May 19, 2003
A Song Without End: Money and Politics
By J. Barlow Herget
RALEIGH - Most people are familiar with the recent saga of the country western singers, the Dixie Chicks. One of them voiced her displeasure at a London concert with President Bush’s Texas roots. Bad timing.
The criticism came shortly before the invasion of Iraq, and country western radio stations quickly organized pro-Bush rallies and boycotts of the Chicks’ songs and discs.
Some will argue that’s free speech -- for both sides. The Chicks can say what they want about the country’s leader, and the radio station disc jockeys can take them to task.
What many people don’t know, however, is the connection between the radio station owners and President Bush. And it’s this connection and others like it that form part of the debate over the current proposal by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Michael Powell to relax regulations on media ownership. President Bush appointed Powell (son of Secretary of State Colin Powell) FCC chairman.
The radio stations leading the boycotts and rallies are owned by the two largest owners in the business, Clear Channel Communications, based in San Antonio, and Cumulus Media, Inc., of Atlanta. Clear Channel owns numerous stations in North Carolina among its 1,200 properties. Cumulus owns 250 stations in small and mid-size markets.
Both companies grew rapidly following the FCC’s last deregulation of the broadcast industry in 1996. What’s more, both have a stake in Powell’s intention to further deregulate, and enjoying the President’s favor cannot hurt.
Clear Channel’s Vice Chairman Tom Hicks also is a long-time supporter of Bush and was the fellow who purchased the Texas Rangers, the President’s old baseball team. The 1998 sale made Bush a multimillionaire.
Cumulus and Clear Channel officials deny any connection between their stations’ criticism of the Dixie Chicks and their corporate political interests.
Those interests, by the way, are not necessarily partisan. President Clinton’s confidant Vernon Jordan was on Clear Channel’s board during the 1996 deregulation, and according to Common Cause, Al Gore received $1.16 million compared to Bush’s $1.07 million from broadcast interests during the 2000 Election.
The FCC’s founding philosophy, to encourage competition, different opinions and local news, was a reaction to the 1930s totalitarian governments that tightly controlled media outlets. The FCC’s regulations over the years have been judged to be "in the public interest" by political leaders and the courts. That’s changed.
The anti-government mood of the 1980s and 1990s produced the 1996 Telecommunications Act that deregulated radio ownership. Broadcast media have become more concentrated, especially in local markets. An April report by "The Independent" of Durham, for example, found that there are 46 stations and 24 owners in the Triangle. But four broadcasters hold almost 96 percent of the listeners and collect 96.4 percent of the revenues.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism also found that since 1996, the typical radio station cut its news staff from five to two and many local stations no longer have news people.
Yet, the large media companies want to buy more, and they are practiced in making political contributions so their views are heard. The 50 largest such corporations spent $111.3 million lobbying Congress and the White House between 1996-2000, according to Common Cause.
They also paid the way for 118 members of Congress, their staff and even FCC employees on hundreds of trips with media lobbyists and executives. Now that’s access!
Paul Krugman of "The New York Times" raises another concern about broadcast conglomerates: self-censorship. He points to one of the largest of the media moguls, Rupert Murdoch of News Corp., which owns Fox News and other media. Murdoch, when faced with running a free press or making money by kowtowing to Chinese Communists, took the money.
To operate satellite TV in China, its dictators told Murdoch to drop the respected and sometimes critical BBC news service and to quash the publication of a book critical of the despots. Murdoch did both. For China, it was a good lesson in "fair and balanced" news.
Asks Krugman: "Can something like that happen in this country?" He believes it can, especially if the FCC continues to reduce the number of media outlets with their differing views and competitive news gathering.
North Carolina’s own Jim Goodmon of Raleigh’s Capital Broadcasting is a minnow compared to the big fish of Murdoch, Disney, and Viacom. Fearing for his company’s future and the markets it serves, he is opposed to further media concentration. In a letter to the FCC’s Powell, Goodmon wrote:
"This ownership review will change what citizens in every community in America receive on their local news, sports, weather and public affairs programs, as well as how they receive it, and it will determine the kind of national network programming that ultimately is available in their homes. This debate should not take place … between a few major media companies and a government agency with appointed, not elected, officials."
Don’t expect to hear that viewpoint played on Clear Channel or Cumulus Media stations.
Barlow Herget served two terms on the Raleigh City Council and is a contributor to "The North Carolina Century."
3933 Arrow Dr.
Suite 101
Raleigh, N.C. 27612
877.258.6837 (toll free)