Off Course On A Long Dark Road

Successes and Failures of the 1996 Telecommunications Act

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Afterword

Does the Digital Divide Still Exist?

Appendix

Off Course On A Long Dark Road

by Mark Lloyd

Every American should have the experience of watching their fellow citizens participate in a focus group. 1 It is an exercise both disturbing and inspiring. It is disturbing because Americans, regardless of race or gender, express a general power-lessness to control or even impact the myriad of forces that seem to swirl about them, whether economic or political or cultural. Whether they are only high school or college graduates, Americans know more about the most trivial doings of celebrities than the actions of either local or federal officials they elect and pay to represent them. Parents and grandparents are alarmed about the content of commercial media and its effects on their children, but feel they have little choice but to use the television as a baby sitter. Despite near universal support for health care protection or their concern about global warming, they do not believe their representatives will actually take steps to address those issues. And yet Americans are generally patient and willing to learn and curious and giving and deeply concerned about the welfare of their neighbors, particularly the ones they can see. The potential for a real community of citizens seems enormous, when you get them in a room together. But as I watched them disburse to get in their cars and drive home to their waiting televisions, Robert Putnam's argument that entertainment media tends to isolate Americans seemed more true and desperate than ever. 2

The disconnectedness, the sense of powerlessness, the bombardment of trivia drowning out local political information, the lack of sustained debate over the issues most Americans think matter are all deeply, inextricably tied to our communications policies. Yet in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the first major reform of communications policy in over 60 years, our representatives chose to focus on what they called industry deregulation, promising us lower consumer prices through competition. It is also true that our representatives finally clarified and organized a plan for companies to subsidize telecommunications service to the poor, to rural America, and to connect schools to the Internet. While this latter initiative is the only qualified success of the Act, it remains controversial. Even though the much vaunted "market mechanisms" failed, the chorus of deregulation and competition continues unabated.

When the founders of our fledgling experiment in democracy considered communications they saw it as an instrument to advance democracy, to create a more perfect union. They wrote into Article One, Section 8 of the Constitution a clause to establish a communications system which would soon dwarf the communications system of their enemies and friends across the Atlantic. Indeed, so important was that communications system to democracy it would even dwarf the military of a nation beset by real threats. After establishing the "Post Office and post Roads" the founders amended the Constitution to insure no federal abridgement of speech, and later taxed merchants to make certain political communication could be carried to every distant part of the new republic. 3 Undoubtedly, the founders would have found quite strange the overwhelmingly "private market" focus of modern debate and policies which now underlie our communications policy, a focus which undermines even the Post Office they established. They might be shocked to see the alienation expressed in focus groups, manifested in a dispirited political environment where only half the voters actually vote. 4 Given the urgent care required by our republic, imagine the alarm of the founders to see the representative custodians of the democracy they created leave a national communications system in the hands of private global industries. Perhaps we should be alarmed as well.

In his book, Democracy's Discontent, Michael Sandel traces what happened to the political debate about the communications requirements of an engaged citizenry, the bulwark of democratic liberty.

Drawing from Alexander Meiklejohn, he notes that the first purpose of the First Amendment was to provide citizens with the "fullest possible participation in the understanding of the problems" a self-governing citizenry must decide. But now, he notes, while "the courts continue to acknowledge the importance of free speech to the exer-cise of self-government, courts and constitutional commentators alike increasingly defend free speech in the name of individual self-expression." 5 Thus, the purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules which would promote democratic governance. As Sandel points out effectively, our current policy debates and the actions which result from them suggest we have traveled off course on a long dark road, from a nation which defined liberty as the ability to join in governing ourselves, to a disconnected people who define liberty as the ability to purchase consumer goods.

