On June 2, the Federal Communications Commission intends to lift restrictions on media ownership that could allow your local newspaper, cable provider, radio stations, and TV channels all to be owned by one company. The result could be the disappearance of the checks and balances provided by a competitive media marketplace — and huge cutbacks in local news and reporting. Good, balanced information is the basis for our democracy.

http://www.moveon.org/stopthefcc/

Late in 2002, shortly after the FCC announced its formal review of remaining major media ownership rules, FCC member Michael Copps issued a challenge to the news media: If these companies wanted the FCC to believe they could be trusted to grow larger and larger and still serve the public, they could prove that was the case by covering the FCC debate over whether or not to eliminate the media ownership rules. The news media have a duty, Copps argued, to make the general public informed participants in the proceedings, as the outcome would directly affect the future of our entire media system, and our political system.

Copps raised the issue then, and has done so repeatedly since then, because the very firms that control the news media that must inform the American people about this issue are also the main beneficiaries of relaxed rules.

The largest media firms have a distinct and enormous material self-interest in scrapping these rules. All evidence suggests that the vast majority of Americans who are familiar with what the FCC is doing are opposed to relaxing or eliminating the media ownership rules. A Pew study shows that only 28% of Americans even know about the deregulation, and the giant firms that rule our news media have little or no incentive to cover this story. But do not think these firms do not understand it to be an important issue. They have spent a vast fortune to influence lawmakers and regulators to make sure they get their way in Washington.

Such media concentration not only violates the premises of a competitive marketplace, but it makes a mockery of the notion of a free press enshrined in the Constitution.

http://www.mediareform.net/why.php

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