Entry Archive

It’s been a busy day, but it’s great to blog here on Larry Lessig’s blog.

I’ll be writing all week, but if there’s a day I can’t make it, Joe Trippi, my campaign manager, will fill in for me. Thank you Professor Lessig for inviting me.

The Internet might soon be the last place where open dialogue occurs. One of the most dangerous things that has happened in the past few years is the deregulation of media ownership rules that began in 1996. Michael Powell and the Bush FCC are continuing that assault today (see the June 2nd ruling).

The danger of relaxing media ownership rules became clear to me when I saw what happened with the Dixie Chicks. But there’s an even bigger danger in the future, on the Internet. The FCC recently ruled that cable and phone based broadband providers be classified as information rather than telecommunications services. This is the first step in a process that could allow Internet providers to arbitrarily limit the content that users can access. The phone and cable industries could have the power to discriminate against content that they don’t control or— even worse— simply don’t like.

The media conglomerates now dominate almost half of the markets around the country, meaning Americans get less independent and frequently less dependable news, views and information. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson spoke of the fear that economic power would one day try to seize political power. No consolidated economic power has more opportunity to do this than the consolidated power of media.

posted by [ Howard Dean ] on [ Jul 14 03 at 3:26 PM ] to [ ]

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Thank you, Governor for speaking out against deregulation of the media. It may sound like a doomsday scenario, but I think everyone can imagine a world with Faux News Channel and Clear Channel controlling the airwaves.

With the large degree of media concenrtration that already exists, I hope we might expect an actual roll-back of conglomeration. One way to accomplish this would be to get rid the rule granting a viewership discount for purpose of calculating audience share of UHF stations. Discarding this technologically dated rule would help reduce concentration of television station ownership in discreet markets. I am curious whether Dr. Dean supports such a change, or other changes which would reduce the number of outlets a single entity could own.

Thank you for addressing the FCC issue. This is an important issue. I will be proud to call you my President!

The FCC rollback is truly one of the most unfortunate and under discussed side effects of the Bush administration. Mr Dean, please ellaborate further on the extent to which you would undo the damage that has been done regarding media deregulation. Thank you.

Governor,

It’s a privelege to be able to discuss these issues with you, and I greatly appreciate the opportunity.

I agree that the FCC-sanctioned media consolidation is a threat, but there will always be other information channels. In fact, most interest groups tend to simply flock to channels that reflect their own views rather than search out any truly independent medium - this is the sole reason for FOX News vast success, not any FCC actions per se. With former Vice President Al Gore proposing a liberal cable news channel, the trend is reflected on the opposite side of the partisan divide and there’s no intrinsic reason that media consolidation needs to be a threat to liberal ideas alone.

A much greater threat, IMHO is that of copyright abuse. As you are no doubt aware, Professor Lessig has been extensively discussing how copyright extensions pose a serious threat to the inventive engine of society, on this blog and in his book, “The End of Ideas” (which I assume you’ve read). Today the DMCA and the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, tomorrow the Thou Shalt Not Reverse Engineer Act and the end of the public domain as we know it.

What is your position on the threat to the public domain? And what policies do you intend to support to address that threat?

Regards
Aziz H. Poonawalla
Dean Nation 2004 blog http://dean2004.blogspot.com

How about giving Mr. Lessig an apointment to the FCC or DOJ? Either one, and we’ll see the media conglomerates tremble in fear.

I think the internet is the only place where power has shifted away from the central brokers (corporations and people with money) towards the average man. One of the places you see this most acutely is in the widespread theft of intellectual property. Record companies colluded to set prices for years… is it any wonder that today we have a generation of kids that don’t see the harm in ‘sticking it to the record companies’?

Anyway, that’s a tangent I don’t need to continue… The point is, THANK GOD FOR THE INTERNET!! This great technology has allowed us to organize in unprecedented ways. This technology combined with the Dr.’s message will for the first time, directly impact the race for the Presidency. And for once, the people will win. The internet will do what McCain-Fiengold didn’t - couldn’t - do. And hopefully, it’ll be the internet that keeps the government honest moving forward…

This is only *one* of the issues where electing GW Bush turned out to make a little more than “a dimes worth of difference..”

I’m glad you brought it up Dr. Dean. We need people to remind us how our society is changing right in front of our eyes.

I think the internet is the only place where power has shifted away from the central brokers (corporations and people with money) towards the average man. One of the places you see this most acutely is in the widespread theft of intellectual property. Record companies colluded to set prices for years… is it any wonder that today we have a generation of kids that don’t see the harm in ‘sticking it to the record companies’?

Anyway, that’s a tangent I don’t need to continue… The point is, THANK GOD FOR THE INTERNET!! This great technology has allowed us to organize in unprecedented ways. This technology combined with the Dr.’s message will for the first time, directly impact the race for the Presidency. And for once, the people will win. The internet will do what McCain-Fiengold didn’t - couldn’t - do. And hopefully, it’ll be the internet that keeps the government honest moving forward…

I think the internet is the only place where power has shifted away from the central brokers (corporations and people with money) towards the average man. One of the places you see this most acutely is in the widespread theft of intellectual property. Record companies colluded to set prices for years… is it any wonder that today we have a generation of kids that don’t see the harm in ‘sticking it to the record companies’?

Anyway, that’s a tangent I don’t need to continue… The point is, THANK GOD FOR THE INTERNET!! This great technology has allowed us to organize in unprecedented ways. This technology combined with the Dr.’s message will for the first time, directly impact the race for the Presidency. And for once, the people will win. The internet will do what McCain-Fiengold didn’t - couldn’t - do. And hopefully, it’ll be the internet that keeps the government honest moving forward…

I am so relieved that we at last have a political leader willing to talk about issues of liberty, equality and justice invoking the names of our Founders, their revolutionary ideas and optimistic outlook. I ask people, when was the last time we heard a leader talking about liberty and freedom using the words of Thomas Jefferson or James Mdaison?

I am also so happy that someone who wants to lead our great nation has taken the time to read the words of our Founders and consider what they mean TODAY. Their ideas are not something we read, and keep, in a book. Freedom is for everyone.

Love ya Doc!

Right on target as usual.

Thank you for taking the time in your busy schedule to post your thoughts on this blog.

Love ya Doc!

Right on target as usual.

Thank you for taking the time in your busy schedule to post your thoughts on this blog.

Love ya Doc!

Right on target as usual.

Thank you for taking the time in your busy schedule to post your thoughts on this blog.

Ack sorry for the tripple post my first response to a blog and I screw it up!

Quinn, here’s an excerpt from the Rainbow/PUSH coaltion speech.

Q: Governor Dean. The FCC made this decision. The market’s gonna react. Companies are going to be acquiring more outlets. What are you gonna try to do? Try to undo it?

Dean: Yup.

(applause)

Dean: Look, I’m not a big country music person. I like it alright. I don’t know much about the Dixie Chicks. But when the Dixie Chicks were kicked off the air for disagreeing with the President of the United States over the Iraq invasion, I suddenly realized that this was a corporation who was censoring our ability to get information on our airwaves. So, yeah. Deregulation has been a failure. We need to re-regulate the media. They’ve behaved irresponsibly, and when people behave irresponsibly, they need to have the privileges that we’re giving them using our airwaves taken away.

So yes. I would re-regulate the media. I would limit the ownership of stations in a particular market and limit the overall ownerships in the entire country. We made a mistake in deregulation. We need to re-regulate.

I hope this helps,

…Jamie

“How about giving Mr. Lessig an apointment to the FCC or DOJ? Either one, and we’ll see the media conglomerates tremble in fear.”

How about to the Supreme Court?

Excellent first blog, Governor Dean.

OOPS. My mistake, Lessig’s book is “The Future of Ideas”, not the End - though with the current atmosphere of silencing fair use, it might amount to much the same thing.

Regards
Aziz Poonawalla

I agree with the Governor, but this statement is baby steps. Can you speak with any more specificity and detail about the relevant issues Gov. Dean? Most of the candidates running are also against the Powell media ownership rules and have said so. What’s different about you? This is a very educated readership on these isssues, and what’s the point of guest blogging if you don’t say something that we find truly informative?

Thank you Dr. Dean.
I hope the rest of your views in this area, particularly DMCA views will be known soon.

Keep up the good work. You’ve got my vote.

Governor Dean,
I was disappointed with this posting as it seems to identify a problem without proposing any solution.

Do you believe this issue should be addressed legislatively or by alternate appointees? If the former, do you believe this can be accomplished without altering the balance of power in Congress? If the later, what is to stop this issue from becoming a pendulum that swings back and forth depending on the party in power?

