MEDIA ROOTS — On December 1, 2011, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Commissioner Michael J. Copps held a public forum, entitled FCC Forum: Information Needs of Atlanta, on Georgia Tech’s campus in order to “assess the needs of Georgia’s citizens in the current media landscape.”
With the Occupy Movement putting economic inequality and financial corruption on blast, Black Agenda Report and Occupy Atlanta have focused attention on the corporate media obfuscation and whiteout of U.S. media policy, net neutrality, and FCC corruption. In discussing with Davey D why we must Occupy the FCC, Bruce Dixon, Managing Editor at Black Agenda Report, noted, “The FCC is thoroughly captured by the industry that it purports to regulate.”
A functioning democracy necessitates an informed electorate. Yet, the FCC functions anti-democratically by facilitating media consolidation and privatisation, which stifles the free flow of information untainted by corporate interests. Bruce Dixon reminds us the current FCC privatisation agenda is happening virtually in secret because corporate media, which people depend upon for most of their information, is not reporting it. Whilst independent and public media is vital, it’s currently a sliver in comparison to the majority of print and broadcast media in monopolistic corporate hands reaching hundreds of millions of Americans.
As Ron Allen of Occupy Atlanta testified before the FCC, “are the FCC Commissioners public servants or corporate servants? The wealthiest 1% and corporations use untold amounts of money to lobby politicians and regulators, such as the FCC, to make policies that benefit the 1% and corporations, but harm the public and democracy.” Yet, the airwaves and broadband bandwidth belongs to the people and must rest firmly in public hands.
The role of the FCC in undermining a healthy media system for a healthy democracy makes it crucial for the people to Occupy, or Decolonise, the FCC.
Messina
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THE MORNING MIX WITH DAVEY D
Davey D (c. 7:53): “It is KPFA, The Morning Mix, Davey D hangin’ out wit’ you. And, that’s right, a lot of Occupy stuff goin’ on today. Of course, Occupying foreclosed homes. All that is jumping off at twelve noon [12/6/11] over at the Alameda County Courthouse [in Oakland], the steps there where they do the auctions—very sad if you’ve lost your home to see that being hawked off to the highest bidder. Many who seem to just not really care [about] the hard times that many fell on. Folks will be out there to Occupy those steps. And that’s a good thing, in my personal opinion.
“But we also wanna talk about other ways in which people are Occupying space, so to speak. And one of the targets has been the FCC. Here in the [S.F.] Bay Area, as you know, there’s been a lot of changes in radio with the consolidation showing its impact, as companies like [Cumulus] and Clear Channel have shown up and have decimated popular stations that are on the progressive-leaning side of things, wit’ more to come. So, that’s gotten a lot of people up in arms, as they are now realising that some of this stuff that they once ignored are hitting them in places where it hurts. We’re hearing these reports in Sacramento. We’re hearing these reports down in Texas. And one of the places where it’s been ground zero has been Atlanta, Georgia. On the phone line wit’ us is a good friend of the station and the show. His name is Bruce Dixon from the Black Agenda Report. Bruce, how you doin’?”
Bruce Dixon (c. 9:29): “I’m doin’ better than a whole lotta folks, how about yourself, brother?”
Davey D (c. 9:33): “Good. You know, for a very long time. You and your partner, Glen Ford, along with Jared Ball, have been talking about the impact that consolidation and how important it was to pay attention to the moves that were being made behind the scenes and, oftentimes, blatantly in our face when it came to, not only, the consolidation of media and radio, in particular, but also the syndication of it and all these other aspects that are now showing up on our front doorstep, as we have all these new laws coming into effect and no place to talk about them. And as we’re seeing, as you talked about, the wholesale selling of stations that are on certain bandwidths with the public not even knowing. So, maybe you can kinda clue us in as to where things stand in 2011.”
