Obama Urges Swift Passage of FCC-Blocking Bill

Senate Commerce Committee Resolution Reverses FCC Decision on Newspaper-Broadcast Cross-Ownership

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 4/24/2008 1:50:00 PM

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said Thursday that the recent newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership-rule change approved by the Federal Communications Commission was the kind of special-interest-engineered change he opposes, and he sought a quick vote on the bill in the full Senate. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who is motormanning the effort, said Tuesday that the bill was on a fast track.

“We must ensure that we have an open media market that represents diverse voices throughout the country," Obama said in a statement e-mailed to B&C. "The rules promoting the public interest and diversity in media ownership are too important for the FCC to accept an agenda supported by the Washington special interests that I have fought against for more than a year.”

Both Obama and his Democratic presidential opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), co-sponsored the bill, introduced by both Dorgan and former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.). The bill -- a resolution, actually -- essentially invalidates the FCC's Dec. 18 vote to loosen the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban.

Obama also weighed in against further media deregulation at an FCC field hearing in Chicago last year.

“I commend chairman [Daniel] Inouye [D-Hawaii] and Sen. Dorgan for fully taking into account the interests of all of our minority communities by demanding a transparent and inclusive rule change process," Obama continued Thursday. "I urge my colleagues to expeditiously move this bill to the Senate floor.”

Although the FCC did not lift the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban entirely, as broadcasters had wanted, and it took no other deregulatory steps -- and arguably took a couple of reregulatory ones -- key Democrats were not appeased. They also argued that FCC chairman Kevin Martin short-circuited the rule-change-vetting process by announcing it in a New York Times op-ed, rather than through official channels, and by not allowing enough time for response before the December vote.