really doubtful that this discussion would have gone 
beyond a few lobbyists and public interest activists in the first 
place.
  Since radio ownership regulations were relaxed under the 
Telecommunications Act in 1996, radio ownership diversity has decreased 
in our Nation by at least one-third. In the San Francisco market alone, 
seven stations are now owned by Clear Channel Communications, seven by 
Infinity Broadcasting, and three by ABC.
  Across the Nation 10 companies broadcast to two-thirds of the 
Nation's radio audience and receive two-thirds of the broadcast 
revenues. Hear me: Ten companies broadcast to two-thirds of the 
Nation's audience and receive two-thirds of the broadcast revenues. 
That is not okay, and it is going to get worse.
  Has the quality of radio broadcasting improved because of these 
changes? Is there more local programming, more local news, a greater 
variety of programming? Is there free flow of information? Or is there 
censorship? Just ask the Dixie Chicks. They know what censorship is.
  Power over ideas should not be subject to individuals with only ideas 
of profit on their mind. In America ideas are not just another 
commodity like butter or steel or cloth. Ideas are the lifeblood of our 
Nation. The FCC should be defending the free exchange of ideas, not 
giving corporate executives, not always too different from Enron's Ken 
Lay, not giving them the power to shut off the flow of ideas to 
American citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleagues and I are cosponsoring House Resolution 
218 that calls on the FCC to examine and inform the public of the 
consequences of the new round of deregulation. It asks that the FCC 
allow for extensive public review and comment on any proposed changes 
to media ownership rules before issuing a final rule.
  The least the FCC and Michael Powell can do is allow the people of 
America the opportunity to speak their mind about the elimination of 
freely exchanging ideas.
  I thank the gentleman from Vermont for doing this Special Order.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman.
  Before I yield to the gentlewoman of Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), I 
want to just emphasize a point that the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Woolsey) just made. I think sometimes when people turn on a 
television or they pick up a newspaper, they say, well, a company owns 
this newspaper, and a lot of companies put out different newspapers, 
different types of television stations, and so forth and so on. What 
people are not aware of is the degree, the number of separate companies 
that one large corporation owns.
  Let me start off with an example and go to Viacom. I suspect that 
most people have never even heard of Viacom. Who is Viacom? What is 
Viacom? So let me tell the Members a little bit about Viacom. Viacom is 
a huge multinational corporation that owns TV stations, radio stations, 
TV networks, and many other media outlets. For example, this is just 
Viacom, just Viacom. When we turn on CBS network, that is Viacom. We 
turn on the UPN network, Viacom. MTV, Nickelodeon, TV Land, CMT, TNN, 
VH1, Showtime, Movie Channel, Sundance Channel, Flick, Black 
Entertainment, Comedy Central. One would think they are watching 
different companies. They are not. That is Viacom.
  They get off the TV now, drive into work, turn on the radio. There 
are 180 Infinity radio stations owned by Viacom.
  What about local television stations? We have got the big CBS. What 
is about the local television stations? They must be locally owned. 
Wrong. We have 34 stations that Viacom owns in Philadelphia, in Boston, 
in Dallas, in Detroit, Miami, Pittsburgh, among other places.
  They are in radio. They are in television. But at least when I go 
from the movies I am getting away from this corporation, right? Not 
quite. When we watch Paramount Pictures, it is Viacom. MTV Films, 
Viacom. Nickelodeon, Contentville, the Free Press, MTV books, 
Nickelodeon books, Simon & Schuster.
  I am into music now. That is not Viacom. Wrong. Famous music 
publishers: Pocket Books, Viacom. Star Trek franchise; Scribner's 
Publishers, Viacom. Touchstone, Spelling Entertainment, Big Ticket TV, 
Viacom Productions, King World Productions, all one company. One 
company. And they say it is not enough. We do not own enough media. We 
need to own more media. Break down the regulations so we can own more 
television stations, we can own more book publishing companies, and so 
forth. A very dangerous trend.
  Now it gives me a great pleasure to yield to the gentlewoman from 
Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), clearly one of the outstanding Members of 
the U.S. House of Representatives.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. 
Sanders) for giving me this opportunity because it is not every day 
that we get to come down to the floor of the House and defend the 
essentials of our democracy, to talk about defending the Constitution 
of the United States, the first amendment, freedom of speech, freedom 
of the press.
  It is the very core values of this country that we are talking about 
today. This is definitely the most important telecommunications issue 
of our time and, more than that, whether or not ordinary people are 
going to have access to divergent views. This is a value that our 
country has embraced from its beginning that we should have the 
opportunity to hear different voices, to get different opinions and 
make up our own mind.
  So I am here today to call on Federal Communications Commission, its 
Chairman Mr. Powell, and President Bush to listen to the American 
people,