If as one of the other posters was accurate when you called for re-regulation, I would be interested in seeing a list of all industries you believe are under-regulated.

so what happen to the dixied chicks. they played to packed audiences, posed nude on a magazine cover, and just this weekend blasted the current administration doing it all to incredible publicity. please use a better example for our descent into repression

Thank you for speaking with us this week, Gov. Dean. As you may know, many small internet service providers and competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) are being priced out of existence by incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) who have monopoly control over local telecommunications infrastructure. This is a key component of the process you describe above, so I am curious as to what specific policies you would propose to increase competition in the internet access market.

Aziz - - -
Educate us. How does copyright extension hurt us the people? I may not be able to read The Future of Ideas for a while.
Is the information on your blog?
Mahalo….

Dr. Dean,

Thank you for speaking on such an important issue. As always you hit the nail on the head. I would much rather be talking about funding education and equal rights for all Americans, but we can not be fighting those battles and the 3 critical fights over democracy that are occuring right now at the same time. The second is the patirot act and the third is not having a ballot paper trail.

My one criticism is not pointing us to an action. If there is not currently a capwiz.com (or other similar service) form-to-fax set up on this issue, then you could create one through www.deanforamerica.com. The last thing we need is to sit around lamenting and not taking action.

The de-regulation that began with the Telecom Act of 1996 has been huge failure, led by the Republican Congress. Let us stop this trend.

For those who are asking for specifics, Dr. Dean has been more specific on the topic in other settings. He has said that, as President, his major role will be in FCC appointments, and he would ensure that his FCC appointmentees have similar concerns. He doesn’t seem to believe that it’s the President’s role to micromanage the process, but rather to make intelligent appointments that will work towards reversing the damage.

Governor,

What are the odds of you giving a speech at Stanford when you’re in the Bay Area this fall or winter? With Prof. Lessig’s support and a large Students for Dean group, it would be a great location for a policy speech or even just a small talk.

Please consider it.

An equal, if not greater, threat to political speech than media concentration is the 1987 death of the Fairness Doctrine at the hands of the FCC. Why should licensees of the public’s frequencies get to decide which political views they will and will not carry? This decision was never ratified by the Supremes under First Amendment principles, only by the DC circuit on the ground that the FCC’s decision that the Fairness Doctrine no longer served the public interest was niether arbitrary nor an abuse of discretion.

Why not bring back the Fairness Doctrine ensuring access and equal time for all candidates to public office? A Dean Administration would do a great service to the cause of democracy and deal a blow to the overwhelming advantage of monied interests in political campaigns and foil the stranglehold commericial media exerts on the scope of public debate.

Dr. Dean,

First I’d like to thank you sincerely for your honest, forthright manner and your candidacy. You have my vote and support thoughout the primaries and beyond the general election, to the White House!


Another, more sinister example of media censorship than the recent Dixie Chicks debacle was was Clear Channel’s “list of songs with questionable lyrics” in the wake of 9/11, which self-censored such rabble-rousing songs as “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” by Simon & Garfunkel and “Imagine” by John Lennon. Clear Channel denies this, but it’s DJs say otherwise.


(You can find some detail on Clear Channels 9/11 blacklist: here and here.)">http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,46925-2,00.html”>here.)

Connections anyone?

I just want to take this opportunity to make sure you are aware of http://retropoll.org. They conduct normal telephone political polls, but they take each question one level deeper to see, for example, what the participants know about the issues they are asked about. In their second poll, 56% of respondants felt that the war on terror either had little effect on our civil rights or actually improved our rights. Looking deeper though, the poll found these attitudes:

27) Lengthy detention for anyone, citizen or not, who the U.S. government decides to arrest without providing criminal charges, proofs or trials.
Support 10.0%, Reject 82.6%, Don’t Know 7.5%

29) A requirement that the U.S. government must prove accusations against nations before attacking them.
Support 68.9%, Reject 19.9%, Don’t Know 11.2%

And no one seems to be mentioning the almost 800,000 letters sent to the FCC complaining about this new adventure in de-reg…

Which sounds like the grass roots to me.

Congress, luckily, appears to have taken note. Let’s hope that they aren’t only in it for appearance’s sake. I’m told Randy Michaels (CEO of Clear Channel) is *not* the most popular guy on the Hill this hear; maybe there’s hope.

The corporations taking over the media, of course, and making it impossible for the average citizen to be heard is the private parallel of the companion — and more insidious — public-sector problem: corporations being given *way* too much power in the voting arena.

Direct Recording Electronic voting machines which do not produce a countable (and re-countable; hey, I live in Florida :-) physical ballot are unacceptably misdesigned. Far more than you ever wanted to know about this is at the website of Penn State professor (and electronic voting Doctorate) Rebecca Mercuri.

Especially in close elections, these sorts of things are going to be crucial — and the resulting partisan bickering from failing to fix them early enough may well do more damage to America than November 4, 2000… or September 11, 2001.

Doctor? Your thoughts?
— j
Communications Wonk
Steering Committee
Pinellas for Dean
Pinellas County, FL

For those who are interested in taking direct action regarding FCC deregulation, contact your members of Congress. True Majority makes it really easy to do, with free faxes (more likely to be read than email) sent directly from their web site.

Governor Dean, thank you for guest blogging here and for encouraging a greater level of campaign involvement by average people than most national campaigns. The fact that Joe Schmoe Internet User can email Joe Trippi personally and get a personal response says a lot about your campaign. I would really love to see a moderated (to reduce redundancy and clarify questions) town-hall style chat or series of chats online with set up for the fall, in the run-up to the first primaries.

Should media using public property (radio frequencies, telphone poles, satellites) be able to ban political ads they disagree with? e.g. anti-war ads were rejected by major media outlets last winter.

hey richard bennet, i guess you don’t have a problem with clear channel owning a majority of our radio stations. i guess you also think it’s okay that local radio personnel and local radio services (such as severe weather alerts and local amber alerts) are being replaced by national, homogenised programming. and i suppose you think that faux actually broadcasts “news” as well. and i guess you think it’s a GoodThing(TM) that if the new FCC rules go into effect, almost all of our media will be totally consolidated and homogenised. talk about telling people how to think!
nice straw man with the big brother analogy and the savage thing, too, jackass. oh well, what could i possibly expect from someone who links to little green footballs.
thanks, drive through.

I find myself here by having followed Governor Dean after reading comments at slashdot and on blogforamerica.com.

Are there experts participating here who could neatly summerize deeper implications of media consolidation and cyberspace and computer-based freedom issues so that some of us who have been preoccupied with other topics can learn?

As an aside to the experts, I lived in China for several years during the late 1980s. It was interesting to me to discover, as I understood my interlocutors, that they have a long cultural history of regarding what we call intellectual property as communal property. Partly because of this tradition, ancient authorship tends to be ambiguous. Artists would begin by spending years copying the masters. And people felt little compunction in copying American-made software, etc., particularly when also considering economic disparities. Any thoughts?

Grins and best wishes,

Dan Chay
Alaska

I think you misunderstand the Governor’s position. Governor Dean has no desire to “shut down the Murdoch empire”. Governor Dean has indicated he is troubled by the power ONE corporation can wield in our democratic discourse.

Yes, the Dixie Chicks are fine now, but remember at the time of the boycott, the outcome was not clear. As we all know, timing is critical in a discussion. I urge you to recall that the Dixie Chicks were “silenced” in the moments BEFORE the invasion of Iraq. Their voice in criticism of the president was squashed at the moment when it had the widest appeal. That is the part that is most troubling to me.

OT- Also, our budget crisis in CA has less to do with the actions of legislators, unions and casios as it does with the VAST concentration of power by energy regualtors that colluded to rasie energy prices through the roof. These powerful interests KNEW that the free market could not support their scam and that the state, with its unlimited pockets, would HAVE to step in and buy power for the people of CA. Letting the power go off in the middle of winter was simply not an option by ANY responsible government or leaders. If you want to blame anyone for the budgetary woes in CA, the blame goes to those greedy men and women who ran those energy corporations who stole from us Californians.

I worked in journalism right after college; now I’m in law school and I feel better about my profession. What does that say about the state of our media? It’s very upsetting to me that countries with no First Amendment and much more restrictive libel laws have a healthier press, more willing to challenge the government on serious issues, than we do. And media consolidation seems to be the biggest single factor in this.

Fortunately, the internet came along to save us just as TV and radio news went from bad to worse. There’s a famous remark by someone—A.J. Liebling, maybe?—about how freedom of the press only helps people who own a press. Now almost anyone can. That’s why the blogs are so encouraging, though with some exceptions there’s not much actual reporting on them. (Understandable, reporting takes time and money.) So this idea of allowing internet providers to discriminate against content is very dangerous.

As for steps to take about the FCC, write to your Congressman! People on both sides of the aisle have raised questions about the vote; this one’s not over yet. www.moveon.org has form letters and addresses.

