Time for Congress to save the media

The Federal Communications Commission has made it even easier for big owners to buy up TV stations, radio stations and newspapers like so many yachts. In a 3-2 vote yesterday, commission members unsurprisingly acted to lift restrictions on cross-ownership of media outlets in the same city.

The commission asked large media chains what they wanted, and listened to them. It asked the American public what it wanted, received 750,000 responses, and ignored them. About 99.9 percent were opposed to what the FCC did.

It's time for America to ignore the FCC.

It's time, specifically, for Congress to declare that the FCC was wrong and the American people right, and to enact into law the restrictions the FCC has just ignominiously diluted.

At stake is American democracy. That is because a democratic re-public requires citizens who can find many points of view. And that is what is being lost here.

Here is Jonathan Adelstein, one of the two commissioners who opposed yesterday's order: "In larger markets," he says, under the new FCC rule "one owner can combine the cable system, three television stations, eight radio stations, the dominant newspaper, and the leading Internet provider, not to mention cable networks, magazine publishers and programming studios. ... In smaller markets, say the town of Great Falls, Mont., with a population of 56,690, under our new rules one entity could own the cable company, the dominant television station, the dominant newspaper, and multiple radio stations."

The other dissenter, Michael Copps, referred to what happened in radio when ownership was thrown wide open: "We saw a 34 percent reduction in the number of radio-station owners. Diversity of programming suffered."

Said Copps, "This experience should terrify us."

Instead, the FCC looks at media ownership as an economic question. According to the economic models, the new FCC rules should ensure enough rivalry to have competitive prices. And if this were toothpaste, motor oil or dimension lumber, that might be the right concern. We do not insist on a wide diversity in toothpastes, as long as price and quality are good. TV, radio and newspapers are different. Here we care about the distinctiveness of thought, which is a political question.

To this concern, FCC Chairman Michael Powell has been as uncaring as a stone god. He and his fellow believers unleashed a new round of mergers and acquisitions that will leach the industry of its remaining local flavor. What we shall get is raunch, blather and blandness.

The alternative is to fight back — in the courts, in Congress and, most of all, in a hurry.