[[Page H4181]]

to support media diversity and localism, and to not allow even more 
concentration of the media.
  The Bush administration and the FCC have tuned out public voices and 
tuned in Rupert Murdoch. I suppose the gentleman will probably talk 
about him, and media barons, because people need to know who is 
controlling the messages that they hear when they want to get the news, 
when they want to know what is going on in the world and in our 
country.

                              {time}  1545

  People in my district and around the country are demanding that the 
FCC hear their voices. That is why just last week the Chicago City 
Council unanimously approved, by a vote of 50 to 0, a resolution that 
urges the FCC to strengthen existing media ownership rules, not to 
weaken them.
  Today and yesterday I received 1,000 e-mails from my constituents. I 
am going to read one of them:

       Dear Congresswoman Schakowsky, Congress shall pass no law 
     restricting the right to free speech. Letting one big 
     business control all available news organs for any locality 
     is a monopoly. Since when do corporations have a right to 
     control our free speech? Since when do their rights trump the 
     average citizen's? Is the Bush administration trying every 
     means conceivable to control our means of debate dissent?
       I urge you and your colleagues in Congress to promote a 
     diverse balance and competitive media. Please stop the FCC 
     rule change on June 2nd.
       We allow media companies to use the airwaves in exchange 
     for their assurance that they are serving the public 
     interest, and it is the FCC's job to make sure that is so. 
     Please hold the FCC to its mandate and oppose the rule 
     change.