And thank you, Governor Dean—your campaign has me feeling more excited than I have ever been about a presidential candidate, and more hopeful about where this country is going than I’ve felt in years.

I worked in journalism right after college; now I’m in law school and I feel better about my profession. What does that say about the state of our media? It’s very upsetting to me that countries with no First Amendment and much more restrictive libel laws have a healthier press, more willing to challenge the government on serious issues, than we do. And media consolidation seems to be the biggest single factor in this.

Fortunately, the internet came along to save us just as TV and radio news went from bad to worse. There’s a famous remark by someone—A.J. Liebling, maybe?—about how freedom of the press only helps people who own a press. Now almost anyone can. That’s why the blogs are so encouraging, though with some exceptions there’s not much actual reporting on them. (Understandable, reporting takes time and money.) So this idea of allowing internet providers to discriminate against content is very dangerous.

As for steps to take about the FCC, write to your Congressman! People on both sides of the aisle have raised questions about the vote; this one’s not over yet. www.moveon.org has form letters and addresses.

And thank you, Governor Dean—your campaign has me feeling more excited than I have ever been about a presidential candidate, and more hopeful about where this country is going than I’ve felt in years.

Richard Bennett:

“Bravo for you - choice is confusing, and it’s much better to have a Big Brother in Washington telling us how to think.”

You are absolutely right to insist, however ironically, that choice and competition in media are essential to the functioning of our democracy. But how would it be any better to have a Big Brother in the boardroom of a corporate media monopoly? I am a strong believer in free markets, but I am concerned about more than companies’ freedom to buy and sell each other. In the media market, I am concerned about the actual freedom of citizens to hear, speak, and be heard, all of which are diminished as more media outlets are controlled by fewer and larger companies. Greater profits for media companies clearly lie along the path of greater consolidation; so the invisible hand, in this case, is pushing in what I think we can agree is the wrong direction, toward less choice and less freedom. If you can’t stomach the idea of government as a check against this natural tendency of media to consolidate, what do you think we should do do instead? Cross our fingers and hope it doesn’t happen?

I don’t think it’s my place to educate anyone about copyright threat - especially not on Prof. Lessig’s blog! But I can refer you to a recent article on the topic that I think makes a good introduction.

I think we should consider donating to the Troll Goal fund just like we do on Dean’s regular blog. I plan to do some $$$ to Dean’s campaign right now in Richard Bennett’s name. Thanks Richard for feeding the troll!

http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=1090&px=1217779

We couldn’t agree with you more, Governor!

How do you feel about mp3s being “shared” online?

You should be the first to offer a compromise that allows the millions of Americans that love file sharing to continue, but get the artists paid as well.

Let W. tell us why 5 million Americans are criminals for swapping songs and other files.

Also, I think it’s time to throw a bone to the anti-globalization/anti-NAFTA crowd.

Maybe propose a study on the negative effects of globalization, and possible remedies.

Thank you SO much for blogging—-you’re one of us!

Jonathan in GA

BAD TROLL, BAD TROLL…. Oh, I’m sorry, several more donations for Dean just came in…. THANKS TROLL!

“A donation a day, keeps the Trolls away!”

http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=1090&px=1217779

Posted by Sam in San Diego at July 14, 2003 08:04 PM

Carlton, you make a very cogent point: “Yes, the Dixie Chicks are fine now, but remember at the time of the boycott, the outcome was not clear.”

I agree that Clear Channel’s decision to drop the Dixie Chicks’ copyrighted records from airplay just before the liberation of Iraq was a bad thing. One of those songs that wasn’t played, “Goodbye Earl”, is a strong statement in favor of taking pre-emptive, extra-legal action against an aggressor whose character is known. (For those who aren’t country music fans like Dr. Dean, this song celebrates the killing of a wife-beater by his victim and her friend; there’s a strong parallel between the action celebrated by this song and the action taken by the Coalition against a heinous dictator who tortures, abuses, and kills his own people.)

The national dialog on Iraq would have been greatly enriched if “Goodbye Earl” had been part of it, but as it turned out, the country music audience, which is very patriotic and not at all scripted by Aaron Sorkin, supported the liberation of Iraq anyhow. That’s just the way those folks are, lovers of freedom.

BTW, can somebody tell me why it’s a good thing to invade Liberia if it was a bad thing to liberate Iraq? I just can’t figger that one out.

Those of you that criticize Dean, I just ask you to remember a couple of things. How many 50-60 year old men have even a basic understanding of the internet? And, more to the point, how many have found an incredibly effective way to use the biggest benefit of the internet (i.e., you don’t need to be a megacorp to make a splash) to get the word out to 60K+ people and get them energized? My Dad is Dean’s age, Kerry’s age, etc., and I still have to help him weekly to do basic stuff. He probably would think DMCA is an illegal drug. I applaud anyone of that generation with the courage to risk making a few missteps to try to reach out to our generation in the most technically advanced and difficult way for him. Al Gore may claim to have invented the internet but every major candidate was around 40 or older when the internet took off. In my experience, this is a man who can learn quickly. That makes him a very saleable candidate to the “internet crowd.”

I think we start with the biggest and most basic threat to the internet: freedom of speech. A-s-h and friends (no I won’t spell his name out, thank you). Break it down, everything *has* to start here. No more random wiretaps of political enemies, no more bs about the unruliness of the internet being a breeding ground for terrorism. He is right - it is the only mass medium where someone can reach everyone with their message cheaply, which is both good and bad but is freedom of speech in its pureist form…currently its only pure form I would say.

There’s lots of other problems. DMCA which lots of hosts and billing companies seem to ignore in my experience, and for websites that accept credit cards, draconian rules coming down on high from VISA and Mastercard which are enforceable only because of a huge corporate monopoly which is ironically a nonprofit.

The things I see in Dean - and I don’t necessarily agree with him 100% on all issues - revolve around the fact he’s not part of a machine. No other electable candidate can really say this. He’s against corporate government, against restricting freedom of speech in the name of the “war on terrorism”…and from what I have seen on his blog the campaign responds to people’s suggestions directly in many cases. I can’t think of the last time the government responded to me.

Dean isn’t an internet prodigy like a lot of us. But the fact he has been able to learn to use the internet effectively to get his message out speaks volumes. It impressed me, and I believe that unlike the DNC elite he recognizes that it’s time to stop giving up on the younger generation and speak to them.

-doug

so do the airwaves belong to us or what? that’s what I often hear but I’ve never seen any other trace of it. We should act like we own the airwaves and finally get something of value from the media we created and sustain. Free airtime for qualified candidates for office! The stations should be forced to do this - so we finally get something we need out of something we supposedly own.

So Howard (can I call you that?), I’m amazed at your forthrightness on many of the issues you talk about - so thank you for that. It’s a great diversion to find a candidate one actually admires and watch that candidate tell the assholes off - so thank you for that. I hope it lasts a long time. I much prefer it to the spectacle of watching another wussy Democrat tiptoe through another lifeless campaign.

Please advocate for free campaign airtime for qualified candidates. Take back America and take back the airwaves - they’re ours.

Why is it that when people rail against media consolidation, Rupert Murdoch and Clear Channel are the only examples brought up? What about AOL-Time Warner? Are they smaller or less influental?

Richard Bennett,

thank goodness for a fair and balanced voice crying out in the sea of Liberalism present here.

Governor Dean is indeed pandering to his base, much like his fellow traveler William Safire over at the New York Times, who has consistently taken the line that “putting [media] outlets in fewer and bigger hands profits the few at the cost of the many.” I’m delighted that we have real Conservatives like Rupert Murdoch to stand up to such socialist nonsense!

Richard Bennet writes:

“Much better to have a Big Brother in Washington telling us how to think.”

Of course, this leads to the question, much better than what? If the choice is between Big Brother in Government vs. Big Brother in the Corporation, I’ll take Government.

In a market that is completely consolidated, the Corporation, unlike Government, has no accountability to the people for what they do. If they abuse their power, the citizenry has no alternative. In other words, while the citizenry can vote GWB out of the Oval Office, they cannot vote Rupert Murdoch out of his Chief Executive Office.

If you look at Public Media in other Western Democracies (CBC, BBC, and even NPR), you’ll find a media that owes more allegience to the public welfare than the bottom line. As a result, you’ll find these media to be more critical of our government than our increasingly centrailized corporate media is of ours.

Now, Richard and his ilk will probably cite Pravda in some follow up post, but again, this is just a red herring. We are more likely to get to a Pravda-like propanda-machine by the continuing centralization of a corporate media afraid to jeopardize its profits by challenging a corporate-friendly administration than we would through more diversified media or more public media.

