[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 80 (Thursday, May 15, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4270-S4271]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MEDIA DIVERSITY

  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, for those who may not have observed that 
voice vote, it was a very positive result for the voices of America 
supporting diversity. I want to spend a few minutes talking about this 
issue, to make sure we give it the due consideration that is important.
  Mr. DORGAN. I wonder if the Senator from Washington will yield for a 
question. I have to leave the Chamber due to another event.
  First, I thank the Senator from Washington. Senator Cantwell has been 
unbelievably strong and supportive in getting us to this point of 
having passed the resolution of disapproval. We got it through the 
Commerce Committee. She was a leader in that effort. We now have voice 
voted it. It has passed the Senate.
  I did want to say, as I said earlier, the issue here is simple. We 
have far too much concentration in the media. The Federal 
Communications Commission, at least the Chairman and two others who 
have been members, have become cheerleaders of more concentration. That 
means less localism. It means your local radio station, in many cases 
your television station, other media outlets, are run by somebody 
living 1,500 miles away, running homogenized music through a radio 
station having nothing to do with covering the local baseball team or 
news events. I think this moves in exactly the wrong direction. I 
believe there needs to be more localism and I think there has to be a 
procedure on localism at the Federal Communications Commission. There 
need to be public interest standards with respect to broadcasters that 
do not now exist. The standards have been emasculated. We have a lot to 
do to put this back on track.
  Suffice it to say, the FCC was anxious to move in the direction of 
more consolidation, allowing newspapers to buy up television stations. 
We have had a ban on that for three decades. We prohibited the cross 
ownership in a market. The reason we have done that is pretty simple: 
We don't want there to be only one or a couple of dominant voices in a 
market. We want there to be many voices.
  That is what our purpose is, to bring this resolution of disapproval. 
It is unusual to do this, but we did it. It got through the Commerce 
Committee, now through the Senate. It says to the Federal 
Communications Commission, get things right, do things right, don't 
truncate these things and cut the American people out of this process.
  We have also said today we believe this is moving in the wrong 
direction. Everybody says there are more voices out there in the 
Internet and cable channels and so on. More voices but the same 
ventriloquist. We had one person testify from Los Angeles who came and 
said in my office we have 48 cable channels. I went through who owns 
the channels--42 of them are owned by the same few companies and that 
is the problem with concentration.
  I again thank the Senator from Washington. She has done a great job 
and I am proud to work with her and Senator Snowe especially, on the 
other side, and Senator Lott when he was here, to accomplish this 
result.
  Ms. CANTWELL. I thank the Senator from North Dakota. The praise 
should go to Senator Dorgan for his leadership on this issue for the 
last year-plus time, continuing to make sure the Senate holds the FCC 
accountable for their actions, trying to pass a rule on media 
consolidation when they know there have been dissenting views all 
across America about this issue. Certainly there has been a dissent 
from the Senate.
  The ownership of broadcast and print media does touch on some of the 
core values Americans hold for freedom of speech, open and diverse 
viewpoints, to have vibrant economic competition from a variety of 
sources, and local diversity.
  Attention to diversity and localism has served our economy well and 
has also provided us a good civics lesson. These opportunities--when we 
hear from small companies, when we hear from minorities, when we hear 
from women--are the types of diversity we want to protect. We did that 
tonight.
  The diversity in media does energize our democracy. Viewpoint 
diversity that comes from the various views that

[[Page S4271]]

can now be expressed are key to making us a stronger nation.
  Having independent sources of news helps citizens to take opinions, 
not just locally but nationally and even globally. That is why I am 
glad we stopped the FCC from moving forward on their media 
consolidation proposal.
  I remind my colleagues of the history here because I have a feeling 
this issue may come up again. Back in 2002, the FCC initiated its 
biennial review process, announcing the agency would fulfill and review 
the full range of broadcast ownership rules, but the announcement of 
the review was the only thing that was truly conducted in public.
  On June 23, 2003, on a 3-to-2 party line vote, the FCC issued its new 
rules on media consolidation. Then-Chairman Powell did not issue the 
proposed rule for public comment prior to the vote.
  The reason I am bringing this up is because what ensued is millions 
of people sent e-mails and weighed in with postcards and petitions to 
oppose the rule. In fact, the Senate sent a very clear message to the 
FCC at the time invalidating that proposed media consolidation 
proposal.
  The Third Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed the FCC decision from 
2003 and they determined it was ``not supported by reasonable 
analysis.''
  What happened after that? Obviously there were a lot of people in 
loud chorus saying they disapproved of the FCC's action to further 
concentrate the media in this country. In 2007 the FCC passed the new 
media ownership rule, barely a month after it was proposed, allowing 
for little public comment and for even less time for consideration of 
the comments that came in. I know Chairman Martin likes to talk about 
allowing public comment for over 120 days and 6 hearings around the 
country, but all of that was done before the rule was even out there in 
public, what the actual changes would be.
  In one example, they came to Seattle on November 9 and I think we had 
a mere 1-week notice for that. They had the meeting on a Friday 
afternoon. I think it was a 3-day weekend. Maybe they thought no one 
would show up, but it does not take a lot of notice in Seattle to get 
people to show up for a hearing about media consolidation, so 800 
people showed up and spent 9 hours letting the Commission know their 
thoughts on what they thought the impact of increased media 
concentration would be.
  It would hurt competition. It would lessen diversity. It would impact 
localism and was not in the broader public interest. I know Chairman 
Martin received an earful in Seattle, but clearly he didn't pay much 
attention to what we said, because a few days later he proposed new 
media ownership rules. They were released in a November 13 op-ed piece, 
I think in the New York Times, in a Commission press release.
  So what we are saying is we do not like the process which the FCC 
pursued in not having the broadest public comment in this, and also 
when it looks at some of the issues that were discussed in trying to 
validate why the Commission continues to try to push for media 
consolidation.
  I think it is very important. We have seen a pattern emerge. We see 
economic studies from the Commission where they cannot hold up to peer 
review, where data are not supportive of the predetermined conclusions 
that the FCC had, and that maybe they were ``checking the box'' when it 
comes to these public hearings and maybe giving mere lip service to 
localism and to women and minority ownership issues.
  So all of those issues are going to continue to be duly noted by the 
Commerce Committee, and certainly we are going to continue to fight on 
this issue. The FCC media ownership rules were created decades ago to 
foster these longstanding goals that our country has to promote 
competition, to promote localism, to have diversity of voices.
  The courts and industry experts and elected officials of all ranks 
across America have come together in an overwhelming chorus saying 
``no'' to the FCC move to try to further consolidate the media.
  I am glad my colleagues tonight as well disapproved of their action 
so we can continue to have the diversity of voices in America that I 
believe my constituents and Americans all across this country deserve.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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