The point is not that we should return to the communications policies of the founding fathers in addressing the complex interaction of global economic interests and democratic governance, but that legislation should pay some attention to the current needs of democracy. The work of our representatives is trial and error. Legislation is, in the best of circumstances, an informed guess about how to correct some common problem; and it inevitably leads to unforeseen results. Our duty as citizens is to observe and comment, and where we see problems to speak up, not in a call to return to some paradise, but in a constructive engagement to create a future. This collection of essays considers the success and failures of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. We find in that Act evidence of the warp of private global interests on our current debate, and evidence that a communications policy might still be constructed which advances our common, our public interest in democracy.

Forward to the Past

In 1998, the Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy published a very brief report on the 1996 Telecommunications Act titled Cause for Concern. 6 It was too soon then to assess with any certainty what the work of the combative 104th Congress would reveal. Looking back it seems we have all been caught in "Internet time" -- our landscape has changed so dramatically. Congress is no longer controlled by one party, with the Democrats taking a slim majority in the Senate. Bill Clinton has been replaced as President by the son of the man he turned out of office in 1992. Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole is a part-time television commercial pitch man. Larry Pressler, former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, was run out of office, in part because his opponent effectively claimed Pressler's work on the Telecommunications Act led to an increase in telephone rates. 7 However, as much as the players have changed (and some of the old players -- Hollings, Markey, Tauzin, and others remain the same), the essential framework of politics and policy-making in Washington has changed very little. The framework for that debate drives, primes, and limits our ability to discuss and determine policies necessary to our democratic liberty.

Despite the emphasis on new technologies of the future, the 1996 Telecommunications Act, drawbacks and benefits alike, can best be understood as a return to a relatively recent past. While the tattered vestiges of the founders republican government remain, the dominant ideology is federal support of the prerogatives of private industry, ostensibly for the benefit of consumers. The needs of the democracy and the rights of the citizen (so prominent a framework in the 1960's and 70's) go begging in the shadows. This has been our general course since the pre-civil war congress refused to allow the Post Office to continue to operate the telegraph lines. Only civil rights advocates insisting upon a definition of freedom which means self-governance have been able to interrupt the dominance of private industry.

The interruption of laissez-faire communications policy was relatively brief, beginning with the civil rights assault on government licensed bigotry in Jackson, Mississippi and ending with the ascension of the Reagan FCC. 8 During that twenty year period the courts established the right of the citizen to hold a broadcaster accountable if the community was not being served, 9 and the paramount right of the citizen over the broadcaster in a contest over First Amendment privileges. 10 At the end of that period citizen rights were reduced to shambles with assaults on public interest standards, 11 the Fairness Doctrine, 12 and the rights of communities to control local cable operators. 13 What might be called the major communications policy advance in the Reagan era (the break-up of AT& T by District Court Judge Harold Greene in 1982), was more about the rights of potentially competitive telephone companies (particularly MCI) than about the rights of citizens. 14 Our national communications policy direction has largely forsaken the goals of promoting diverse democratic discussion, and returned to its low-point in laissez-faire early industrial America -- what's good for GE is good for America. From this environment was born the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

The Present "Marketplace" of Ideas

The ideology (such as it exists) of the two parties in 2002 remains much the same as it was in 1996. At the risk of slight overstatement and oversimplification, there are real differences between the parties: 1) Trust In Markets -- while the Democrats generally trust markets they believe there is some room for government regulation and investment, Republicans believe government has no ability to intelligently regulate or invest in markets; 2) Protecting Children -- Republicans are deeply split about the degree to which government must regulate content harmful to children, Democrats generally believe government must not regulate content but should encourage industry to provide parental controls; and 3) Addressing Poverty and Discrimination -- Democrats believe active measures should be taken to support the poor and those who have faced a history of economic discrimination, Republicans believe the poor will help themselves with the proper incentives.

In the context of these important but relatively minor differences there are now two dominant frames regarding communications policy which both parties share: 1) competitive "markets" will protect the interests of consumers, and 2) new technologies will answer problems of diversity and access.