Kilroy Was Here

Max-

I admit to being a social liberal - but in other aspects I am a real republican (i.e., I don’t want Georgie in my bedroom). They’ve criticized democrats as tax and spend, but what we have is a tax-cut and spend spend spend approach full of deceit and more. He’s not Establishment. Even the Dem Establishment is attacking him. I’m sick of Establishment candidates on either side who really are two degrees apart. It’s time for change, real change, and I (who have *never* contributed to a campaign or believed in one) believe this is our chance to take it all back from the Enrons and Exxons.

-doug

Bill Safire, like any number of other journalists, is protecting his own income. One of the fears aroused by streamlined media operations is that they’ll employ fewer journalists. I think we can all understand that.

Internet newbies, the vocabulary word of the day is “troll”; the shorthand definition is “conservative”, and it’s an attempt to silence diverse views by demonizing their authors. Don’t pay it any mind.

Doug, I’m a 50-60-year-old white, heterosexual male, and I *think* I understand the Internet pretty well, even though I didn’t invent it. (OK, I did invent the twisted-pair Ethernet standard and the WiFi MAC protocol, but those things aren’t essential to the Internet, not at all.)

Perhaps I should just leave this high-tech stuff to the kids.

Now, Richard and his ilk will probably cite Pravda in some follow up post

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of NPR/PBS. I’ve been interviewed for the New Hour and somehow the clips always end up on the cutting room floor, but Fox News and the L. A. Times love me. Go figure.

Richard,
No, troll does not mean conservative, although trolls tend to be conservatives on Dean’s blogs. A troll is someone who is being rude.

“‘Goodbye Earl’, is a strong statement in favor of taking pre-emptive, extra-legal action against an aggressor whose character is known. (For those who aren’t country music fans like Dr. Dean, this song celebrates the killing of a wife-beater by his victim and her friend; there’s a strong parallel between the action celebrated by this song and the action taken by the Coalition against a heinous dictator who tortures, abuses, and kills his own people.)”

Good to hear that you think foreign policy decisions of the United States should be based on country music lyrics. Get some help Richard.

Richard-

I wasn’t suggesting there aren’t tons of tech-savvy guys your age. I’m sure there are. But it’s unreasonable to expect someone who was 40 when the internet was invented to be an instant expert on all subjects related to the internet. I’m of the “kids” generation and every day I find a new angle that I didn’t expect. (Speaking as a 31 year old kid)

The internet is a fluid and volatile medium. A lot of the difficulties facing it now though are easily translateable to other mediums in broad strokes. Privacy being one. Spam being another. The EU has taken a sensible approach to dealing with these issues; the US has not, preferring to promote guillotine politics including automatic sentences for spam and dismiss privacy on the internet.

The problem the internet has come up against is most of the guys in charge are quite set in their ways and probably use a computer for e-mail at best if at all. We’re talking mainstream white upper class America here. They get p/od because of porn spam in e-mail so they try to enact a law to imprison spammers but to them spam is all the same, no concept of opt-in, double opt-in, or any of the complexities related to every issue here. I use this as an example because the EU’s own double-opt-in standard came from an American researcher.

They enable filters across the board which block ERA, politically incorrect, or sex education sites. They insist on holding ISPs responsible for things they can’t possibly control because they have no concept of how the internet really works. They just want to slam the door on free speech with filters and laws. Much like Saudi Arabia.

My big point was Dean isn’t old at heart in my view. He has passion, intelligence, and is capable of learning things. His staff responds to suggestions on their blog. He’s the only candidate to build his base from the ground up using the internet.

Do we really want another corporate presidency? Do we really want someone who thinks there ought to be limits to freedom of speech (Bush quote)?

-doug

“If the choice is between Big Brother in Government vs. Big Brother in the Corporation, I’ll take Government. In a market that is completely consolidated, the Corporation, unlike Government, has no accountability to the people for what they do.” - Kilroy was Here

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson and some others found themselves in a situation where the government had no accountability to the people. They had to fight a war to do something about it.

Corporations are somewhat easier to deal with.

Dan Chay: That’s a very big question; you could write a book to answer it… and Professor Lessig has already done so a couple of times, actually.

As I see it the problems boil down to increasing control of both the sources and flow of information, and of the content of that information, by wealthy interests. We already see big corporations like ClearChannel taking over more and more media outlets and controlling them more and more tightly, and that trend could spread to the internet as media companies merge with telecommunication companies and turn the wires that carry our data from common carriers into “information services”, over which they can exercise editorial control. And as for content, copyrights and patents continue to increase in both duration and scope of what they control: the DMCA (digital millenium copyright act) gives copyright holders the power to decide *how* you watch a movie that you’ve bought, the Bono act stretches the duration of that power to nearly a century, and patents have become applicable to mathematical algorithms and human genes.

The impact of concentrated corporate ownership of media on political speech and expression, and the potential impact of a more controlled internet, is fairly obvious. Less obvious is the impact of intellectual property laws on innovation, art, and cultural development.

A freewheeling atmosphere of ideas flowing back and forth is the best way for technological innovation to occur; when a new basic technology like the internet comes along, people rapidly find new and useful things to do with it and improve on one another’s work. But then they begin filing patents for things that are novel and nonobvious only because the technology itself is new and unfamiliar to patent officers, and waiting for someone else to come along and invent the same obvious thing so they can slap them with a lawsuit. It creates a chilling effect that those of us in the industry can already feel today, and I fear it will get worse.

Then there’s art and culture. My personal favorite example in this arena is our familiar depiction of Santa Claus, which would not have entered the public domain until 1977 if today’s copyright law had existed when Thomas Nast was drawing him for the first time. Many thousands of beloved children’s books, movies and pictures, not to mention happy memories of visiting Santa Claus at the shopping mall, would probably never have come into existence, and our culture would be very, very different when December rolled around. The lengthening and broadening of copyright protection may be strangling in the cradle some aspect of American culture that would have been just as important to our descendants in 2100 as Santa Claus was to us when we were growing up.

We were lucky to have a rich public domain; we owe it to our children and their children to see that their public domain is just as rich, if not richer.

Copyrights and patents are good things, in moderation; they provide incentives that drive innovation. Rolling back regulations that stifle innovation can be a positive thing too, and lead to a big burst of creativity. But it’s possible to have too much of any good thing, and that’s where we stand today: these tools that should have increased innovation are instead threatening to stifle it.

A balance is needed between the public interest and the various interests of artists, publishers, telecommunications companies and broadcasters, and things have gotten badly out of balance today. We need to bring the balance back, by either reversing the deregulation of media ownership OR increasing the deregulation of spectrum so that, one way or the other, monopoly is harder to achieve; by ensuring that our cables and phone lines be common carriers and not tools of increasing oligopoly; by protecting the public domain and fair use rights, and ensuring that patents are not improvidently granted.

I’m really pleased to watch Gov. Dean branch out to new and exciting constituencies who are eager to engage him in a conversation. I understand a bit about the hectic schedule the Governor must be living, having worked for a US Senator whose day was scheduled out in five minute blocks — when she wasn’t campaigning.

I urge people who like what they hear to consider exercising one of their strongest political voices and opening their wallets as a show of support. Dean is proving time and again — on Iraq, and on media monopolies — that he is willing to speak the truth. Donate a Dollar for the TRUTH.

it’s unreasonable to expect someone who was 40 when the internet was invented to be an instant expert on all subjects related to the internet

Dude, the Internet was invented in the 70s, and the World Wide Computer Web in the early 90s, so we’re not talking “instant expert” about people who finally learned how to operate a keyboard in only ten short years.

Don’t be such a bigot about your age; the Internet was invented by people in my age group, most of them white, heterosexual males with no particular political orientation. If you don’t like us a group, then leave us alone and go invent your own network.

Still waiting on that Liberia thing.

“…James Madison and Thomas Jefferson spoke of the fear that economic power would one day try to seize political power. No consolidated economic power has more opportunity to do this than the consolidated power of media. “

Hurrah! At last, someone who has read something of the Republic’s founding documents, and the supporting materials, and understands them.

Lincoln warned us, too, about the threat of corporations to the Republic. In very blunt, explicit terms.

I’d love to hear Dean speak out against corporate personhood (which is not to say against corporations, per se). I know of no single thing that (corrected) would put the people’s political leash back on corporations.

While the proposal to re-regulate the media is interesting, I still wonder if there’s another way to achieve the goal of open access to both broadcasting and internet access? If one reads Lessig’s “Code and..” we find that there are many ways to regulate behavior. He also mentions that the more indirect the regulation, the more unintended consequences one will have.

Instead of ownership limits perhaps we need to institute definite rules that enforce exactly the goals that are desired.

So, what law/regulation would you propose to congress and the FCC to insure that we have local content and voices while limiting centralized control?

