The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Civil Rights Monitor
Winter 2007

• Introduction

On the Hill

• The Year in Judicial and Executive Nominations
• D.C. Voting Rights: Closer than Ever
• Hate Crimes Bill Moves through Congress
• Fighting to Preserve and Restore Workers' Rights
• The Immigration Reform Debate Continues
• Congress Begins Addressing Subprime Mortgage Fallout
• Successes and Setbacks on ENDA
• Backlash against the REAL ID Act Grows

Executive Branch

• Deja Vu at the FCC?

In the Courts

• Supreme Court Hands Down Major Decision on School Integration

In the States

• New Threats to Affirmative Action

LCCREF Activities

• Civil Rights Enforcement Takes Center Stage
• Leadership Conference Steps Up Anti-Poverty Efforts
• New Civil Rights Partnership Calls Attention to Nation's High School Crisis
• Why Americans Should Care about the Great Switch to DTV
• President Clinton, John Hope Franklin, and Tammy Duckworth Are 2007 Hubert H. Humphrey Honorees

Deja Vu at the FCC?

The last time the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) tried to relax rules on media ownership, its rulemaking proceeding proved to be the battleground for intense fights at the agency, Congress, and the courts. The agency's current media ownership rulemaking promises to produce more controversy.

Despite broad public opposition, in June 2003, the FCC voted 3-2 to lift broadcast cross-ownership restrictions, loosen limits on local broadcast ownership, and permit one company to own stations reaching 45 percent of the national audience.

In response to a public outcry, a bipartisan majority in the Senate voted to overturn the rule changes. Congress eventually reached a compromise -- limiting the number of stations one company could own to 39 percent of the national audience.

Then, in June 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit overturned the FCC's other changes to the media ownership limits and directed the FCC to conduct a new review. Among other things, the court directed the FCC to address the specific proposals for promoting diversity in ownership that had been presented to, but not considered by, the agency.

In June 2006, the FCC initiated a new media ownership proceeding. Federal Communications Chairman Kevin Martin, a commissioner at the time of the earlier vote, took a slightly different approach, committing to hold six public hearings on the issue, to his predecessor's one.

Nonetheless, many civil rights and public interest groups believe the agency is not being specific enough in its inquiry to generate relevant comments, nor is it devoting adequate resources to create a full record on the issue of minority and female ownership.

To highlight what is really at stake in the battle over media ownership -- equal opportunity and equal access to important local and national information and resources -- the Leadership Conference in June 2007 sponsored a web-based, national town hall meeting simultaneously in Washington, DC and Denver, CO called "Why Media Diversity Matters." (Video from the June event, which featured author, commentator, and talk show host Tavis Smiley; Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper; and FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, can be viewed at http://www.civilrights.org/issues/communication/telecom-webcast.html.)

The unanimous conclusion of participants in the town hall meeting was that the FCC was not doing an adequate job of identifying and working to eliminate the barriers to participation of women and minorities in radio and television.

According to the media reform group Free Press, racial and ethnic minorities make up 33 percent of the U.S. population; yet they only own 7.7 percent of full--power radio stations and 3.26 percent of television stations. While women make up 51 percent of the U.S. population, they own just six percent of U.S. full--power radio stations and less than five percent of U.S. television stations.

Some members of Congress have requested that the Commission complete a consideration of the issues of minority and small business ownership before taking up the wider media ownership issue, but the FCC has not yet agreed to do so.

Instead, in the fall of 2007, Chairman Martin, a Republican, announced a timeline and plan that prompted a firestorm of debate about both the substance and the process.

In mid--October, he proposed that the agency conclude the public comment process, consider new rules still being drafted, and vote on them by December 18.

Then, in mid--November, Martin released proposed rule changes that would allow one company to own a daily newspaper and a TV station in the same market. Democratic Commissioners Michael J. Copps and Jonathan Adelstein called Martin's rules "clearly not ready for prime time."

"Congress and the thousands of American citizens we have talked to want a thoughtful and deliberate rulemaking, not an alarming rush to judgment characterized by insultingly short notices for public hearings, inadequate time for public comment, flawed studies, and a tainted peer review process -- all designed to make sure that the Chairman can deliver a generous gift to Big Media before the holidays. For the rest of us: a lump of coal," the commissioners said in a November 13, 2007 statement.

A bipartisan group of senators -- led by Byron Dorgan, D. N.D., and Trent Lott, R. Miss., and including presidential candidates Barack Obama, D. Ill., Hillary Clinton, D. N.Y., and Joseph Biden, D. Del., -- has introduced new legislation that would slow down Martin's timeline and try to ensure that the FCC follows its mandate to protect the public interest. The Senate Commerce Committee unanimously passed the bill on December 4, 2007.

Restraining media concentration is central to the mission of the FCC, the federal agency that regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC determines questions of media ownership, including how many stations one company can own in each market and the cross--ownership of different sectors, such as broadcast stations and daily newspapers.

Under the Communications Act of 1934, the FCC is charged with promoting "localism" in broadcast media and enhancing democracy by insuring that broadcasters "present those views and voices which are representative of [their] community and which would otherwise... be barred from the airwaves."

The Communications Act of 1996 substantially deregulated national radio ownership rules and eased national TV ownership limits. The law also forced the FCC to consider whether to revise local rules on how many media properties one company can operate in any one community. The 1996 Act also included a directive requiring the FCC to conduct biennial (now quadrennial) reviews of all remaining broadcast ownership rules "to determine whether any of such rules are necessary in the public interest as a result of competition."

Civil rights advocates point out that the struggle for a media that presents the breadth and diversity of the experience of all Americans is one of very high stakes. "Media diversity is a civil rights issue," said Leadership Conference on Civil Rights President and CEO Wade Henderson. "The battle over who controls the media is a battle that the civil rights community has fought for decades because we have long recognized the critical role the media plays in creating a more just and equitable society."