  This is from one woman in my district. But imagine now two full reams 
of paper from individuals in my district with the very same message. 
They are sounding the alarm.
  A free and open media is essential to our democracy. It promotes 
civic discussion, encourages public participation and policy debates, 
ensures representation of ideological, cultural and geographic 
diversity. I cannot overstate the importance of the FCC's review of 
media ownership rules in deciding whether the principles of the first 
amendment will be embraced in everyday reality, or only in theory.
  Media ownership concentration is already a major threat to our 
democracy. In the last 25 years, the number of TV station owners has 
declined from 540 to 460, and the number of TV newsrooms has dropped 
almost 15 percent. Three-quarters of cable channels are owned by only 
six corporate entities, four of which are major TV networks. Seventy 
percent of all markets have four or fewer sources of original TV news 
production. In 1965, there were 860 owners of daily newspapers. Today 
there are less than 300.
  The Supreme Court has maintained that the first amendment is designed 
to achieve the widest possible dissemination of information from 
diverse and antagonistic sources. Media ownership diversity is critical 
to ensuring that we protect the first amendment. Over the years, the 
courts have supported the belief of Congress that independent ownership 
of media outlets results in more diverse media voices, greater 
competition, and more local content.
  Over the last few years, we have seen considerable ownership 
consolidation in the media, while, at the same time, we have seen 
important public interest protections eliminated. For the first 50 
years after the enactment of the 1934 Communications Act, people had a 
right to petition the FCC if they found coverage to be one-sided. We 
called that the Fairness Doctrine. It required broadcasters to cover 
issues of public importance and to do so fairly, until, in 1987, under 
immense pressure from the media, it was eliminated.
  Eliminating the law of the Fairness Doctrine, a major blow to 
consumers, was supposed to be alleviated by a blossoming of independent 
local outlets that would expand diversity by increasing competition. In 
other words, consumers would no longer be able to use the Fairness 
Doctrine to ensure that their views were represented on a specific 
media outlet, but the thought was we would be able to present those 
views through competing media in the same market.
  Unfortunately, the public is now faced with increased concentration, 
not increased competition, and no longer has the Fairness Doctrine to 
fall back on. The FCC should reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. At the 
very least they should not even allow more ownership concentration that 
makes the loss of the Fairness Doctrine more onerous. Greater media 
ownership concentration limits the public's access to diverse 
viewpoints.
  Radio provides an example of what can happen when media ownership 
rules are abolished. In 1996, Congress eliminated the national 
ownership caps for radio. The result? Greater consolidation in the 
radio industry. In almost half of the largest markets, the three 
largest corporations control 80 percent of the radio audience. This has 
made it harder for diverse opinions to be heard.
  Just last month, Clear Channel refused to air an advertisement in 
which I was inviting people to an event that was organized for people 
who opposed the war in Iraq. It was a gathering, and I wanted a 
commercial to air on the radio to see if people wanted to come. Clear 
Channel refused to put that advertisement on the air.
  Mr. SANDERS. I am assuming you were prepared to pay for that ad?
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Absolutely. This was a paid-for ad.
  Mr. SANDERS. What we have now, and I think people should be aware of 
this, is it a bad situation when the media does not provide adequate 
coverage for different points of view, and that is what we are seeing. 
What the gentlewoman is saying is that when individuals want to buy 
time at the going rates, they are not even allowed to do that. That is 
an outrage, that is unacceptable, and we are seeing more and more of 
that.
  If I like your point of view, you can buy an ad on my radio station; 
if I do not, sorry, we do not want your money.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. That is exactly right. This was not a public service 
announcement. This was not asking a favor of the radio station. This 
was we want to buy an ad that invites people to a public gathering on 
the issue of most importance in the country at the time, and we were 
not able to buy that ad. They would not sell it to us, even as its 
affiliates were organizing pro-war rallies around the country on the 
air.
  Yesterday, as has been pointed out, 11 Members of the United States 
House of Representatives, the Democratic whip, the Democratic leader of 
our caucus, the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), who has been 
organizing around this issue of media concentration, an expert on the 
subject, held a press conference, and nobody came. There was not one TV 
camera, not one radio station. Two small print outlets came, we are 
grateful to them; but clearly, a decision was made not to cover this. 
And I want to challenge those media giants who did not come to explain 
how that blackout was not motivated by a conflict of interest.
  Mr. SANDERS. If I could interrupt for a moment, we are a Nation 
which, as I think everybody knows, is pretty equally divided. The last 
election, Mr. Gore and Mr. Nader received somewhat more votes than Mr. 
Bush and Mr. Buchanan. Congress is almost equally divided. The Senate 
is almost equally divided. Polls show a certain number of people are 
Democrats, an equal number are Republicans, and you have a lot of 
independents out there. This is not an extreme right-wing country. It 
just is not.
  I would ask people to think for a moment about the phenomenon of talk 
radio. In a Nation which is divided pretty equally politically, people 
on the left, people on the right, let me just mention the folks who are 
on talk radio: Rush Limbaugh, G. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, Sean 
Hannity, Armstrong Williams, Blanquita Collum, Michael Savage, Neil 
Boorts, Bob Grant, Bob Dornan, Michael Medved, Michael Reagan, Matt 
Drudge, Laura Schlesinger, Don Imus, Michael Graham, Ken Hamblin, Laura 
Ingraham, and many, many others.
  What do they have in common? They are all extreme right wing.
  And now let me read you the names of the progressive voices.
  That is it. There are not any. There are not any. Liberal voices, 
virtually none.
  Now, how come in a Nation in which more people voted for Gore than 
for Bush, there are no national voices speaking for working families, 
speaking for the middle class, speaking for the environment, speaking 
for women's

[[Page H4182]]

