[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10069-10070]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             FCC TOO QUICK TO REVISE MEDIA OWNERSHIP RULES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Burns). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to 
bring to the attention of the House the fact that I am now introducing 
a resolution to express the sense of the House of Representatives that 
the Federal Communications Commission should not revise its media 
ownership rules without more extensive review and comment by the 
public.
  I am doing this because the chairman of the Federal Communications 
Commission, Mr. Powell, made an announcement in March that he was going 
to further revise the rules of the Federal Communications Commission 
which would make it possible for fewer owners to control the 
information distribution system in America. In doing so, he is 
continuing a process which effectively began in the early 1980s when 
such things as the right of people in communities to express themselves 
over the airwaves when editorial positions were taken by radio stations 
with which they did not agree was abolished. This was a provision that 
existed in the rules of the Federal Communications Commission, and 
effectively in the laws of our country since the period of the Second 
World War.
  As a result of that change and others, what we have seen is, for 
example, in the radio area, 80 percent of the radio audience being in 
effect controlled by three major corporations. In other words, three 
major corporations broadcast to 80 percent of the radio audience. We 
have lost diversity in our radio programming. We have lost the very 
important aspect of local control. We have lost the sense of community 
in radio and television broadcasting as a result of the changes that 
were begun during the Reagan administration in the 1980s and, now, are 
being attempted

[[Page 10070]]

to continue under the jurisdiction of Mr. Powell, the present chairman 
of the Federal Communications Commission.
  What Mr. Powell under the direction of the present administration is 
doing, is this: he is now going to go beyond the fact that fewer people 
can control the electronic media, radio and television; he is also 
going to issue an order, he says, which will allow those same people 
that control the electronic media to now control increasingly the print 
media as well. So if one owns a radio station and a television station 
in a particular service area, one will be able to own the newspapers in 
that area as well, thanks to the ruling that Mr. Powell is putting 
forward as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that this is a very dangerous thing. I think it 
is important for us to do everything that we can to allow local aspects 
of communication to take place and local control of media, and 
diversity in the media and quality in the media. Much of this has been 
lost as a result of the present consolidation that has occurred over 
the course of now more than 20 years. Mr. Powell is now going to 
increase that and make it worse so that there will be less diversity of 
opinion, less local control, and more consolidation of views in our 
country. And he has done this, interestingly enough, without proper 
notice to the public and without adequate public hearings.
  Now, one would think that a Federal agency embarking upon such a 
project would give adequate time for review by the Congress and, more 
importantly, by the general public. No, Mr. Powell has not conducted 
his activities in that way. One public hearing outside of Washington, 
DC was held. That was held conveniently in Richmond, Virginia. It is a 
very lovely city, but it is just down the road. There were no hearings 
held in Boston or San Diego or Chicago or Des Moines or Albuquerque or 
Dallas. No hearings held in other places across the country so that 
people could have an opportunity to understand what was happening to 
them, what was happening to the communication media in their country so 
that they could have an opportunity to react to it appropriately.
  So this resolution, Mr. Speaker, which I am offering to the House of 
Representatives and I am asking my colleagues for their kind support, 
would call upon the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission 
to halt what he is doing, to provide for additional public hearings, to 
give the public ample time to understand what is happening with the 
communication media in our Nation. Because most of these activities 
have been below the radar. They have been carried out surreptitiously. 
They have been carried out in ways so as not to attract attention, and 
that has been done, I believe, consciously because the perpetrators of 
this activity have understood that if it attracted public attention, it 
would also attract public dissent and public opposition.
  So we need to be more careful about the way in which the Federal 
Communications Commission acts. The Federal Communications Commission 
was set up by legislation passed by this Congress, but this Congress 
has not exercised its proper jurisdiction over the way the FCC 
operates. And, as a result, we are seeing this very invidious 
consolidation of communication which is acting contrary to the best 
interests of the American people.

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