Richard,

I get the impression that it’s Ok with you to suppress the ideas of others, as long as you agree with those doing the suppressing. What if, as Gov Dean suggests, a Corporation which has different views than you, decides they don’t want YOU making comments on the internet. Will it still be Ok with you? The fact that corporations have that power right now on TV and radio, and are exercising it, scares me to death! The internet is our only outlet for true freedom of expression. It’s a priviledge I hold dear. I think you do, too.

Speaking of censorship, the Dixie Chicks are actually doing fine, selling lots of (copyrighted) records and selling out their concerts, but that right-wing fascist Michael Savage is getting what he deserves, don’t you think?

» posted by Richard Bennett on Jul 14 03 at 4:35 PM

I just want to be clear about this. Are you saying that the Chicks saying that they are embarassed by President Bush is no different then Michael Savage telling someone to go get aides and die?

richard, jeez, yuck, it’s one thing to support our invasion of iraq, but to compare it to a woman killing her abusive husband?

in an abusive relationship, there’s an aggressor and a victim, yeah? one has power and control and the other can’t get any.

in the case of iraq v. the united states, there was no imminent threat, we’ve never been bombed by iraq, there was (as is becoming increasingly obvious) no reason to expect they might bomb us, they weren’t even in cahoots with anyone who HAD bombed us. in what way was iraq doing something even REMOTELY comparable to what a spouse does when he beats his wife for not wearing make up or “talking back”?

Richard,

Stop arguing a senseless point. I’m well aware the internet was invented, not in 1970s but I believe in 1964 - but unless you are DOD, a professor or a serious hacker then for all intensive purposes it became popular with Netscape I believe around ‘92, and I (grrr kicking myself) passed an opportunity as a naive young guy to buy stock in Netscape. I have been online since 94.

Sure it’s taken off great since then. It’s still for MOST people barely ten years old or less. For popular use I mean which in this country is what we are talking about. It is the single most important thing for freedom of speech in probably a century, and every day practically I deal with issues a more technologically interested admin could work to resolve, namely, copyright violations, spam and credit card monopolies.

Nonetheless, the point you keep eluding is that for once someone actually is trying to bridge the gap between your generation and ours at its widest point - technology. Find me twenty average American males in their 50s and 60s, working typical jobs with a wife and two kids, who use the internet for more than e-mail and a little web browsing. You’ve seized on this because you think it will distract from my argument by portraying me as an ageist. I am anything but. I have helped lots of people who are to use a term is despise “newbies” of all ages to get more internet savvy. Keep arguing this and I will ignore your posts. Argue my main point if you want to.

-doug

thank you so much for addressing the issue of media consolidation. too few politicians have been willing to speak out strongly against it.

To be fair, there is a bit of a culture clash here - the dean bloggers, lovers of the Troll Goal $$$ maker, and the more used-to-harsh-debate lessig bloggers, including the venerable Richard Bennett.

Richard Bennett is not a troll, he’s a long time (or at least as long as I’ve been here) member of the lessig blog community. He provides a much needed, though often disputed, conservative outlook on the ideas that Prof. Lessig posts about, and although he is much maligned, this blog would not be quite as good without him.

I urge Dean-bloggers to remember that this is a forum traditionally rich in debate, with few people that entirely agree with one another. Do not be surprised that the nature of this blog is quite different from blogforamerica - people frequent this blog typically because they have read Lessig’s books and/or are interested in copyright reform or at least in knowing what the copyright reform camp is up to ;)

If you are new to this blog, please take a minute to visit this website:
http://www.eldred.cc/
Prof. Lessig argued Eldred v. Ashcroft in the Supreme Court, in which he challenged the Sony Bono Copyright Extention act. The Court rejected Lessig’s claims, effectively saying that any copyright reform must be initiated by Congress. The Eldred site now hosts an ongoing petition which will hopefully initiate just that.

Again, if you are a visitor from the Dean blog, please take some time and read over the Eldred Petition. In turn, we will certainly take time to actively engage Dr. Dean’s ideas and positions.

Reversal of the FCC decision is a great first step, but how do we get past the multiple DC Circuit decisions finding previous ownership caps to be unconstitutional restraints of speech under the First Amendment?

While I, like many, disagree with the DC Circuit’s reasoning, and find it inconsistent with earlier supreme court decisions, it makes the simple act of reversing the FCC deregulation ruling much harder. (Not to mention, the DC Circuit cases in which the FCC was reversed were Michael Powell’s principal public reason for lifting many of the ownership caps).

Even if restoration of the caps passes and is signed into law by the current administration, the DC Circuit is unlikely to find any differently than it already has.

There should be a way to prevent monopolization and concentration of media ownership without running afoul of the first amendment, but I’m not sure if simply reinstating ownership caps likely to be found unconstitutional is the answer. I’m just not sure what it is.

Dana,
Thank you for explaining the culture clash. I hear and see enough angry, antagonistic discussions elsewhere so I will leave.

I support Howard Dean for President in 2004.

Dr. Dean,

I’d have to say your blog today is “darn good”.

• Amen to Michael Bryan re: Bring Back the Fairness Doctrine. Equal air time is about diversity of views.
• Amen to Ashworth re: physical proof of vote. Today’s technology makes Florida’s 2000 ballot problems look good.
• Amen to Alison S re: Lobby Capital Hill Now as a byproduct of DeanForAmerica. Please adopt MoveOn style persuasion on key issues. Along the way, give visibility to those fighting to keep or get House and Senate seats.
• Amen to Carlton Nettleton re: California’s budget shortfall lies with (a) over deregulation of energy companies, (b) collusion by those firms to game the system, and (c) Bush choosing to have his administration intervene on behalf of those firms.
• Amen to Jonathan in GA re: Bush insisting that copying files for personal use is theft, defining more people as criminals than voted for him in the last election.
• Thanks to Richard Bennet for provoking the conversation. I enjoy your blog, btw. It forces me to questions my/your dogma to better understand the issues. The freedom to disagree in public should be protected, right?

Where do you stand on…

• Fair Use? Lots of LessigBlog regulars can clarify the issues which, imho, comes down to when am I free to copy a TV show to videotape for personal, non-commercial use? Opponents say copyright controls should extend into every use, including personal ones.
• Library censorship? Laws passed require all Federally funded libraries to put censorbots on all publicly accessible Internet stations. Supporters say protect the children.
• Student / Child Speech rights? While laws say we can execute children, minors don’t have adult rights to commerce, speech, or privacy. Is this correct? What would you change, if anything?
• Medical Privacy? Does the new HIPPA law go far enough to protect patient privacy? How fast should we adopt Europe’s more expansive definition of privacy rights?

Richard cites Fox as an exemplary media arm because they include his opinion, while NPR/PBS must be Pravda-like because they do not include his opinion.

However, this seems to undermine the thrust behind Richard’s first point. Richard was worried about regulation because that would put too much power in the hands of the government. (See the whole Big Brother comment.) The logical extension of this type of reasoning is that the media should be skeptical of government propaganda, provide facts and opinions that allow the citizenry to consider all sides of an issue, and serve the public good.

However, of all of our major news outlets, Fox is the least likely to hold this administration’s feet to the fire. In fact, Fox News is more likely to broadcast slavishly unskeptical, pro-Government content than CNN, NPR, PBS, etc.

If Richard is truly worried about the power of the Government, Fox is the media he should rail against the most. Fox News, and its Hearst-like jingoistic, pro-Government voice provide one of the greatest obstacles to a free public receiving the information necessary to hold their government accountable.

NPR and PBS, in contrast, provide several outlets for skeptical, objective examination of our government, both during Democratic and Republican administrations. PBS has many programs that provide conservative viewpoints (Washington Week in Review, The McLoughlin Group) and business viewpoints (Marketplace, Nightly Business Report). Fox does not provide any sort of similar liberal viewpoint. (You’d never find “The Nightly Labor Report” on Fox).

During the Clinton presidency, NPR and PBS dilligently reported on the scandals, providing similar levels of coverage as that of other media. I remember in great detail the wall-to-wall 24 hour coverage my NPR station provided of the impeachment hearings and Senate deliberation, for example. I think one would be hard-pressed to find the same level of objectivity on Fox.

But, from Richard’s remark regarding his bruised ego, I think that vanity more than ideals are the motivation to his message.

Kilroy Was Here

Indeed, consider Mr. Bennett in the way baseball players view swinging a heavier bat before hitting…it’s tough practice. It’s practice for arguing with people who’s opinions on matters actually count. The hard part is realizing that he’s putting more effort into arguing with you than actually listening to you, or trying to understand where you’re coming from. So all in all, not a very *good* arguer, just an energetic one. good luck.

Governor Dean,

Why did you seal your gubernatorial papers from public dissemination?