rights? No voices. I am not talking about a minority; I am talking no 
voices.
  Is that an accident? Well, as the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. 
Schakowsky) was saying, I do not think it is an accident. I think one 
has to be very naive not to see the connection between the large 
corporations who own the media, their desire for lower taxes for the 
rich, their desire to take American jobs to China, where people are 
paid 20 cents an hour, their anti-unionism, their lack of respect for 
the environment, and the fact that talk radio is dominated by these 
right wing forces.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. If I could just add, here is the final request I 
have, and it is so simple, that the Federal Communications Commission, 
before it makes a decision on June 2 to allow even greater 
concentration, would travel around the country and hold more public 
forums, listen to the people, give an opportunity to the 1,000 people 
that wrote to me and the thousands and millions more who want to 
participate in this decisionmaking, let their voices be heard.
  Finally, I want to say, let us consider, and I hope pass, House 
Resolution 218, offered by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey), 
which calls on the FCC not to weaken current ownership rules that 
protect media diversity, and also calls on the FCC to better examine 
and inform the public about the consequences of further media 
concentration and allow the public to comment on any proposed changes. 
This is the least we can do to protect freedom of speech.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for all of her 
efforts on this issue. I think her appeal is exactly right. Why should 
the American people not be able to participate in this debate?
  Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield to the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Inslee).
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for letting me join 
him.
  I think this is perhaps one of the most important and least talked 
about issues in American democracy during this Congress, and it is 
fascinating to me that an issue that has such large ramifications, has 
such a bearing on Americans' ability to know what is going on in their 
government and their world, is such a closely held secret from the 
American people. The reason it is a closely held secret is it is not 
reported in the media.
  This is one of the most important, contentious issues. This should 
make great fodder for TV talk shows and radio talk shows and 
newspapers. It ought to sell a lot of newspapers because it is 
contentious. Yet there is a blackout on this subject for the American 
people, and that is why I want to thank the gentleman for doing this 
Special Order to talk about it.
  The reason I came to the floor this afternoon is I think it strikes 
at the very heart of a basic American value. There are five values 
actually inscribed on the bar of the House right behind the gentleman 
from Vermont (Mr. Sanders). I can read them. They are Union, Justice, 
Tolerance, Liberty, and that is the one that is in question here, is 
the liberty interests of Americans, because you cannot have liberty or 
democracy if you do not have multiple sources of information.

  Clearly, when the rules were amended years back to allow further 
consolidation in the industry, guess what you got? You got further 
consolidation in the industry. It is not exactly rocket science that 
will be required to predict the results if the FCC allows this further 
deregulation of the industry. If they do allow further consolidation in 
the industry, you will have further consolidation in the industry, and 
when you have further consolidation in the media industry, you have 
fewer real choices to get access to diverse opinions. Republican, 
Democrat, up or down, left or right, tall or short, you will have less 
real choice.
  Let me say why that has been borne out in real practice. Some of the 
people who have advocated for this change, to allow further 
consolidation in the industry, to allow the bigger to get bigger and 
swallow the smaller stations, have suggested that because, for 
instance, there are a lot of radio stations out there, that in fact 
there is no damage to the value of liberty and diverse opinions.
  But they forget one very central fact: when you want to know whether 
there is diverse opinion in the media, you have to follow a rule, and 
that rule is this: follow the money. You might have 10, 15, 100 radio 
stations; but if they are all owned by the same corporation or 
individual, you do not have 100 voices. You have the same person with 
100 megaphones.
  Does that help American democracy? Does that help diverse opinions? 
No. It centralizes it. It reduces the number of voices that America 
has, and that is exactly what the empirical evidence has shown.
  Since the last effort to allow consolidation in the industry, we have 
34 percent fewer owners of radio stations. Now, it is of academic 
interest how many stations we have; but we have fewer voices because we 
have fewer owners of radio stations, and we have fewer views on the 
spectrum of political thought and historic thought and spiritual 
thought than we should have, because we allowed more consolidation, and 
we got more consolidation; and we have less liberty interests as a 
result because there are fewer voices in the spectrum to be heard.

