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May 13, 2005
Session: Telecomm Act - John Arnold
Russel Newman introduces, points out some places where the Telecomm Act may impact, such as access to websites within consolidated corporate internet providers. Already in DC meetings are happening behind closed doors between industry reps and elected officials.
The time is now to make your voices heard, before policies are set. The point of this panel is to give you the info and tools to insert yourself into the debate.
Three panelists: John Arnold was a nationally syndicated radio host before becoming a PhD candidate at Wayne State University. Mark Cooper, Consumer Federation of America. Lauren-Glenn Davitian, CCTV Center for Media Democracy. Helped establish strong community access in Vermont, has advice for how to stand up against the large powers.
John Arnold first. His family owned radio stations in Detroit and decided to branch out in 1970. They had to reconfigure the antenna. He was operations manager, uncle was chief engineer. His uncle decided to put the antenna in the middle of the Mississippi River. He doesn't have to tell us what happened when Spring came.
I read a book in 1999 when he was still doing the talk show. It was writeen by Robert McChesney, didn't know him. Did PoliSci in undergrad, but the book clicked with him. Thought he couldn't be crazy here.
After reading his book it inspired him to go back to school to get his doctorate, to study broadcasters and the public interest. 1987, the fairness doctrine was suspended. Where if you give someone running for office airtime, you have to give it to the opponents, too.
Remember 9/11, it was an election day in his city, Detroit. About 9:15 the networks broke about what was going on in New York City. You've all heard all your lives "This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System." Anyone in here, did you hear the EAS test on 9/11? What sense does it make to test it?
The Fairness Doctrine was struck down in 1987, in 1996 the revision to the Telecom Act. The result is we don't have limits on how many radio stations a single company can own. We have companies -- one in particular -- that own more than 1200 stations in america -- there's only 12000. In Detroit 5 companies own all media, aside from newspapers.
The original argument in the first telecomm act was that because spectrum is a scarce resource, it should be regulated in the public interest. Now in 2005, we have lots of information, so the argument is that scarcity isn't an issue. but we still own the airwaves, and scarcity is still an issue.
Cable, internet have subscription cost. Radio and television have virtually no cost over the air. It's up to us to keep it this way.
Posted by paul at May 13, 2005 04:04 PM