Right and Left Join in Attack on FCC Decision

Critics — from the right and left — of the FCC’s new deregulation measures vowed Monday to seek to have them nullified by the courts or Congress. On the right, Brent Bozell, founder and president of the Parents Television Council and the conservative Media Research Center, issued a statement declaring: “Already, the airwaves are full of raunchy programming produced by the New York-based mega-corporations that have little or no understanding of, or interest in community standards. The FCC just voted to make it worse.” On the left, Jesse Jackson called the FCC vote “a blow to democracy.” South Carolina Democrat Fritz Hollings described the FCC decision as “both dumb and dangerous.” The London Financial Times quoted him as saying: “There is a form of legislative veto that is going to be made available and some of us are talking about, within a certain number of days, bringing to the Congress a requirement to vote on the FCC’s decision.” Republican Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi added: “I want to emphasize that there is not a partisan position here. … A lot of Republicans — in fact, probably most of the Republicans in the Congress — would not agree with this decision.”

It seems that there will be some resistance to this decision…

But: this rule change was covered very thoroughly in the major newspapers (N.Y. Times, L.A. Times, Wash. Post, WS Journal) and wire services (AP, Reuters), plus a wide array of smaller papers. In the last coupel of weeks, there have been pieces in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Baltimore Sun, the San Antonio Express-News, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Honolulu Star Bulletin, the Christian Science Monitor, the Rocky Mountain News, and many more — not to mention CNN, Nightline, and other TV outlets. I’ve gotten more calls from journalists seeking comment or background info on this issue than any other in the last year — a metric I mention because I figure a journalist is *really* digging deep when she asks someone as obscure as *me* to comment on a story.

Re: the press release: you have to scroll through a lot of garbage before you get to the new rules — you can just skip the first three pages altogether — but they’re there. To be sure, the summary at times raises more questions than it answers. I look forward to reading the actual rules as well.

�copyrights are categorically immune� from First Amendment scrutiny

?

I look forward to reading the rules. The press release is an extraordinary example of newspeak.

Anyway: As I’m sure you’ve heard, the changes went through as predicted. You can read the FCC’s summary of them here:

http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2003/db0602/DOC-235047A1.doc

The FCC has received an unprecedented number of emails and letters on this subject, so the alleged “blackout” obviously isn’t as it’s been represented.

The entire hearing is also on C-Span Monday, 9:30AM Eastern, streamed to the Internet for those without cable and satellite TV.

What really burns me is how they’re ignoring the public outcry. Nobody elected the FCC board members.