                              {time}  1600

  Now, I want to say just one more thing, and then I will yield to the 
gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders).
  To me, a taste of what is coming in the media we have in what we got 
from the FCC, which is a blackout. Because here we have this incredibly 
important rule to American democracy, and what did the FCC do? What did 
they do? They are supposed to be working for us. They held one hearing 
in Virginia.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, after being begged to do that.
  Mr. INSLEE. After being begged by multiple people, they held one 
hearing 2,500 miles from my district.
  Mr. Speaker, the Forest Service, by contrast, when they considered 
the roadless rule, which is another important rule, they held six 
hearings, multiple hearings in Washington. This is under the cover of 
darkness. This avoids sunlight, which is the best anecdote to any virus 
of political thought; and it is a rotten shame the FCC has to do this 
under the cover of darkness.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, if I might, I would mention to my friend 
that the FCC has a Web site that people can currently e-mail to, and 
the overwhelming majority of people who are contacting the FCC are 
saying, do not go forward with more deregulation, which I find 
interesting. And the gentleman's point is well taken. I think that 
there would be tens of thousands of people from California to Maine 
coming out to these hearings if they had the courage to meet the people 
rather than just talk to the big corporate bosses.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if I may report from Seattle what happened, 
two courageous members of the FCC came out and were willing to listen 
to citizens on their own time a few months ago; and over 300 people, I 
think, turned out, once we got a little bit of the news out. We did not 
have much cooperation from the media, of course, who about 99.9 percent 
of them in the audience were very, very concerned about this further 
consolidation. And I think that voice is an overwhelming one across 
America.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Watson), I want to touch on another aspect of this. 
People may say, well, this is outside the Beltway. Maybe Members of 
Congress are complaining, they did not get a good story, they are angry 
about their lack of courage. That is not the issue here.
  The issue here is that in a democratic society, we do not know what 
goes on unless all issues of importance are discussed. It is not 
whether somebody gets a good story or whether they are on TV or not; it 
is whether whole segments of American life get the discussion that they 
need.
  Now, we know, we know that we have seen everything that we ever 
wanted to see about Michael Jackson, about all the other scandals that 
we have heard about. But here is an issue that gets very little 
discussion.
  We have been told that with all of the explosion of technology, with 
the global economy, with the use of computers and e-mails and faxes, 
what we are told, which is true, is that the productivity of the 
average American

[[Page H4183]]

worker has substantially increased. That is the good news. The bad news 
is that the tens of millions of Americans today, despite the increase 
in productivity, are working longer hours for lower wages. The reality 
is that in America we have lost several million jobs, decent-paying 
jobs in the last few years because of a disastrous trade policy where 
companies are throwing American workers out on the street and running 
to China. Have we seen much discussion about that on the TV? in the 
newspapers? I do not think so.
  The reality is, the middle class in this country is shrinking. The 
rich are becoming richer. The richest 1 percent own more wealth than 
the bottom 95 percent. How does that touch into the media? What the 
media does, to a large degree, is deflect attention. Here is a scandal, 
we hope you get involved. Here is a ball game, maybe you are interested 
in that. But do not worry if your job goes to China; do not worry if 
the minimum wage has not been raised in years and you are making $5.15 
an hour. You do not have to worry about that. Do not worry if a 
pharmaceutical company has contributed tens of millions of dollars to 
the Republican Party so you end up paying the highest prices in the 
world for prescription drugs. You are too dumb to worry about that. We 
have another scandal for you.
  So the issue does relate to the lives and well-being of every 
American in our country. We have a right. We are not stupid people. We 
believe in democracy. We understand honest people have differences of 
opinion, but we want to be able to discuss the most important issues 
facing the middle class, facing working families. And we are not able 
to do that because of the enormous conflicts of interest that exist 
between these very, very large corporations.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, just one more 
quick point. This is an issue that ought to unite Republicans and 
Democrats. It really should. I know the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. 
Sanders) has talked about talk radio. But I just believe, no matter 
whether you are vanilla or chocolate or Neapolitan here, you ought to 
stand up and say that it is not healthy when America has 20 or 30 
percent less TV stations and half as few newspapers. This should be an 
all-American, bipartisan statement that America deserves diverse 
opinions so that they can make decisions and do not have to trust just 
one.

