VICTORY IN HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES AGAINST MEDIA MONOPOLY
75 television executives from network affiliates
descended on Capitol Hill yesterday to prevent the House appropriations
committee from voting for a partial rollback of the FCC rule changes.
Because of you and thousands of others, Congress did something unprecedented
yesterday. Republican committee member Frank Wolf urged his colleagues to vote
their conscience, and stand up to the lobbyists. And they did just that,
delivering a 40-25 vote against big media.
Conservative columnist William Safire wrote in today’s New York Times:
"Here is what made this happen: Take the force of right-wingers upholding
community standards who are determined to defend local control of the public
airwaves; combine that with the force of lefties eager to maintain diversity
of opinion in local media; add in the independent voters' mistrust of media
manipulation; then let all these people have access to their representatives
by e-mail and fax, and voilà! Congress awakens to slap down the power
grab." (URL below)
The rollback still has a long way to go, but this is another big step in our
march to reverse the FCC and create a more diverse, independent and skeptical
media.
Your active participation is working. Congress is listening. There will be
more work in the weeks and months ahead. Stay tuned and stay involved. For
more information on media reform efforts, go to http://www.mediareform.net
or http://www.commoncause.org.
Sincerely,
--Eli Pariser
MoveOn.org
July 17th, 2003
P.S. Check out William Safire's editorial and another article from today's
New! York Times on this win:
HOUSE PANEL ADDS VOICE TO OPPONENTS OF MEDIA RULE
By Jacques Steinberg, New York Times
July 17th, 2003 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/17/business/media/17FCC.html
"The recent decision by federal regulators to loosen media ownership
rules, already under fire in the Senate, took another blow in Congress
yesterday. This setback was dealt by the House Appropriations Committee, which
approved a budget amendment that would make it harder for big broadcasting
companies to acquire more television stations.
The vote represented a defeat for Michael K. Powell, the Federal
Communications Commission chairman, who has led the effort to change the
rules. It was also a rebuke to the Republican House leadership and the Bush
administration, strong s! upporters of the commission's efforts."