Dr. Dean,

I’m going to be blunt. I hope you don’t mind.

Most of the people that regularly read this blog are up to speed on issues of copyright law, so I hope this particular post was meant to be an introduction to, and not the body of, your position on the media.

Media consolidation is a big problem, and it has been ever since the early days of television. Three major networks carried most of the TV programs, and the only other sources of information were the town paper and the radio. Nowadays, it has of course gotten far worse. All aspects of the media have been subjected to consolidation after deregulation—and each time we have a Bush recession, struggling companies get swallowed up.

The most significant part of this problem is the fact that these companies are themselves given eternal life—they can only be killed by the market. They have no natural life span, and they have been foolishly given the same rights as people were granted under the 14th Amendment.

Last March (or was it April?), I talked to you about a plan to abolish term limits on corporate charters and to protect American entrepreneurs by placing protective tariffs on multinational corporations—not states—that had documented human rights violations. Your response was that something had to be done and that you were going to talk to some friends of yours in law about the viability of the plan. It’s my hope that Dr. Lessig was one of these friends.

At any rate, I know the campaign trail has left you ridiculously busy, but I’d like some answers, and this blog is a perfect forum to give them.

I plan on caucusing for you in Iowa, by the way.

~Eddie

Evan, thank you very much for your cogent explanation of the basic ideas discussed on this blog. I’ll readily admit I am simply a Dean supporter and came here to learn more. I have.
I do have an on topic question for Dr. Dean though. While doing his undergrad work, my son worked on a DNA research project. The work was very interesting but there were disturbing side issues that popped up. I had no idea scientists were so propietary. In the world of ideas it seems that exploring and sharing discoveries can only be good for all. But in the current climate scientists seem to be compelled to guard every little bit of info they come across. This has got to stifle inventiveness. To use a very common problem, with respect to lowering the cost of prescription drugs how would you encourage a more vigorous and open research community?

But, from Richard’s remark regarding his bruised ego, I think that vanity more than ideals are the motivation to his message.

My ego, dear one, is pretty stout, so you needn’t worry about it. The point is that NPR/PBS/The News Hour exercises a heavy hand of censorship to spin the news a certain way, and I’ve seen this at work at first hand. It’s my experience that Fox is more accomodating to liberal views, and this is partly driven by my experience where they asked me to debate Neil Cavuto on Martha Stewart. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes of a news gathering operation that the average citizen isn’t aware of (sometime ask me about Daniel Schorr and Lowell Weicker during the Watergate hearings).

The number one issue for all voters in these times of focus groups and polling has got to be whether these candidates believe the things they say or are just parroting the material their handlers give them. Ex: Dean tells the NAACP he’s against racial profiling. Can Dean defend this position to the families of the 9/11 victims who just might be happier today if there had been a little closer scrutiny of Arab males in airports on 9/11?

That’s the test of character, not just sucessfully doing the serial pandering game that they all do.

Above, I see blame flying left and right (literally) over who and what caused the budget crisis in California.

Right-wingers like Bennett hold that it is leftist “special interests”, leftists blame the energy industry market manipulation. As tempting as it is to use the crisis as political fodder, the truth is that both sides are right about some things, and wrong about others.

The bottom line in CA is that we were riding high on the 1990’s economy, and when the economy tanked so did tax revenues. THAT is the primary problem, and it is neither the fault of industry nor of special interests. The budget deficit is not really Gray Davis’s fault, nor that of the legislators. They did not deflate the dot-com bubble, nor surpress consumer confidence.

Conservatives are wrong when they fault the government and the special interests for causing the crisis- and I think the most that can be said in agreement with them is that these interests should be more willing than they have been to make sacrifices to bring the budget back into line.

Liberals are (mostly) wrong to blame the crisis on energy market manipulation. It is certainly true that 10 billion or so of the deficit comes from the manipulation, but 10 billion out of the nearly 40 billion total shows that market manipulation is not the main problem. However, it is an important factor and the liberals are right to pressure the feds.

The ultimate solution to the crisis in California is to get the economy moving again. Blame-mongering does not help achieve this goal.

You may now return to your regular scheduled topic.

(ps- Go Howard! I am with you 100% on the FCC regulations. And I am confident that you will take the 2004 election.)

Thank you Dana.

Context always helps.

Dean, you have it ass-backward on the media regulations. Clear Channel et al make their decisions based on ratings, which are determined by (pause for emphasis) what the people want to see and hear. PBS, BBC, CBC, and other state-run media are bad not because they are liberal, but because they take a side while feeding off of tax dollars. Let them go private and be as liberal as they want. Meanwhile, Fox News succeeds not because Rupert Murdoch owns everything, but because Fox News taps into an ideological zeitgeist that CNN, MSNBC, and the broadcast stations completely ignore. That is, Fox News has found it prosperous to take into account the conservative, Republican viewpoint. Now, if everybody became like Fox News, the strategy wouldn’t work, ratings would drop, and a liberal Fox News would rise up to suck in the market for liberal media. Therefore, the market drives content, not corporate ownership. Corporations are interested in making money, not thought control. The best way to make money is to give the people what they want. Why should government stand in the way of that?

I have to say that I agree most of what Mr. Bennett is saying. I don’t think that simple media re-regulation is going to solve the problem of corporate-controlled media. I also hope that Dr. Dean will stick to his guns and not kiss a single square inch of ass on his campaign. He will lose if he begins to.

I also agree with Mr. Bennett’s position on Fox News, though I despise Fox and their puffery. I agree with the democratization of media. I agree that conservative viewpoints need to be aired nationally alongside liberal, libertarian, moderate, and socialist viewpoints. But points of view are not readily disseminated through corporate power, which is why caps must be imposed on the charter length of the existing news corporations. This would give the companies some time to prepare for their eventual demolition, and the economy some time to adjust to short-term charters—the kind of charters the Founders preferred.

Richard Bennett’s a GOP troll from way back, folks. He used to pollute Salon’s Table Talk message boards with his specious arguments before it went to pay-to-post.

Sigh. Richard thinks that the GOP will let him in on their Grover-Norquist-designed gravy train. Sorry, Richard — the only thing that you’ll get out of Bush (besides the knowledge that less and less of your taxes — or Halliburton’s taxes, for that matter — will be going to nonwhite nonrich people) will be a GOPTeamLeader mug.

For a physician, Dr. Dean, your understanding of current events is amazingly thin.

Thirty years ago there were only 3 television stations, ABC, NBC, CBS and maybe, considering where you lived, PBS. The only news available was from these three, New York based, sources. Newspapers all reprinted the same columns and editorials. The source of news and information available was very narrow and controlled by east-coast elites, but of course you come from east-coast elites so maybe that’s OK in your world.

Today, we have the big-three, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and most-importantly the internet. There is no central control of news and information. You’re worried about conservative-talk-radio, but you have no concern with relentless, government funded, radical left NPR.

You are, as usual, self-serving and transparent on this issue Dr. Dean. Today the american people have access to more information and more sources than ever before and maybe that’s what you and your friends on the radical, anti-american left are concerned about

Just a comment about the current state of free expression-in working for our local Dean Meetup, we have been trying to post flyers advertising…Meetup. WELL, we have found that places that allow you to post a flyer are now few and far between. The local library…? No, if it is political. The local community center…? No, if it is political. Grocery Store? We took the bulletin board down because it was too controversial. Put up flyers at work? Torn down in a day.

We found the only local outlet is at the University (Michigan State), which has a rule that all flyers from student organizations can be posted on any bulletin board on campus. But, at MY community center, and MY library, no.

Now of course I understand that if I am allowed to put up a Dean flyer, the young Nazis can post also. Yet how bland and uninformative we have allowed our world to become.

Thank God for the internet. The info may sometimes be bogus, but it is FREE AND UNCENSORED. Pretty frightenening and enlightening to see how hard it is to report just a darn meeting!

I hate to spoil the party over here but I think I’m going to disagree with you folks, and I hope you guys will indulge me by hearing me out.
Leaving aside the moral question we really have to ask ourselves about where anyone (the FCC) gets a right to tell anyone else (the media) how to invest and develop their enterprises. Without the sacrafices and “selfish” contributions that those that create value in an economy make, we would still be living in a cave picking berries to survive, (and watching one government channel). Always think of the staggering hard work that media moguls like Steven Gottleib make, and after that their entire life’s work the New York Times can destroy with one poorly scribbled article. (article http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/14/business/media/14TUNE.html)(you may have to login - “How dare the evil media conglomerates make us login to read the product that they produced” /sacrasm). Keep in mind (much as in the economy as a whole a mere ten percent is responsible for virtually all production) in media, a very small group of responsible, capable, “selfish”, productive people produce virtually all the financing and organization responsible for running the strongest and most diverse media complex in the world. A media where whether Republican or Democrat; Libertarian or Green every politician gets a voice, and has that voice challenged respectfully. It is this productive core of talented people we want to encourage. One Rupert Murdoch or Ted Turner goes farther in producing a diverse and put together package than 100,000,000 whiny libertarians, or leftists. They need to be encouraged, not held back.

