Official FCC Testimony

My testimony to the FCC, presented at their public hearings on 10/3/06, in response to proposed rule changes for media ownership.

Background, in the words of the FCC

Audio Clip: My 3-Minute Reprimand of the FCC

Summary

Good evening, Commissioners. My broadcast name is johny radio. I'm a citizen and freelance radio producer & blogger. I believe that freedom of the press should not be reserved for the wealthy. I'm asking the FCC to protect and create low barriers of entry into mass media, through technology and regulations, for public, independent, and community broadcasters. Preserve and promote opportunities for alternate voices to reach larger audiences.

Licensing

When the FCC stopped offering low-power FM licenses in 2003, you silenced local voices, in favor of full-power stations. The FCC bowed to corporate lobbyists’ exaggerated claims of interference.
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I urge you to reinstate low-power FM licensing (LPFM) for community broadcasters.

Ensure that evidence debunking radio intereference is never again suppressed.

Stop busting pirate broadcasters on falsified claims of interference with airports.

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Public Broadcasting

Flip on any public radio station, and you’re likely to hear paid underwriting messages that sound almost like commercial advertising. When public broadcasters are beholden to for-profit contributors, this undermines the Public Broadcasting Act, which calls for “alternative telecommunications ...that involve creative risks and that address the needs of unserved and underserved audiences, particularly children and minorities.”
Comparison of Public Broadcasting in Europe and the US

Therefor, Commissioners, please provide more funding for public channels, not less. You can tax Fox and ABC if necessary.

Take Action
Save NPR and PBS

Last year’s outcry about "right-wing infiltration" in the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by Bush-appointed CPB Chief Ken Tomlinson, was no accident. When LBJ created the CPB in 1967, he made sure more than half the CPB board were appointed by the US President, with the intention of making the CPB a mouthpiece for the White House. It has remained that way for the past 40 years.
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Commissioners, I call on you to amend the Public Broadcasting Act to make the CPB board members peer-selected public media experts, rather than political appointees.

Fairness

From 1949, the FCC’s “Fairness Doctrine” obliged broadcasters to provide equal airtime to opposing points of view. In a unanimous decision in 1969, the Supreme Court held that the fairness doctrine enhanced rather than infringed freedom of speech.
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Supreme Court Decision

Yet, President Reagan dissolved the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, giving Fox news license to call itself “Fair & Balanced” without any due diligence. Reagan also gave Disney-owned KABC 790 AM license to promulgate white-supremecist hate speech and personal attacks against a local grammar school.
Left Perspective
Right Perspective

kpcc audio about the situation:
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Take Action
Hear inflamatory KABC audio, and take action.

Real discussion has been replaced with shouting matches and personal attacks. Therefor, I urge the Commission to:

Reinstate the FCC Fairness Doctrine, expand it, and vote it into law.

Require that analysts from differing perspectives be given ample time to explain their views, without interruption. Bill O’Reilly shouting down his victims does not count as equal time.

Require "civility"--shouting matches and personal attacks must be disallowed or discouraged.

Take Action
Reform The Media
Confront Bias At ABC-TV
Confront Bias At Fox News

Censorship

Some observers complain about crass sexual content in the media. One wonders why they don't simply change the channel, until one realizes there are too few channels out there which don't use sexual titilation to capture viewership and advertising dollars.

However, adult Americans must be assured access to uncensored programming. Censorship on the basis of sexual content has been used in past to suppress political, artistic, and educational content.
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Republican House Representative Gerald Allen, author of a pro-censorship House bill, recommends we "dig a hole" and bury Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Chorus Line, The Color Purple, and Angels In America. He met with President Bush five times in 2004.
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Commissioners, keep censorship away from pay channels. Support the Stamp Out Censorship Act of 2005.

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HR-1440, the Stamp Out Censorship Act of 2005

Respect parents' decisions about their children's viewing options.

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TV Watch

Preserve uncensored late-night rules for non-pay channels.

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Sensationalism

Sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference between the news and the Jerry Springer show. The sensationalism which dominates corporate news channels, like Janet Jackson's breast, Jon Benet, Jeri Ryan's sex life, and Mark Foley’s emails are just distractions from far-reaching local, domestic, and international issues, like schools in crisis, corporate corruption, government ineptitude, and environmental degradation. Rather than take media to task for poor reporting, the FCC is penalizing channels for saying naughty words-- words every school kid knows.

Parents Television Council
PBS vs. the FCC
Democrats Stoop

Commissioners, stop participating in this phony, politically-motivated moral panic with excessive "indecency" citations.

Require coverage of underreported news stories, as documented by the United Nations, Doctors Without Borders, and Project Censored.

Doctors Without Borders
United Nations
Project Censored

Take Action
Unreported: Judiciary Committee details crimes committed by Bush
Unreported: Comedian lambasts Bush at Whitehouse Dinner

Internet Freedom

The internet has created a wonderful new opportunity for underserved voices to reach niche audiences.

Therefor, I urge you to prevent media conglomerates from controlling internet content, or the public’s access to it.

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Take Action
Support the Internet Neutrality bill
Contribute to the MoveOn New York Times advert
Stop the "COPE telecommunications law", which guts Net Neutrality
Stop the AOL Email Tax - MoveOn
Stop the AOL Email Tax - ActForChange

Technology

Consumers can now purchase radio devices with which they can listen to thousands of internet radio stations from around the world, without a computer. Some are portable enough to carry down the street.
Torian InFusion
Solutions Radio
Reciva

But we cannot do so in Pennsylvania, because Verizon blocked free community WiFi hotspots.
Verizon blocks access

Commissioners, I ask that you stop telecommunication corporations from blocking the creation of community hotspots.

Fund the creation of more public hotspots—you can tax Verizon for the money.

In April of 2006, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and majority leader Bill Frist (R-TN) introduced the PERFORM act, making it illegal to record songs off internet radio, the way kids have done for 40 years with AM/FM-- despite the fact that this practice is explicitly protected by previous amendments to the Copyright Act.
PERFORM bill

I ask the FCC not to support the PERFORM bill.

Today’s radio unnecessarily restricts the number of radio stations. According to internet architect, David Reed, spectrum scarcity is a fallacy. The same techniques which enable thousands of cell-phones to operate in the same region, called “frequency-hopping”, could be used to enable hundreds of simultaneous radio broadcasters in the same area.
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Therefor, as radio goes digital, use that technological transition to increase the number of stations.

Thanks for listening.

Audio of the complete hearings

Submit your OWN testimony to the FCC on these and other issues. Comments are due December 21.

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