And then we have the on-going election campaigns. All important decisions in the United States, even those associated with how to regulate electronic media, are made by our elected and well paid representatives in the hothouse of never ending election campaigns ... election campaigns which are largely run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, via electronic media at extraordinary expense. Our representatives are bombarded not only by daily public opinion polls and round-the-clock news coverage, but by daily pressures to raise money and remain aware of the need to placate the rich captains of global industries. While Republicans, most closely associated with the wealthy few, pointed with glee to the nightly rents charged for sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom by Messrs. Clinton and Gore, their joy was borne of a deep appreciation of the pickle those erstwhile liberal democrats were in: one cannot rise to govern in our present lived democracy without lowering oneself to grovel for money to purchase the attention of citizens.

There is little doubt that this campaign hothouse shaped the 1996 Telecommunications Act as the politicians jockeyed for a claim to an attractive message which would not disquiet industry contributions. 15 The buying and selling of political power is nothing new, indeed it has a long history in the United States. Long before the excesses of Tammany Hall, if one is to take the economic historian Charles Beard seriously, economic interests determined the course of political decision making. 16 Indeed, it was the power of southern economic interests which made certain in Article One, Section 9 that the Constitution protected the institution of slavery at least through 1808. But as time has gone by the warp of economic interests on politics and policy making would change dramatically, from the protection of slaveholders to the protection of national and now global corporations. It is now, and it was at the end of the first Clinton term, difficult to distinguish a very wide difference in the economic policies of the major political parties, or, for that matter, between the forces of government and the forces of industry.

The very real debates between the Democrat and Republican parties over the size of the welfare state and the engagement of government in the market represent a very limited set of ideas. Much fuss over these small differences is made by mainstream news media, themselves powerful global industries, making the marketplace of ideas seem much more inclusive and diverse, encompassing of all intelligent views, than the dominant public debates really reflect. Aside from the near disappearance of a debate over health care, Americans almost never hear the point of view of labor or the poor. 17 The wide range and intelligence of public debate in Britain or France or Germany would shock American sensibilities, as would the efforts of those states to guarantee that diversity of expression. 18

While the parties general agreement about the role of "free" markets, and the importance of private industry, is the dominant theme of the Telecommunications Act, the party campaign themes and the small ideological/ party divisions were also evident. The party themes were fairly easy to distinguish. In classic Clintonian style, Democrats called for connecting children and classrooms to the Internet. In classic Reaganite style, Republicans called for deregulation -- getting the government off the back of industry.

The ideological divisions regarding protecting children could be seen in both Section 551 and Section 641 of the Act. While the Republicans could take credit for Section 641, which required that "[ in] providing sexually explicit adult programming" any "multichannel video programming distributor. . . shall fully scramble or otherwise fully block the video and audio portion of such channel so that one not a subscriber to such channel or programming does not receive it." 19 The Democrats could take credit for Section 551, which required that "an apparatus designed to receive television signals ... be equipped with a feature designed to enable viewers to block display of all programs with a common rating" ... commonly called a V-Chip. 20

In addressing poverty, while Section 301 eliminated a hard fought provision to control cable rates, Section 254 extended support for telephone service. And while Republicans were able to limit the impact of Section 257 to identify and address market entry barriers, Democrats were able to add a provision, Section 714, providing financial support to minorities, women and small businesses who needed capital to invest in the communications industry.

One could also see the divisions in the emphasis the different parties put on the meaning of the Act. Senator Pressler, who introduced the legislation, explained:

Passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was my highest legislative priority in the first session of the 104th Congress. On Feb. 8, that priority became law. Thanks to my bill, the communications industry will see an explosion in new investment and development. Who are the winners? The consumers. There will be more services and new products at lower costs. All of this economic activity will mean new jobs. Competition is the key for this development. My bill unlocked the regulatory hand-cuffs restricting the communications industry. . . 21

However, upon signing the Act, President Clinton noted:

This bill protects consumers against monopolies. It guarantees the diversity of voices our democracy depends upon. Perhaps most of all, it enhances the common good. Under this law, our schools, our libraries, our hospitals will receive telecommunication services at reduced cost. 22

While former President Clinton mentions the "diversity of voices our democracy depends upon" the overwhelming focus of both parties in the debate and construction of this act was on consumers ... not citizens.