To put it another way, let’s sketch two futures:
Future one - An “Equalization of Opportunity” bill is passed which disallows any one person from owning more than one media outlet in one city. Except for in the very largest cities, there aren’t more than a handful of people with the vision, the capablity, the intestinal fortitude to do what it takes to create a quality media channel. Because there is no genuine competition, no profit motive, and no hope worth the sacrafice for the producers what you end up is with a mediocre half-hearted effort by uninspired fat cats aware of their monopolistic position. Let’s give an example::An exec comes up with an idea to radicalize prime-time. “Reality Television,” he says,”is the wave of the future. It will allow viewers to connect and identify with what happens”. Equalization of Opportunity hires think, do I want to risk money and prestige on this hairbrained, out of the box idea? There isn’t a great deal of payoff I will get if it goes well. Brand name is inconsequetial since without networks there is no cross-synegry, so what benefit can justify risking this new idea.
Future Two: eight or nine major networks, each one alone dwarfing the BBC, the French Government spokesmedia, and the CBC; in cutthroat competition for viewership and advertisers. Every network develops an entire pallette of channels, that appeal to the high-brow, to the low-brow; to the left, to the right; to children, to adults, to the elderly; in a way that is specifically targetted to the needs and wants of that audience. The line goes out the door and around the block of productive, capable and “selfish” people willing to sacrafice their comfort and security in investing in trying to join the fray. Let’s look at that example again::An exec comes up with an idea to radicalize prime-time. “Reality Television,” he says,”is the wave of the future. It will allow viewers to connect and identify with what happens”. Profit focussed and “self”-interested individuals spring up, knowing the risks of such an enterprise and revolutionize the boob tube.
Through which future is a better media produced, through which medium is the best brought out of society, through which medium are people served better?

Dr Dean, I remember asking you about the DMCA and Mickey Laws in NH, at the SEE Center. At the time you said I was the first to ask you, and you therefore couldn’t provide a proper position. I’m glad, based on your posting this week, that you found the right one. Just one more reason I support you through good and bad. Your bases are covered, so give all ya got against Bush. And when you are president, bring Larry onboard - he is wise far beyond his years. Dean Has The FIRE!!!

Andrew:

you say: “The best way to make money is to give the people what they want.”

I sure would love to think so. But that would assume that there’s some sort of two-way communication with the audience. Despite what you might think in the world that supports your theory, you can’t actually vote for what comes on TV, let alone how the news is reported.

Ratings, you say ? Riggghhht. Just like Richard pointed out, when there were only 3 networks, we ate what they fed us, anyway. And continue to do so. Ratings are basically irrelevant when it comes to news reporting. Most ratings are there for metering audience response to entertainment, not coverage.

some simple math here:

when more companies own the airwaves, you will have more companies looking for markets to get into…left, right, centrist, whatever. when there are less companies, then content WILL be shared across all media outlets…or, at least, it’s much more possible, and likely. Hence: not as much of a diverse set of viewpoints.

Now, Mr. Bennett has argued in the past that he thinks that it doesn’t matter…that “TVnetwork A” will compete with “TVnetwork B”, “RadioChannelC”, and “NewspaperD”, with *opposing* viewpoints, especially if they are owned by one company. His theory is that, just like in employee corporate culture, that each media channel will be ‘rewarded’ for having diverse viewpoints. I’ll leave it up to someone else to explain to him what a naive opinion that is.

point B…
So going along with your theory, if “The best way to make money is to give the people what they want.” is indeed true, then it should be true whether or not there is few companies providing media, or many. So why not many ??

And we are now all better off because of the focus groups that like watching people eat worms.

Anyway, I disagree with your dichotomy, The Law Student. As these corporations desire to stay competitive in a free market, why would smaller markets access become any less competitive? With a smaller pool of advertising money to draw from, you would think each media source would trying even more ardently to outmaneuver the other with new products and innovation.

Then again, I’m imagining a scenario in which media corporations have long since had their term limits expire.

I do not understand where you get the idea that cities would have their media monopolized when regulations are passed that don’t allow them to monopolize media—i.e. the “Equal Opportunity” you speak of. What I see are smaller markets being created, in which driven local entrepreneurs have the means to compete for the attention of their readers and viewers.

What this would result in is not a lack of brand-name identification. Rather, it would more closely resemble the newspaper wars of the 19th century, and while many papers at that time resorted to yellow journalism, the profession has matured somewhat, and mainstream audiences have lost a lot of their appetite for libel. What I envision is a scenario in which people are fiercely loyal to their local paper, whichever one appeals most to them—in the manner that viewers are often fiercely loyal to Fox News. The key difference is that the media are more responsive and beholden to their readers/viewers when circulation is smaller and the leaders more accessible. The market becomes more competitive and more innovative.

Above, Andrew wrote:

‘Clear Channel et al make their decisions based on ratings, which are determined by (pause for emphasis) what the people want to see and hear. “

So the Clear Channel hired a market research team to determine whether or not listeners wanted the Dixie Chicks pulled off the air?

Dr. Dean,

I believe Madison and Jefferson had a solution to the “fear that concentrated economic power would one day try to seize political power”: it was to drastically LIMIT the scope of government power, so that the state could not supress the rights of the people, regardless of who held the reigns of power. The means by which they limited the scope of government power was the constitution, which they viewed as a document of enumerated powers for the government, NOT of enumerated rights for the people. The people’s rights - in their view - extended ANYWHERE that the government’s powers (as explicitly listed in the constitution) did not. And, to close this loop, nowhere in the constitution is listed the power to interfere with the free association of individuals as they form corporation, make contracts, buy and sell their property, i.e. engage in all of the actions which you imply should be legally restricted in your criticism of “big media”, whatever that means.

Now, I suspect like most modern liberals, you do not take the constitution literally. You therefore can rationalize that phrases like “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” do not actually mean that our government has no such powers. Your position is likely that it is the outcome that matters, not the process; that if protecting the freedom of the press means that the Dixie Chicks need to pay for their freedom of speech by losing air time and record sales, well, then we can’t REALLY have freedom of the press. Or perhaps you believe that freedom of speech means you don’t have to be courageous enough to risk losing some income; that, in fact, it means that others must provide you with the means to speak and not criticize you, lest your feelings be hurt.

To hold those positions honestly and forthrightly would honor your reputation for being a straight-shooter. However, to rely on Jefferson and Madison to support a position which is in direct contradiction to their intentions at the founding of this country does no honor to your reputation, and is an insult to their memory and their legacy.

Sincerely,

Roger S. Zimmerman

Dr. Dean,

Please forgive me, but I think you’ve entirely missed the point of the Dixie Chicks episode. What I saw happen was several United States Senators implicitly threaten a private company with the loss of its radio license if it didn’t broadcast the musicians favored by the senators. That’s an abuse of power, and a real threat to the First Amendment, which is precisely what a private company deciding what musicians to play is not.

nice to know someone speaks my language, dean. keep it up and you have my vote.

Mr. Zimmerman, I’m afraid that you have missed the point and also, to a small degree, misrepresented the opinions of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison.

In fearing that economic power would someday try to seize political power, they had in mind the East India Company, which represented the commercial interests of the British elite—those in power. This case is not a perfect comparison, but none existed at that time. My point is that when economic and political power were shared, human rights were violated. The colonists were unfairly taxed, and seeing as they were not represented, they dumped the tea in Boston harbor. This, along with the anger manifested toward the British at their former religious persecution and at class warfare, led to the American Revolution. But I digress.

It is true that they sought to limit federal power by holding it to the Constitution. However, James Madison was a Federalist, and he co-authored the Federalist papers, which adjucated a stronger central government than under the Articles of Confederation.

It is also true that Thomas Jefferson envisioned a nation of citizen-farmers, which would have no strong economic power beyond self-sufficiency. Neither Jefferson nor Madison favored the existence of corporations, nor would either of them have supported corporate personhood and eternal charters. That is what their opposition to economic power would more closely resemble—not simply a cap on governmental power.

I do believe that the open source Internet as we know it today does posses the properties and the attributes to empower the ‘little person’ or the ‘one-man-band’ to impose certain agendas (to some extend) on the large companies.

In the open source Internet as a possible antidote to corporate media hegemony I have argued exactly this: the open source Internet, as a result of open source movement, manifests itself as a possible antidote to the corporate media hegemony, not only in the US but also throughout the world.