Bruce Dixon (c. 10:27): “Well, it’s a matter, not only, of selling stations, but they are selling the very frequencies that stations might or might not be able to exist on. The transition from analogue to digital TV, Davey, opened up thousands and thousands of new frequencies across the country that could potentially be brand new channels for community broadcasters like KPFA. Or these channels could be used for municipal broadband or municipal Wi-Fi. Those of us, who are old enough to remember the old days of analogue TV, know that with a pair of rabbit ears you could get a TV signal deep inside a building back in the ’50s and ‘60s. And these are the frequencies that could be carrying community broadcasters now and could be carrying municipal Wi-Fi or municipal broadband. But instead what the FCC is doing with these newly available frequencies, is instead of redistributing them to the public, redistributing them to the communities, so that we could have more diversity, more local voices, and more news on the radio and TV dial, what the FCC is doing is they are quietly, almost secretly, auctioning them off, privatising them, auctioning them off to the highest bidder, which as I’ve said will, essentially, privatise these vital and irreplaceable pieces of public property forever.”
Davey D (c. 12:01): “Now, this is interesting that this is happening because we’ve seen, as I mentioned at the top with my remarks, two companies, Clear Channel and [Cumulus], who are the largest at this point, have been on what they call a firing spree, taking off long-time broadcasters in popular markets or popular broadcasters in markets. KGO is one example here in the [S.F.] Bay Area. Green 960 is another one where that’s gonna be taking place. But this is happening all over the country. And when the call for consolidation came out the argument that was put forth by broadcasters, these corporate broadcasters, was that they would be able to ‘diversify the airwaves; this would be a good thing; it would open up the channels, communities would have a voice.’ But now what we see is that they are losing; I think Clear Channel is $18 Billion dollars in debt to a company that was started by Mitt Romney, an investment banking firm. And the other one had promised shareholders that they would immediately get $50 Million dollars in savings and that $50 Million dollars in savings came from consolidating, firing, and syndicating, so you don’t have local content anymore. Can you speak a little to that? And are there more aspects to that we should know about?”
Bruce Dixon (c. 13:25): “Well, the main aspect you should know about it, well, the main two aspects is that Clear Channel being in debt comes from the fact that Clear Channel, Cumulus, Radio One, and lots of other big operators borrowed money heavily to be able to buy up those hundreds and hundreds of stations that they own. And now the people that they borrowed that money from are extracting loan shark interest from them to repay those debts in addition to them having to pay this big debt service that has nothing to do with operating a radio station. Clear Channel, Radio One, Cumulus may be deep in debt, but their officers are still getting paid. Their officers and top consultants are still getting paid, or are still paying themselves, billions and billions of dollars. A company, don’t forget, in the way the United States is running right now can pay its CEOs and its top board members millions upon millions and still be deep in debt and still be virtually going out of business. That’s just one of the pieces of financial trickery that we engage in here in the United States. We allow companies to run themselves into the ground and go deep in debt, or even go bankrupt, as long as they pay their executives millions and millions of bucks. So, we shouldn’t shed any tears for Clear Channel. They’re still getting paid.”
Davey D (c. 14:57): “Talk a little bit about what took place in Atlanta ‘cos you said this was a last minute meeting, people didn’t know about it. What was goin’ on?”
Bruce Dixon (c. 15:04): “Well, first of all, FCC is composed of five members appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate—five members, including an FCC Chair. The last four FCC Chairs have gone straight to work for broadcasters, for the cable industry, or for telecomm with the exception of William Kennard who’s now the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union. What William Kennard is doing for a living now as the Ambassador is he is putting his foot in the door on behalf of AT&T and Verizon, trying to get European countries to privatise their internet backbone like the U.S. has and trying to let U.S. cell phone companies into their markets, which, so far, the Europeans have not done. So, the FCC is thoroughly captured by the industry that it purports to regulate. This is Commissioner Michael Copps’ last month in office and so what they’re doing is they had this meeting with only a week or ten day’s notice in Atlanta. And people from the community in Atlanta found out about it maybe five days before the meeting happened. And, so, what we did is we came out, and Occupy Atlanta brought a crowd out, and what we did is we demanded that the FCC redistribute these channels, that they stop privatising these precious and irreplaceable broadcast channels, and hand them out to community stations to create the real diversity that it says it’s about, diversity, not only, in the colour of faces in station management, but diversity in programming, diversity in news, and diversity in arts. You’re one of the people who talk all the time about rappers who can’t get Sony contracts and can’t get Heineken contracts can’t be heard.”