The fact that Republicans and Democrats can each find what they want in the Act is not so much about fancy interpretation, but about the nature of political compromise, the result of, perhaps, honest efforts attempting to meld into legislation the contrasting policy preferences of not only politicians but the public they represent. This is politics and policy-making as it is lived. The result is a very complex (perhaps even internally inconsistent) and ambitious reworking of both telecommunications (local and long distance telephone) and broadcast (radio and television) policy, narrowed and warped by a focus on the interests of industry -- not citizens.

Assessing the Act

The essays which follow are not a critique of Senator Pressler's or President Clinton's wisdom, they do not suggest that the Act is the result of personality. Nor do the essays suggest that the Act is the work of one party or faction, that it is all good or all bad, or that the Act is in any way static. The essays are an accounting of the 1996 Telecommunications Act with a focus on those sections most related to our democracy as distinct from our markets. Moreover, the essays reflect a pragmatic understanding that the Act results from our current practice of politics and policy making. They present an alternative to the common view that somehow economic theories and technology dreams can be divorced from lived politics. Together the essays provide a "civil rights" assessment of an important and still-changing set of policies which effect our democracy.

If we are a democracy, the current parties and the current leaders will be held accountable for their actions as public representatives. What matters here is not their charisma or the way they wave their hands during a speech or how much they love their children, but their policy decisions on behalf of the public. And if we are a democracy we must be concerned with the ability of our representatives to regulate both voice and access to information, to regulate, in other words, communication. The ability to communicate effectively is instrumental to democracy.

But even with this context how does one assess a piece of work (and the actions it spawned) as complex as the 1996 Telecommunications Act? Any assessment would depend highly upon the angle, the perspective, the frame through which one decides to interpret the work of our federal representatives. And there are many frames to choose.

It would be easy to dismiss the Act as another Clinton/ Gingrich era corruption, a revision of over 60 years of law purchased by the telecommunications and broadcast industry. There is evidence to support that view. 23 It would also be easy to extol it as a compromise between competing stakeholders reached, after too long a delay, to bring an industry radically altered by new technology into the present. There is a little evidence to support this view, generally expounded by the major news organizations which bothered to report on the Act. 24 Those nominally responsible for bringing the Act into being and interpreting the Act characterize it as a boon to consumers, an expert piece of legislative drafting which would encourage competition and thus promote better and more varied services for lower prices. There is some evidence to support this intent. 25 There is no evidence to support the view that the Act's mechanisms to introduce competition have reduced the market power of existing telecommunications monopolies or spurred the growth of new competitors. 26 This again, however, is not the focus which occupy the authors of the papers presented in this volume. Our framework is civil rights.

A Civil Rights Framework

What is a civil rights framework? Let me begin by stating what it is not. A civil rights framework is not limited to a concern about racial minorities, nor is it limited to the rhetoric of what news/ entertainment media refer to as "civil rights organizations" -- another name for the NAACP or the National Urban League, nor is it limited to those organizations which sprang up during what was called "the Negro Movement" and later termed "the civil rights movement." Civil rights are those rights relating to or benefitting citizens and their relationship with the state. All Americans have the right to be treated equally by the state, a key right, perhaps the most important right, is the right to join in the governance of the state by participating in elections and petitioning government and expressing grievances and assembling with like-minded citizens. It is this right which distinguishes a democracy from other governments, such as feudal aristocracies or totalitarian dictatorships. All Americans have these rights. A civil rights framework then asks questions about issues of equity and governance.