  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his efforts.
  Mr. SANDERS. And I thank the gentleman for his efforts.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) is 
courageous and active on this issue, and I thank her for being with us.
  Ms. WATSON. Mr. Speaker, on June 2, the FCC is scheduled to meet to 
discuss a proposal by Chairman Powell to relax regulations on media 
ownership. The proposal will allow large media companies to acquire a 
bigger share of the national market and more television stations in any 
given local media market. Other restrictions on cross-ownership, owning 
radio stations, TV stations, and newspapers in the same local market 
will also be lifted.
  Many of us here in Congress are concerned that the rule changes 
proposed by Chairman Powell have not been properly vetted for public 
and congressional comment and that their impact on minority media 
ownership and content could be deleterious. Minority owners and their 
share of the radio and television market is at an all-time low due to 
media consolidation during the last 2 decades. Chairman Powell's 
proposed rule changes could provide the knock-out blow, not only to 
minority ownership, but to a diversity of opinions and viewpoints that 
are critical to the free flow of information in a democratic society.
  I am very concerned during this period of time that there is a 
climate that says you cannot say this, you cannot say that, you cannot 
dissent. It is a threat to democracy.
  Now, as a Member of the Congressional Black Caucus, we are getting to 
Chairman Powell our concerns, because the FCC, as a Federal regulatory 
agency for mass media communications, has long-established rules 
following the 1945 Supreme Court declaration that the widest possible 
dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is 
essential to the welfare of the public; that a free press is a 
condition of a free society.
  Over the past 2 decades, however, many rules designed to enhance 
diversity, competition, and localism have been weakened, creating 
unprecedented consolidation of media sources. For example, since the 
passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the number of radio station 
owners has decreased by at least 1,100, representing a 30 percent 
decline. Among the remaining radio station owners, only 175 minority 
broadcasters owned 426 stations in 2000, or about 4.0 percent of the 
Nation's 10,577 commercial AM and FM radio stations. Furthermore, most 
of these minority owners continue to own AM, rather than FM stations, 
thus facing limited listenership.
  Minority owners' share of the commercial television market is even 
more distressing. As large conglomerates continued to consolidate 
ownership of television stations throughout the 1990s, only 23 full-
power commercial television stations were owned by minorities at the 
end of the decade, representing only 1.9 percent of the country's 1,288 
licensed stations. That level is the lowest since the tracking of such 
data. In addition, since most minority owners are primarily single-
station operators, they face additional difficulty in competing against 
the larger group owners.
  The consolidation of media ownership has also adversely impacted 
programming diversity. For example, Clear Channel Communications, which 
controls over a quarter of the Nation's commercial radio market, has 
instituted homogeneous play lists nationwide, eliminated play time for 
local musicians, and severely cut back most local news services. Black 
Entertainment Television, after its merger with media giant Viacom, 
canceled many of its popular public affairs programs, including ``BET 
Tonight with Ed Gordon,'' ``Lead Story,'' and ``Teen Summit.'' These 
examples are object lessons on how media consolidation can limit 
creative voices, dissenting views, and consumer choice. Our airways 
need to have the widest range of viewpoints that are representative of 
American society.
  So, Mr. Speaker, it is an outrage that we would be considering even 
more consolidation. Where are our voices going to be heard? I am very 
troubled with the atmosphere in which we live in America today, because 
we are being muzzled, we are being gagged by the big boys, and that is 
troubling for a democratic system.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on a point that the 
gentlewoman made. She mentioned Clear Channel; and some people say yes, 
well, Clear Channel is a radio network, but they are much more than a 
radio network. And the point that I am trying to make and that all of 
us have been trying to make today, getting back to this chart, is that 
a handful of giant media conglomerate corporations are owning more and 
more of what we see, hear, and read; and this is not what a democracy 
is about.
  I would remind my colleagues in Congress and all Americans that in 
the last days of the Soviet Union, which was a totalitarian society, 
people thought, well, I guess they had one newspaper and one television 
network, and that was it. It was a totalitarian society. That is wrong. 
There were dozens and dozens and dozens of different newspapers, 
different magazines, different television stations, all over the 
totalitarian Soviet Union. The only problem was that all of those 
television stations, radio stations, newspapers, and magazines were 
only controlled by either the government of the Soviet Union or the 
Communist Party. Many, many different outlets, but limited ownership. 
What we are seeing here is many, many outlets and increasingly fewer 
owners.
  Let me say a word about News Corporation; people probably do not 
know. What is News Corporation? Well, it is owned by a gentleman named 
Rupert Murdoch, who was born in Australia, part of a newspaper 
publishing family in Australia. News Corporation today owns much of the 
media in Australia. Big deal. Well, they also own much of the media in 
the United Kingdom. They own a lot of the media in Eastern Europe. They 
are increasingly owning more media in China. And guess what? They 
already own a whole lot of media

[[Page H4184]]

and other companies in the United States, and they want more.