Davey D (c. 17:02): “Right. If you’re just tuning in, we’re talking wit’ Bruce Dixon from the Black Agenda Report down in Atlanta. He’s talking to us about Occupyin’ the FCC, some of the moves that are being made. As we are focusing on the Herman Cains of the world, a lot of extra bandwidth and stations are being auctioned off to big corporations, leaving us in a position where we will not be able to have those community voices the way we ideally would want to. Bruce, you picked up some sound. Maybe we could play a couple of clips, so people can get an idea of what was spoken about. The first one is from Heather Gray, I believe, who is with WRFG.”
Bruce Dixon (c. 17:45): “She is.”
Davey D (c. 17:46): “And that’s the sister station—”
Bruce Dixon (c. 17:47): “Radio Free Georgia.”
Davey D (c. 17:48): “—that’s right, and we”
Bruce Dixon (c. 17:49): “It’s a Pacifica affiliate.”
Davey D (c. 17:50): “That’s right. We’re on—”
Bruce Dixon (c. 17:51): “In Atlanta.”
Davey D (c. 17:51): “—the air out in Atlanta. Why don’t we play just an excerpt of what she was talking about?”
Audio of Heather Gray at Atlanta FCC Meeting (c. 17:57): “We have this concentration in media as well, of course. Today, we have four corporate giants controlling vast numbers of radio stations and reaping billions of dollars at the expense of independent news. Where’s the clap for that, you all? Media in America represents corporate America. But it does not have to be this way. The public spectrums that commercial interests use to transmit their signals are owned by us, the people. Yet, the government has allowed these interests to use the spectrums for free to then monopolise and make billions of dollars while offering next to no public service. It’s payback time. This cannot continue. Democracy demands informed voters. With corporate media, however, we have a population tainted by information delineated by commercial interests robbing them the breadth of views and opinions of an independent public media system. Given that the FCC has failed to regulate media in the public interest, the situation cries for integrity and independence. What does Atlanta need? It needs more non-profit community media and the existing non-profit media needs financial support in an on-going basis, rather than teetering on the edge by consistently having to go its listeners for funds like a bake sale. Alternatives need to be adapted and planned for immediately. Here are three recommendations to support and build community media. For one, the government auctions off frequencies and there are plans to do more of this. This is the ultimate of gross privatisation. Yet, these frequencies are owned by us, the public. Instead of auctioning them off, they should be given to communities across America for public and non-profit broadcasters and public television. They are ours, after all.”
Davey D (c. 20:10): “So, that’s just one of ‘em. What are the other couple of points that she made, Bruce?”
Bruce Dixon (c. 20:13): “Well, there were three points that she made. The first one is to stop the privatisations of these irreplaceable resources. [And] to hand these frequencies back to communities, so that they can create new and diverse community broadcasters. [The second one is ‘commercial media should be required to pay for the right of making use of the frequencies owned by us that they use for their own financial benefit.’] And the third one is to guarantee the funding of community media. KPFA is hurting for money. WRFG is hurting for money. Black Agenda Report is hurting for money. It’s hard doing community media because we have no stable and set funding system, while at the same time the commercial broadcasters who pay nothing for their licences are able to rake in trillions of dollars every year. So, what we want to do is two things. What Heather said is the same suggestion that was mentioned in Robert McChesney and Bob Nichol’s book of a couple of years ago, The Death and Life of American Journalism, to grant a $300 dollar income tax credit to all Americans, so that there is a check-off on the tax forms where they can say that, either, my $300 dollar tax credit goes into the general community media fund or I can name four community media outlets, in particular, where it will go to. So, the people can have a check-off on their tax forms, so that KPFA can have a regular source of income.”