Regarding communications policy, this civil rights framework is distinct from important consumer questions such as the cost of consumer goods, and it is distinct from anti-trust concerns regarding the power of market players in the market. A civil rights framework is very concerned that government not allow industry to discriminate against citizens in the distribution of services, particularly those services important to full democratic participation, such as transportation, education, and communications. A civil rights framework is very concerned about eliminating vestiges of slavery and second-class citizenship, such as that faced by "ethnic" and "racial" minorities, Native American Indians, women, and groups historically discriminated because of their sexual preferences. A civil rights framework asks whether all citizens are effectively informed, allowed effective political voice, and are effectively represented in the promulgation of law.

The initial suggested framework regarding the Telecommunications Act (whether that act was purchased by the industry it purports to regulate) is important to a civil rights perspective. But civil rights concerns are focused on whether policies result from the informed wishes of a democratically represented citizenry, not just whether global corporations were actively engaged in pressing their interests. The major challenge here is that Congress has given those global corporations most affected by this particular legislation the ability to control the degree to which citizens are informed. The problem is not merely whether News Corporation or General Electric contribute money and their legal expertise in drafting legislation, more disturbing is the fact that they can limit the amount of information the public can receive about legislation. Up in arms about the lack of debate and the lack of news coverage regarding that portion of the Act giving, rather than auctioning, to existing broadcasters additional spectrum to send digital signals, Republican Majority Leader (and 1996 presidential candidate) Bob Dole put it this way:

Here we are, trying to balance the budget, cutting welfare, cutting other programs, and about to give a big handout here to the rich, the powerful. We have not seen a single story on any of the networks about this issue. We see a lot of stories on the networks about some Member of Congress going somewhere on a `junket, ' they always like to say on the networks. But I have not seen anybody, except for CNN, not a single story on what could be the biggest giveaway of the century-- not one. You will not see it on the networks. You probably will not see it in any newspaper that owns television because this affects them. 27

Actually, both the Washington Post and the New York Times, which own several television stations, ran several articles and editorials on the Act, 28 but Dole's point was not far from the truth. As Dean Alger told Bill Moyers in the 1999 PBS documentary, Free Speech for Sale, in the nine months during which the Telecommunications Act was being debated, from May 1995 to February 1996, the three major networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) carried a total of 19 minutes on the Telecommunications Act, with no mention of those provisions related to broadcasters. 29 A public dependent upon local and national television news 30 had either no information about this important legislation, or the information it received was drowned out in celebrity trivia in the typical fashion of modern news shows or distorted in ads threatening a "TV Tax." 31 Media coverage about the manipulation of our democracy by global media has not improved. The ability of private global media to censor or dominate important national public discussion about media, and the unwillingness of elected representatives to change this state of affairs should concern all citizens in a democracy.

From the perspective of those concerned about our equal rights in a democracy, what was at stake in this major communications reform of 1996 was much more fundamental than whether to give or auction spectrum to broadcasters or whether interconnection and unbundling policies would generate competition in the telecommunications market. What was in play was how effectively the broad and dynamic communications industry would be regulated by the state. What was at issue was no less than whether the capabilities of each citizen to participate effectively in society (to engage in, among other activities, political dialogue) would be extended or curtailed. This effective engagement in political dialogue (that conversation which determines through wisely elected, regularly monitored, and petitioned representatives how we should govern ourselves) is our ideal of democracy. No less than this ideal was at stake in the Telecommunications Act.

Unfortunately, it would be an exaggeration to claim that our democracy itself, rather than our shared ideal of democracy, was at stake here, but only because our lived democracy has been corrupted for too many years to be at any further risk. Regarding our lived democracy we have no where to go but up ... and it is safe to say that the year 1996 did little to move us upward.