                              {time}  1615

  So what you are looking at is one man who happens to be a right-wing 
billionaire controlling huge amounts of media all over the entire 
world, which makes him, in fact, one of the most powerful people in the 
world.
  In the United States, news corporations owned by Mr. Murdoch, 22 
television stations, including stations in New York, Los Angeles, 
Chicago, Dallas, Washington, Minnesota, Houston, Orlando and Phoenix. 
He owns the Fox Broadcasting Network. He owns Fox News. He owns Fox 
Kids, Fox Sports, the Health Network, the National Geographic. He owns 
TV Guide. He owns the TV Guide Channel. He owns Fox Sports, radio, the 
Golf Channel. He also is not content with broadcast media. He happens 
to own the New York Post. And this is really a small number of what he 
owns. He owns the Times in London, one of the leading papers in the 
United Kingdom. He owns the Sun in the United Kingdom, one of the large 
circulation tabloids there. He owns the News of the World. He owns the 
TV Guide Magazine in the United States. He owns a conservative magazine 
called the Weekly Standard.
  But that is not all that he owns. He owns Harper Collins, one of our 
major publishing houses. He owns Regan books. He owns Amistad Books. He 
owns William Morrow and Company. That means if you want to get a book 
published, you have got to go through these guys.
  Not only that, he has tremendous impact on sports in America. People 
say, I do not care about books, but I really am interested in sports. 
Well, he happens to own or at least be part owner of the Los Angeles 
Dodgers, the Los Angeles Kings, the Los Angeles Lakers, the New York 
Knickerbockers, the New York Rangers.
  Well, I am not interested in sports, but I am interested in music. He 
owns Festival Records. He owns Mushroom Records, and he owns much, much 
more.
  Now, the point here is it is not just Mr. Murdoch and news 
corporations. I have talked about Viacom before. It is not just AOL-
Time Warner. It is not just Disney. It is not just Clear Channel. It is 
a handful of corporations that control more than you think they do, and 
the end result of that is that entire issues of great concern to the 
American people are not discussed at all because these guys really are 
not interested in discussing it.
  I read recently that Mr. Bush's proposal for $720 billion in tax 
breaks is gaining support in America. Well, I can see why: Because 
there has been relatively little opportunity in the media for those of 
us who disagree, who think that it is a bad idea that the richest 
\1/10\ of 1 percent get as much in tax breaks as the bottom 89 percent. 
How many people know that? How many people know that as a result of 
that budget, there will likely be cutbacks in Medicaid, Medicare, 
veterans needs, education, environmental protection? Because if you 
give away all of that money, you will have less for the needs of 
working families and the middle class.
  How many people know that if you do that huge tax break, you are 
going to end up with a $10 trillion national debt that we are leaving 
to our kids and our grandchildren? Not a whole lot of discussion about 
that because Mr. Murdoch and the guys who make tens of millions of 
dollars a year want tax breaks for the rich. They want the American 
taxpayer to subsidize them, to give them billions of dollars in 
corporate welfare.
  Do you think General Electric, which owns NBC, is going to be talking 
about all the welfare that General Electric gets through its nuclear 
power efforts? Maybe, but I do not think so. Do you think that General 
Electric, which owns NBC, will be talking about all the jobs that GE 
destroyed in the United States, all the American workers they threw out 
on the street as they moved to Mexico and China? I do not think so.
  So this issue is not some kind of inside-the-Beltway abstract issue. 
It gets to the heart and the soul and the core of what America is 
about, and that is if we are to remain a democracy where honest people 
have honest differences of opinion, we have got to get all of the 
information. We cannot have a handful of conglomerates who have their 
own special interests determining what we see, hear and read. And that 
is why, just to recapitulate what all of my colleagues who have been up 
here have said, it is enormously important that on June 2 the FCC does 
not go forward and further deregulate the media so you will end up with 
even an even smaller number controlling what we see, hear and read.
  At the very least, Mr. Powell has got to stop the process. He has got 
to have public hearings all over America. We need studies to understand 
what this will mean, what more deregulation will mean to the quality of 
American democracy, what it will mean to the ability of communities to 
get local news, what it will mean to small businesses and the ability 
of small businesses to function within the media area.
  This is an enormously important issue. I would hope that anyone who 
needs more information about this can go to my website at 
Bernie.House.gov.
  I hope that more people will get involved in this extremely important 
issue. I want to thank all of the Members of Congress who have been 
here today.

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