Keeping the Air Waves Free for Democracy

Comments before the F.C.C. Commissioners in Tampa, April 30, 2007

Dear Chairman Martin and Commission Members:

Thank you your opening statements and the opportunity you have given to citizens around the country to express their concerns about their airwaves – its ownership, use, quaity and how it “lies at the heart of our democracy” in the words of Chairman Martin.

I represent the interests of those seniors, described by Commissioner Copps, but also those of a person whose professional life has been in education and whose life is deeply committed to the pursuit of truth and the building of a more vital democracy. At the same time I fully appreciate the complicated roles played by Commissioners of the FCC as a Federal Agency. I have severed as a faculty member and senior administrator in both private and public institutions. Over thirty years ago I served as an HEW Fellow between the Reagan and Carter administrations and was deeply involved in the creation of the new Department of Education from its transitional headquarters in an abandoned warehouse in Foggy Bottom. Keeping our government sensitive to both the “public will” and the “public good” is a noble balancing challenge.

My comments deal with 1) Communication; 2) Mission; 3) Conglomerates; and end with a few modest conclusions.

I.

Communication – The heart of the issue – Centralization vs. Decentralization

It is a tragic irony that while we live in the age of science, our government’s agencies use only a simplistic corporate model in which the efficiency and effectiveness of communication is measured only in terms of size. Even size did not assure the survival of the mammoth dinosaurs.

We need to apply what we know about “communication” in our biological, chemical and physical world to the life of our societies. Our own bodies are complex decentralized

systems, with information prompting actions, some involuntary, others requiring even more complex synaptic activity of our frontal lobes. Decentralization is the key to how our organic world communicates, from our genes to our brains. Centralization would paralyze the living organism. There are clear analogies in our political life.

Even in our physical world we know that the key to understanding the behavior of the largest and most complex systems in the activity of the smallest particles, some of which we yet hope to find in the new supercollider in Cern later this year. The micro-world is the key to our macro-world. Bigger is not better, or efficient or more effective in any aspect of our encounter with reality. So why should we even consider it as a way of building communication networks in our democracy? The more our media is diverse, plural and sensitive to their social environments the greater they will not just reflect the true nature of our democracy, but the more they will help it evolve into a strong social system.

II.

Mission of Media in our Democracy

The media through which we communicate has three basic missions in a dynamic democracy:

a. Provide the tools for more effective citizenship and wise decision making for the public good – NOT make us consumers of products and services;

b. Present issues for critical analysis and decision making – NOT edutainment;

c. Inform the public – NOT form a monolithic consciousness.

III.

Why conglomerates are destructive in our democracy

Conglomerates, as described so clearly by Commissioner Adelstein, are destructive for the growth of a living democracy for at least three reasons:

a. Competition is repressed;

b. Diversity is inhibited;

c. Conformity is valued more than the independent search for truth – e.g., Knight-Ridder was the lone voice of dissent and concern regarding the government’s reports of events leading up to and during the first four years of the Iraq war.

IV.

Conclusion

At this time in American history the FCC can best serve democracy if it:

a. Encourages a decentralized system of ownership and control;

b. Stimulates media that focuses on the smallest places of our democratic life in our local communities;

c. Avoids the current obsession with celebrities, trivia and violence.

Thank you for your consideration.

Merle F. Allshouse