The Success and Failure of the 1996 Telecommunications Act

As we did in 1998, we argue that the 1996 Telecommunications Act contains provisions which could have led us in the direction of access for more citizens to what is grandly called the "National Information Infrastructure," more diversity of owners and voices, and more tools to address historic economic opportunity. The authors look at those particular sections of the Telecommunications Act which seem to have the most to do with civil rights concerns:

Part One: Promoting Access

Sean O'Sullivan reports on Section 254 -- Universal Service, not only the impact on educational institutions, but on libraries, and health care facilities. Karen Peltz Strauss and Bruce Maxwell report on Section 255 -- Promoting Access by Persons with Disabilities, as well as progress made to make television more accessible. Allen Hammond reports on Section 706 -- Promoting Access to Advanced Telecommunications Services with a critique of the FCC's report on broadband deployment. Lynne Montgomery and I report on The Impact on Rural America.

Part Two: Mergers and Spectrum Policy -- Diversity and the Public Interest

Janine Jaquet reports on Section 202 -- Broadcast Ownership, which led to the elimination of broadcast and cable ownership restrictions, and spurred a merger frenzy. I add a Brief Note on Mergers in the Telecommunications Industry. Bennett Kobb reports on Section 201/ 336 -- Broadcast Spectrum Flexibility, and looks back at the public interest impact of the policy switch to spectrum auctions and the current cry for spectrum reform.

Part Three: Correcting a History of Discrimination -- Equity in Licensing and Access to Capital

David Honig and Moushumi Khan report on Section 257 -- Eliminating Market Entry Barriers. S. Jenell Trigg reports on Section 714 -- The Telecommunications Development Fund.

Conclusions and Recommendations

In general, while the universal service sections of the Act remain under threat by the Republican right-wing, they have been the most successful provisions of the Telecommunications Act. The provisions to encourage competition have failed. President Clinton's promise of protection against monopolies in promotion of diversity would be laughable if the consequences were not so tragically opposite. The Act, and the current practice of politics and policy making, has failed to adequately address the problems of historical discrimination.

Each of the authors makes recommendations about how to protect or advance the intent of those sections of the Telecommunications Act which might actually bolster our democracy. In brief some of those recommendations are:

Extend universal service support to urban health care facilities and community technology centers.
Require digital television licensees, manufacturers and service providers to make Internet access readily achievable to persons with disabilities under Section 255.
Conduct a more thorough analysis than zip code data on the availability of advanced telecommunications services.
Require either automatic enrollment in Lifeline/ Link-Up or a demonstration that the state is taking adequate steps to inform eligible recipients about the program.
Clarify that a public interest ruling regarding broadcast license transfers and telecommunications mergers include determinations about the diversity of views expressed in the community the licensee serves and the deployment of services.
Set aside a substantial portion of the spectrum for free public use.
Continue research (with the combined resources of the Telecommunications Development Fund, the FCC, the Small Business Administration, and NTIA) into the effects of past government sanctioned discrimination, and determine whether the findings from studies conducted under Section 257 justify race or gender conscious initiatives to promote diversity.

Congress should clarify that all auction deposits, not just bids, should be deposited in interest bearing accounts, and the interest earned should be transferred to the Telecommunications Development Fund.

The only recommendation I add here is that a civil rights focus, a focus on the needs of democracy and community, must be primary in our deliberation of communications policy. Actually, there is a second recommendation, that all those who profess to care about the health of our democracy begin to understand, as the founders did, the fun-damental importance of communications policy to a republic of the people by the people and for the people, and then to act accordingly.

Endnotes

1. Most recently I had the opportunity to watch focus groups run by the consummate professional pollster Celinda Lake, in connection with the People for Better TV campaign in 1999 and 2000.

2. Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone, The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), pp. 220-246. Putnam argues that it is not simply TV which encourages a decline in community activity, it is TV entertainment programs. TV news and public affairs on the other hand encourage civic engagement.

3. Richard R. John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995).

4. Mike Ushkow, Turnout Ups, Downs, Congressional Quarterly, December, 2001 (" According to a study released last month by the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, voter turnout was up for the 2000 election, with a turnout of 51.2 percent of the eligible electorate compared to 49 percent in 1996.").