Davey D (c. 21:50): “Right. Now, one of the things that might have just rolled over a lot of people’s heads was talking about the money that comes in to the corporate outlets. And much of that centres around these election cycles. And now that there’s unlimited money that can be poured in, many of these outlets, even though they owe $18 Billion dollars and $50 Million and all these crazy numbers to the people who loan the money, they do rake in a lot of money thanks to the Citizens United situation. Can you expound upon that, how that all is connected?”
Bruce Dixon (c. 22:25): “Well, what that is, the election cycle is definitely a cash cow for broadcasters. Broadcasters are able to reap additional billions of dollars. The Obama Campaign directly, itself, is supposed to raise and spend $1 Billion dollars-plus. Most of that will be on radio and TV advertising. And although they rake in a large amount of money during the election cycles on advertising, the stations do very, very little to inform the public. If you don’t have the money to buy airtime, then your message doesn’t get across. It’s just that simple for you. At the same time that they’re broadcasting lots and lots of political ads and raking in lots and lots of money, the stations are covering very, very little in the way of actual news about the candidates, the campaigns, and the issues. So, what we’d like to see is we’d like to see that turned around. The question is how are we gonna get news in the 21st Century when corporate America has withdrawn its willingness to sponsor news departments. And that’s the question.”
Davey D (c. 23:48): “You know, if you can speak on a couple of points, Bruce. We’re talkin’ with Bruce Dixon from the Black Agenda Report, usually when people here these conversations, the first thing they say is, ‘Well, if the public really likes it then they’ll support it and then that will, you know, show up.’ You know, the free market theory. And maybe you can speak [to] that. Ratings have nothing to do with this at the end of the day. The other thing is, if you can just talk, in particular, with the Black community, the decimation that’s come in the news departments. I know you all have covered this for a very long time and shown how some of these outlets have gone from like hundreds of reporters to like four for the entire country. So, maybe you can speak on those two scenarios.”
Bruce Dixon (c. 24:29): “Well, nationwide, the number of broadcast reporters and print reporters is something like a quarter of what it was 30 years ago. What we’re actually well past the beginning of now is a golden age for corporate crime and local and national government corruption because there are no investigative reporters to speak of covering anything on the local level or on the national level. There are very, very few. Without a news media to keep government and powerful corporations in check, there is a corporate crime wave that nobody is reporting on. And corporate America has withdrawn its support for news, so the news as we used to know it is not coming back any time soon. And you cannot have democracy without news.”
Davey D (c. 25:28): “And it’s also not only this ongoing scenario of what I call product placement where all of a sudden your news headlines are really glorified advertisements for the newest iPad or the newest Nike sneaker. You know, they have the reporter there, ‘We’re standing in front of the store. The crowds are lined up. What are they there for? To get the latest computer!’ And, we know, just from sitting in the back room—”
Bruce Dixon (c. 25:51): “Or the latest iPhone.”
Davey D (c. 25:52): “Right, right. But those things don’t happen because it’s news, they happen because they’re ad buys. In case people don’t know, when I used to sit in those meetings, that’s what it was. You know? The company bought a bunch of advertisement. ‘We’re gonna send our morning reporter out there to cover the opening of the store.’ That’s how that works and it’s not always revealed. But the other thing that I think comes to mind is these conflicts of interest. For example, one of the reports that we now know is that Fox News in New York is guarded by the NYPD to the tune of half a million dollars a year, 24/7, New York Police Department. And people are goin’, ‘Well, why is that?’ But very few people knew that one of the anchors on the local Fox stations in New York, his dad is the Police Commissioner. His name is Greg Kelly. His father is Ray Kelly, the Police Commissioner. And, so, you sit there and you watch the news and they’ll sit there and they’ll talk about the police beating the Occupiers on Wall Street. And he’s making jokes. And he’s trying to find all the propaganda tools to make you turn against them, is being put forth, and most people don’t make that connection. ‘Hey, his dad is the one that runs the police department.’ You see those types of unholy alliances all throughout the news media. Can you speak on that a little?”
