All in the Name of Competition

I just finished reading a book on the Civil Rights movement written by Diane McWhorter who did an excellent job of recording the history of segregation and the struggle to grant equality to all Americans.

Recently there have been reverberations from the book with the recent sham surrounding Shirley Sherrod's recent resignation "under White House pressure" from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). For those of you her are unaware of the story the FULL video (43:14 minutes) can be found on YouTube.

It is worth watching just to get an idea of what it was like to be black in the 50's and 60's and to be frank just how far we have come as a nation. But moving along the real story that she was telling was not that it was a black/white world, but much more a rich/poor, or in her terms, " have/have not" reality.

Now the real point of my post today is not her case as such-and challenges of racial discrimination should and must be investigated be they in the Tea Party, or the New Black Panthers. Racism is racism. No further discussion required.

But this was not a case of Racism per se. This is much more about the systematic destruction of the quality of information provided for through the FCC. It begins with repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 under President Reagan by the then FCC Chairman Michael Fowler. It was compounded by the decision of President Clinton to sign the Telecommunications Act of 1996 lifting the limit on the number of stations a single company could own which had previously been 40.

This ushered in a consolidation of radio stations such that a Clear Channel Communications owns over 1200 stations in all 50 states. Unsurprisingly the attack on the quality and breadth of information available to the general public was continued under President GW and his FCC Chairman Michael Powell. He allowed broadcast networks to increase their ownership of TV stations across the nation from 35% to 45%.

Furthermore he lifted a ban that prevented a media company from owning both a newspaper and a TV or radio station except for in the smallest markets as well as making some other changes depending on the size of the market.

Just about the only thing he kept was the ban on mergers amongst the four biggest networks. When asked why he was pushing for these changes Mr Powell said that "the fact that only five or six corporations dominate US media doesn't worry him". "In fact", he went on to say, "that represents more competition than exists in many other areas of industry and commerce".

This of course was in line with the false mantra of the right that competition is good, and that regulation is bad.

Now why do I care about this. Well the video that cost Ms Sherrod her job was an edited version, first put on a conservative blog associated with the Tea Party, and then still in its' edited version was picked up by Fox News.

Fox News' rise to (in)fame and glory goes back to the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. The Doctrine essentially held that the coverage of controversial issues buy a broadcast station be balanced and fair.

The combination of the removal of the Fairness Doctrine and the continuing consolidation of Public Media/Broadcasting means that the average member of the public is now almost totally subject to the demagoguery of the monarchy of money.

Congress tried to move the Fairness Doctrine from the offices of the FCC and enshrine it in law under Reagan-he vetoed it, and under GW, he too vetoed it.

The Obama Administration should lead the charge to enact this legislation and perhaps the policy of misinformation, subterfuge and outright lying currently being practiced in the media, whatever the format, could be rolled back and we could move the political discussion onto a more enlightened plane.