5. Michael J. Sandel, Democracy's Discontent, America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge: Belnap Press/ Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 79- 81.

6. Cause for Concern, http://www.civilrightsforum.org/cause4concern.htm

7. Kirk Victor, Call Waiting, National Journal, January 31, 1998, p. 234.

8. Kay Mills, Changing Channels, The Civil Rights Case that Changed Television, The Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy, 2000.

9. Cable Television and the Public Interest, Journal of Communication, Winter 1992, pp. 52-53.

10. Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission, 395 U. S. 367, 390 (1969).

11. Revision of Programming and Commercialization Policies, Ascertainment Requirements, and Program Log Requirements for Commercial Television Stations, 49 Fed. Reg. 33,588 (1984).

12. Complaint of Syracuse Peace Council, 2 FCC Rcd 5043 (1987).

13. For an excellent description of the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984, see Patricia Aufderheide, Cable Television and the Public Interest, Journal of Communication, Winter 1992, pp. 52-53.

14. United States v. American Tel. and Tel. Co., 552 F. Supp. 131 (D. D. C. 1982), aff 'd sub nom. Maryland v. United States, 460 U. S. 1001 (1983).

15. See Patricia Aufderheide, Communications Policy and the Public Interest, The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (New York: Guilford, 1999), pp. 37-60, for a illuminating essay on the players and negotiations.

16. Charles Austin Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (New York: The Free Press, 1986).

17. Herbert J. Gans, The War Against the Poor, The Underclass and Antipoverty Policy, (New York: Basic Books, 1995).

18. Derek Bok, The State of the Nation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996) , pp. 308-310.

19. 47 U. S. C § 641( a)

20. 47 U. S. C § 551( c)

21. Sen. Larry Pressler, Telecom Reform: It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over, Roll Call, Mar. 11, 1996.

22. White House, Office of the Press Secretary, Remarks by President Bill Clinton at Signing of Telecommunications Act of 1996, February 9, 1996.

23. Local & Long Distance Telephone Companies Give Record Soft Money During Final Months Of Telecommunications Overhaul, Common Cause, February 9, 1996, http://216.147.192.101/publications/296com.htm; see also Channeling Influence, The Broadcast Lobby and the 70-Billion Dollar Free Ride, Common Cause, http://216.147.192.101/publications/040297_rpt3.htm

24. Dean Alger, Megamedia : How Giant Corporations Dominate Mass Media , Distort Competition, and Endanger Democracy (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), pp. 109-111.

25. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, Federal Communications Commission, http://www.fcc.gov/telecom.html

26. Peter S. Goodman, A Hot Sector Burns Out, The Washington Post, February 28, 2001, http://www.washtech.com/news/telecom/7919-1.html; see also James K. Glassman, Death of Telecom Competition, Washington Times, December 27, 2000, http://www.aei.org/ra/raglas001227.htm

27. Sen. Robert Dole, Congressional Record, Auctioning the Telecommunications Spectrum, February 01, 1996, p S685.

28. See especially, Tom Shales, Fat Cat Broadcast Bonanza, Washington Post, June 13, 1995.

29. See Free Speech for Sale, a Bill Moyers Special, (Princeton: Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 1999); and Alger, Megamedia, p. 109.

30. According to a Roper poll published in May 1998, chances are that you watched a television program at home this week, like the vast majority of Americans (93%). About two-thirds watched cable, less than a quarter of Americans watched premium cable, and about 15 percent went online. In its annual report on media use, Roper cited TV as the first choice of most Americans for entertainment and the most trusted source for news. 69 percent of Americans cite TV as the most trusted source compared to newspapers (37%), radio (14%), magazines (5%) and the Internet (2%). See http://www.roper.com/news/content/news10.htm; see also http://www.tvb.org/tvfacts/tvbasics/index. html

31. An Open Message to the Nation's Broadcasters, The Benton Foundation, 1996, http://www.benton.org/Policy/TV/message.html