Note to readers: Our democracy is in crisis because our media is in crisis.  Media in American is the oxygen of democracy.  Because of the manifest failure of corporate media to inform America, people in other countries are often better informed than we are, while our democracy suffocates.  H.L. Menkin said that media, the "Fourth Estate," should "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."  In today's America, our media "comforts the comfortable and afflicts the afflicted."  It's a failure on every level.  The people that designed our media laws in the 20th century had it right.  Media is too important to be left to the forces of greed and power; it has a special status in our constitution for an important reason.  It needs to be regulated properly and diversified.  This subject has been a passion for me for many years.  In 2003, I wrote this resolution on the subject.  Have a look and let me know what you think.  -- Louis Vandenberg 

 

 

A resolution on

 Broadcast Media

in the United States of America

and the

Federal Communications Commission

Written by Louis Vandenberg

(Nominee US Congress, 44^th CD, Member Riverside and Orange County Democratic Central Committees)

 

Adopted by the

California Democratic Party

2003

 

Now whereas a strong American democracy requires an informed electorate, which depends for news and information upon a fair, honest, accessible and accountable broadcast media, and in awareness that said media has a unique and crucial constitutional role in American society, and

 

Whereas broadcast media honesty, quality and accountability is facilitated and enhanced by a Federal regulatory structure which assures healthy competition fueled by a multiplicity of ownership and featuring a fairness of perspective and content achieved via: 1) a diverse and distributed ownership; 2) the active encouragement of minority voices; 3) the implementation of policies which guarantee citizen media access to present alternative and opposing points of view whenever partisan political opinions or content is presented, and

 

Whereas American broadcast media has, in the last twenty years, undergone an unprecedented consolidation of ownership to the point of virtual monopoly, caused by the grossly mistaken view that media is a commodity or business like any other and that it’s ownership and operation of broadcast frequency spectrum licenses should be de-or-un-regulated, which has resulted in—despite a increased number of channels in cable and satellite services--a grievous loss of content and talent diversity, tens of thousands of broadcast industry jobs, virtually all citizen access, and a derogation of fairness and accuracy to such a degree that, in January 2003, the international organization Reporters without Borders rated the US broadcast media as 17^th in the world for overall quality and freedom,

 

Now therefore be it resolved by the California Democratic Party sitting at its 2003 State Convention call upon the California Democratic delegation to the US House of Representatives and the state’s two Democratic Senators to contact the Federal Communications Commission, chaired by Mr. Michael Powell, and urge them to cease all efforts to further deregulate FCC restrictions which limit ownership, and

 

Therefore be it finally resolved that the California Democratic Party urge the Democratic Party of the United States of America to, as a matter of policy, platform and legislative action to nurture a deep American democracy with a revitalized media licensing and regulatory structure which will:

1. 1)      Reinstate strong restrictions in media license ownership to prevent anti-competitive practices in both national and local broadcast markets;
2. 2)      Take all steps to prevent conflicts of interests between corporate ownership and news reporting operations, such that the public may not be informed by news broadcasts which are affected by the profit motive or political agendas of the controlling corporation (e.g.: tobacco companies or defense contractors who own network news operations);
3. 3)      Recognize that broadcast electromagnetic spectrum is owned collectively by the citizens of the United States of America as is licensed to be used in the best interests of the American people as a whole;
4. 4)      Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, which will mandate a process which balances political content and provides access to the broadcast airwaves by those who wish to express alternative, contrary or opposing points of view to those expressed in the course of a broadcast;
5. 5)      Provide all incentives to aid and encourage the development of secular news, public affairs and informational broadcast stations and networks, both non-commercial and for profit;
6. 6)      Establish a “trust fund” developed from commercial broadcast license fees to sustain and fund secular non-commercial educational broadcasters such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Public Radio and other qualified broadcasters and take all steps to maintain their operational independence via non-partisan oversight boards for those entities which would receive such funds.

 

End of resolution