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STORY: The Federal Communications Commission will review six broadcast ownership rules for the people's airwaves at its June 2 meeting with a focus on deregulation of the information market. Earlier today, KPFT News reporter Pokey Anderson caught up with Director of the Project on Media Ownership, Mark Crispin Miller to discuss what these changes mean and how the changes would benefit media conglomerate instead of the public who own the airwaves. "That a completely commercial system is not going to serve the people, unless forced to do so. It's really something grossly improper about the likes of General Electric, making lots and lots of advertising money off of [a] public resource, which is the airwaves, and not having to yield anything back. Now what Michael Powell's FCC wants to do is annihilate the last remaining regulations. There aren't that many. Just the last few." Although news coverage of the changes has focused largely on television and radio markets, Crispin Miller broadens the focus of how the media landscape would be altered: "Without the regulation, all bets are off. And you will have a situation where the same company that owns your cable system, TV and radio stations, major magazines and newspapers, as well as big pieces of the publishing industry and the film-making industry, and the rock 'n' roll world, hip-hop, all of it. These same people control the concert venues, they control onboard advertising. It's very easy to imagine that you'll have like one or two companies that are the ultimate authority if the FCC succeeds in doing this extremely dangerous thing. So people have got be tireless in their protests and put as much pressure as possible - both on the commissioners of the FCC and on Congress." Public comments will continue to be accepted through Friday, and can be sent through the agency's website at www.fcc.gov. Renee Feltz & Pokey Anderson, KPFT News, Houston. [Feltz wrote the story and Anderson conducted the interviews.] E-mail Renee Feltz & Pokey Anderson chickpea_@ziplip.com & pokeyink@aol.com respectively. This story was broadcast on May 28, 2003. |