Bruce Dixon (c. 27:16): “Yeah, news is, indeed, what you said, product placement a lot. Not only is it product placement, if you wonder what happens to people who go to journalism school, most of the J-school graduates nowadays are going to work for public relations firms. And what public relations firms do is their job is manufacturing corporate friendly news, manufacturing corporate statements and then inserting them into the news. So, that a lot of what you see as news broadcast on TV and sometimes on the radio, the little radio news that there still is, turns out to be stuff that has been manufactured by public relations agencies. When you see a report in the news about some new miracle drug: that was often put together by a public relations firm working for the drug company. So, even a lot of the news that we do see that’s branded as news, like you’re saying, it’s very, very directly product placement. And, so, the remedy for that is we need new, now, KPFA doesn’t do that. WRFG, here in Atlanta, doesn’t do that. Black Agenda Report doesn’t do that. So, the remedy is to have more and more not-for-profit broadcasters, not-for-profit community media. And what the FCC is doing now is they could be handing out these new frequencies to communities all over the country to create new broadcasters, but the communities don’t know about it, the people don’t know about it. So, this agenda of privatising these frequencies, auctioning them off to the highest bidder, is happening virtually in secret because corporate media, which people depend upon to get most of their information about the world is not reporting it.”
Davey D (c. 29:17): “What’s the position of President Obama on this? Because there was a lot of hope and, in fact, he gleaned a lot of votes by stating that he was gonna reform the FCC, but it doesn’t seem like that’s happened.”
Bruce Dixon (c. 29:29): “Yeah, like I said at that beginning of this segment here, the last four FCC Chair people have gone to work, after their FCC careers, for broadcasters in cable, virtually all the FCC’s top staff and Commissioners do the same. The guy who President Obama appointed as FCC Chair is Julius Genachowski. He is himself a former lobbyist for AT&T who helped write NAFTA and who helped write the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which made the government sell off the internet backbone infrastructure, which it had built at a cost of hundreds of billions of taxpayers for just pennies on the dollar, just a few billion, to AT&T, Verizon, and the other big telecoms.”
Davey D (c. 30:24): “Wow.”
Bruce Dixon (c. 30:25): “So, that’s who is the FCC Chairman. President Obama promised he would take a back-seat to nobody in network neutrality, but, of course, once he got into office he’s taken a back-seat to everybody because the wireless internet is not subject, according to Obama’s FCC, to any network neutrality regulations. And it is the Obama White House, right now, that is privatising these brand new channels, instead of letting the American people know that they exist in the first place and that they could be handed out to community broadcasters to create new and diverse community broadcasters. And the position of the Obama Administration and of FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who is the daughter of South Carolina’s esteemed Congressman Jim Clyburn, is that these things need to be auctioned off, so that we can use that money for the deficit.”
Davey D (c. 31:27): “Wow!! Wow! Wow! Wow! This is just, well; we shouldn’t be shocked I guess. We just shouldn’t be shocked, but it’s just, when it’s so blatant and it’s so in-your-face, it’s just, you know, it leaves you—”
Bruce Dixon (c. 31:39): “But it’s not in our face because corporate media won’t report it. The only place that you’re gonna hear about this, so far, is places like KPFA.”
Davey D (c. 31:50): “Well, that’s true. I guess, yeah, I guess I take it for granted because I listen to us all the time. So, we do stay informed that way.”
Bruce Dixon (c. 31:56): “You, may see an excerpt video of this at www.BlackAgendaReport.com we’ve got it on the front page there, which is a 13-minute piece, a YouTube video, that includes the mic check segment, the entire five minutes that Heather Gray did, and a couple of minutes from Ron Allen of Occupy Atlanta.”