Hubris, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but corporations are, by legal precedent, considered private citizens.

The precedent, amazingly enough, comes from the HEADNOTES of the Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad Company case in the Supreme Court, in which the court recorder records a statement by Chief Justice Waite, in which he claims that corporations are persons.

Headnotes are not legally binding, however, subsqeuent court cases have used Mr. Waite’s statements as precedent, thereby establishing a binding precedent that corporations have legal personhood.

Roger Zimmerman: Freedom of the press in no way involves freedom to buy as large a % of the airwaves—which belonged to the public in the first place—as you can get your hands on. It doesn’t mean that anymore than it means we each have to be given our own printing press. The Supreme Court interprets the 1st Amendment to allow restriction of CONTENT on broadcast media like TV so the government can certainly prevent ownership. What you’re talking about sounds much more like the Lochner court’s “freedom of contract” than anything Jefferson or Madison ever wrote.

I think I’ve located one of the Jefferson quotations Dean is referring to:
“With money we will get men, said Caesar, and with men we will get money. Nor should our assembly be deluded by the integrity of their own purposes, and conclude that these unlimited powers will never be abused, because themselves are not disposed to abuse them. They should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price.”

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch10s9.html

To me this supports Dean’s view much more than yours. Can’t find a Madison quote offhand.

Richard,

Regarding your question as to Governor Dean’s position on Liberia:

First, it is a question of morality, rather than (or at least primary to) pragmatism. Most progressives are of the opinion that the US’ singular position of dominance comes with a singular responsibility to humanity. Part of that responsibility involves looking and acting the part of “leader.”

The perceived conflict at the center of this question is “National Interest-ism” vs. Humanitarianism. I say these two “-isms” are one and the same. Unlike an objectivist, a progressive will tell you that the good of humanity is the good of the individual, with the qualification that this is a reciprocal relationship.

Back to looking and acting the part of leader. It undermines our credibility of a leadership role if it is perceved (correctly or not) that the leader’s interests a.) are not aligned with the interests of the group, and/or b.) are prioritized above the interests of the group. Iraq created that perception, and was bad for humanity, and for our national interests. Regardless of whether or not the invasion of Iraq was justified, or even right, it was perceived as a misplaced, self-serving, lashing out by the US towards a weaker opponent, in opposition to world opinion. Further, it undermined the efforts of international institutions (all of which we “lead,” at least in spirit) in the middle east.

This was bad for humanity, and bad for our national interests. The situation in Liberia, and our intervention, is/would be a polar opposite. Our leadership is desired. It is a chance to repair our tarnished images, and help humanity. There is no reason not to do it, Somalia be damned.

I could go on, but I don’t think you’re listening now — you’re framing your response.

Ian

Roger Zimmerman said, “The means by which they limited the scope of government power was the constitution, which they viewed as a document of enumerated powers for the government, NOT of enumerated rights for the people. The people’s rights - in their view - extended ANYWHERE that the government’s powers (as explicitly listed in the constitution) did not.”

On the other hand, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia stated the other day that, “The Constitution just sets minimums. Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires.”

So, I guess Justice Scalia is a liberal?

I can’t believe some people here are actually *for* media de-regulation and consolidation! Even the NRA, John McCain and Olympia Snowe are both republicans that are against the FCC’s most recent rulings. It seems the dittoheads have gone to a new level if they are for consolidation.

The only people that seem to be for what the FCC has done are the ones that are being bought by big media! They are lucky enough to have bought the chairman of the house commerce committee and will kill any legislation banning cross ownership and lowering the % back to 35%.

This isnt even a Clear Channel or Fox News issue. This isnt a left or right issue. This isn’t a liberal or conservative issue. This is an issue that is very much like Dr. Dean. It is an issue that is hard to pigeonhole. It is an issue for the people. It is an issue that puts the public good over the bottom line.

I commend Dr. Dean. He is a true independent thinker that decides issues based on the facts (not the polls). Gov. Dean seems to approach politics like a physician. He finds the problem and fixes it.

Richard,

Regarding your question as to Governor Dean’s position on Liberia:

First, it is a question of morality, rather than (or at least primary to) pragmatism. Most progressives are of the opinion that the US’ singular position of dominance comes with a singular responsibility to humanity. Part of that responsibility involves looking and acting the part of “leader.”

The perceived conflict at the center of this question is “National Interest-ism” vs. Humanitarianism. I say these two “-isms” are one and the same. Unlike an objectivist, a progressive will tell you that the good of humanity is the good of the individual, with the qualification that this is a reciprocal relationship.

Back to looking and acting the part of leader. It undermines our credibility of a leadership role if it is perceved (correctly or not) that the leader’s interests a.) are not aligned with the interests of the group, and/or b.) are prioritized above the interests of the group. Iraq created that perception, and was bad for humanity, and for our national interests. Regardless of whether or not the invasion of Iraq was justified, or even right, it was perceived as a misplaced, self-serving, lashing out by the US towards a weaker opponent, in opposition to world opinion. Further, it undermined the efforts of international institutions (all of which we “lead,” at least in spirit) in the middle east.

This was bad for humanity, and bad for our national interests. The situation in Liberia, and our intervention, is/would be a polar opposite. Our leadership is desired. It is a chance to repair our tarnished images, and help humanity. There is no reason not to do it, Somalia be damned.

I could go on, but I don’t think you’re listening now — you’re framing your response.

Ian

Sorry about the multiples, I guess we are stressing this blog’s bandwidth/capacity…

I figured it was only a matter of time before the Power Mongers started to target the internet, the last power base of the people. It is obvious the way the Bush administration has assaulted our civil liberties in so many areas that they mean to silence the masses. “Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of this Nation must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech.” — Benjamin Franklin. It is very crucial that those of us who haven’t been scared silent by this radical right wing agenda gather up our courage and become a chorus to the rest of the country. This will only remain the “land of the free and the home of the brave” if we don’t wimp out and let the tyrants take our freedom from us.

Right. So I suppose we’d be better off if all media were regulated? Everything judged by the omniscient state? It’s simple: either you support state interference in speech, or not. This is not about Fox News seizing the presidency in a bloody coup. This is about whether the State should or should not determine what views are broadcast. Media deregulation is a step towards getting the state out of that business.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Corporations may not be individuals, but they are formed by individuals. Denying them rights means doing the same to the people owning and running the corporations.

Is it the role of a liberal state to determine who shall or shall not be allowed to run the printing presses (or TV channels)? Would the founding fathers ever have supported using the coercive power of the state to shut down a printing press they do not like? For that is what you are proposing to do against Fox News or Clear Channel.

Law Student, I’m glad you’ve read Atlas Shrugged, where everyone has one of two personalities. In that world no rational person disagrees with you. Unfortunately, this is not that world. People can be “looters” in Rand’s sense of the word and still get by just fine. In fact, I’d argue that this is exactly what media conglomerates are. They’re not the imbeciles of Atlas Shrugged, who regulate themselves into oblivion, but maximize profits by selectively playing the game of economics and the game of politics. They get to have their cake and eat it to, at least in your false dichotomy.

What we have are people who, at the flip of a switch, can deny entire people access to vast amounts of information. You’re passing off our rights from an entity that, insofar as it follows the Constitution, is limited to one that is essentially unlimited. What we need is a way to limit both.

I do find it amusing, though, that you swiped Rand without attribution. I mean, you even mentioned an “Equalization of Opportunity” bill. Isn’t that a bit like taking something you haven’t earned?

Richard writes:
My ego, dear one, is pretty stout, so you needn’t worry about it. The point is that NPR/PBS/The News Hour exercises a heavy hand of censorship to spin the news a certain way, and I’ve seen this at work at first hand.

I’m glad Richard’s ego is stout, since my vanity comment of mine was too much bomb-throwing a not enough lamp-lighting. I hope he accepts my apologies.

However, if Richard’s main point was censorship of views, then that doesn’t jibe with criticism of government regulation of the media. Unless, Richard is arguing that government regulation of the media somehow creates or enhances the type of censorship Richard has viewed. I’d like to hear his thoughts on why that would be.

(Of course, one man’s ‘censorship’ is another’s ‘judicious editing.)

It would be hard to argue; however, that government regulation increasing the number of media owners and types of content would decrease skeptical inquiry of the government.

Moreover, it would be far easier to argue that centralization of the media coupled with a need to show profit would be more likely to prevent skeptical inquiry of the Government.

That argument would go as follows:

• The main goal of centralized corporate news media is to increase profits. Any act that may endanger profits is less likely to receive airplay.
  
• The main content source of centralized corporate news media is government officials themselves.
  
• Anything that damages relationships or limits access to government officials could potentially endanger the main content source.
  
• Endangerment of the content source could endanger profits.
  
• Ergo, centralized corpor