Davey D (c. 32:20): “Well, why don’t we do this? Why don’t we play what Ron Allen had to say and then we’ll flow into the mic check that you did at the end of your presentation, which was pretty good, you know. If they don’t listen to what you have to say then they ain’t gonna listen to anybody, but I like the way you had flipped that with the mic check right there at the FCC hearing. So, why don’t we start off with Ron Allen who is with Occupy Atlanta, hear his remarks and then we’ll go into your thing, Bruce.”
Audio of Ron Allen at Atlanta FCC Meeting (c. 32:45): “The wealthiest 1% of corporations use media to silence the 99% through consolidation, threatening net neutrality, causing many to ask the question, ‘Are the FCC Commissioners public servants or corporate servants?’ The wealthiest 1% and corporations use untold amounts of money to lobby politicians and regulators, such as the FCC, to make policies that benefit the 1% and corporations, but harm the public and democracy. How has media consolidation into five major companies helped the public and helped enhance democracy? Where are the stories in AJC and other media discussing how corporate media conglomerates are corrupting our government?”
Audio of Bruce Dixon at Atlanta FCC Meeting (c. 33:34): “At this point, mic check, mic check! (Audience responds: ‘Mic check, mic check!)
“Here it is: Stop the privatisations. (Audience reiterates: ‘Stop the privatisations!’)
“The frequencies belong to the people. (Audience, ‘The frequencies belong to the people!’)
“Create new and diverse community broadcasters. (Audience, ‘Create new and diverse community broadcasters!’)
“By giving people back their spectrum.” (Audience, ‘By giving people back their spectrum!’
“Make the commercial broadcasters and cable operators (Audience, ‘Make the commercial broadcasters and cable operators!’)
“Pay for the scarce public resources they use (Audience, ‘Pay for the scarce public resources they use!’)
“By funding community broadcasting. (Audience, ‘By funding community broadcasting!’)
“Thank you. (Audience, ‘Thank you!’)
Davey D (c. 34:21): “What, were they tryin’ to shut you down, Bruce?”
Bruce Dixon (c. 34:23): “Yeah, well, they only give you two minutes to make comments from the floor. Of course, we coordinated our remarks with Heather Gray earlier because she made the same demands as the panellists.”
Davey D (c. 34:37): “Okay. Well, you know, as we close out, what are two or three things that you want our listeners to absolutely start doing to turn this tide around?”
Bruce Dixon (c. 34:49): “Well, the first thing we’ve got to do is we’ve got to make the American people aware that the FCC is privatising frequencies that they could be using to create new community stations all over the country. Go to Black Agenda Report, find that YouTube video at the top, and share that YouTube video with all of your friends. And then what you’ve gotta do is you’ve gotta contact your member of Congress and your FCC person and your neighbours because the one thing these people do care about is they care about what you think. That’s why they are withholding this vital information from you. That’s why they are withholding news from you. It’s because they care about what you think. The fact that the FCC has frequencies available that could be used for community broadband, that could be used for wireless internet for everybody, or that could be used for community channels is news that you’re not being told. What you’ve gotta do, listeners, is you’ve got to share that news with your friends. Share it with your enemies. Share it with everybody. And, then, figure out what you’re gonna do about it. We need to Occupy public spaces and we need to Occupy the airwaves because they do belong to us.”
Davey D (c. 36:15): “Well, there you have it. We’ve been talkin’ with Bruce Dixon from the Black Agenda Report out of Atlanta, Georgia, talkin’ about Occupyin’ the FCC and givin’ us an example of some of the work that they’ve been doin’ tryin’ to shed light on some of the happenings on that esteemed agency that we all should keep our eyes and ears focused on. Bruce, thanks a lot. I appreciate it.”
Bruce Dixon (c. 36:37): “Thanks for the invite, Davey.”
Davey D (c. 36:38): “No doubt.”
Transcript by Felipe Messina
Image by Black Agenda Report
Bruce Dixon
MEDIA ROOTS — Seeing 