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When it comes to media consolidation, the Federal Communications Commission is feeling the heat from all sides. Today activists took to the streets outside the FCC headquarters to deliver more than 200,000 signatures from people all over the U.S. who are calling on the agency to halt its rush to gut media ownership protections.
The FCC has been trying to push through these bad rule changes as quietly as possible and the mainstream media — which doesn’t like to report on itself — has gone along for the ride.
So today we took matters into our own hands. We printed out hundreds of our own broadsheet newspaper —the Free Press — and distributed them to passersby, highlighting opposition to greater media consolidation from the courts, Congress, civil rights leaders and President Barack Obama. Get your own copy here.
Free Press and CREDO Action collected the 200,000 signatures in under a month’s time. This is the greatest number of signatures on media ownership submitted to the agency in recent years.
“Here’s a news flash for the FCC: The public hates the idea of more media consolidation,” said Free Press President and CEO Craig Aaron.
Free Press plans to sue the FCC if it ignores the public and moves ahead with its rule changes. Free Press and our allies have sued the FCC twice before and won both times.
Nearly 50 House members and 13 senators have also written letters warning the FCC that it must abandon its plan to relax media ownership rules. Most recently, Sen. Frank Lautenberg wrote a letter outlining how Rupert Murdoch’s local TV stations have ignored New Jersey communities. Indeed, as opposition grows, Murdoch’s News Corp. remains one of the few companies still pushing the FCC to lift the 30-year-old cross-ownership ban, which prevents a company from owning both a newspaper and TV stations in a single market.
“Chairman Genachowski should enforce the existing law, not push the other FCC commissioners to change the rules at Rupert Murdoch’s bidding,” said CREDO Political Director Becky Bond.
Responding to public pressure earlier this month, the FCC tried to kick the can down the road and delay its vote to the New Year. Today activists are making it clear that America won’t stand for more media consolidation and the FCC needs to back down altogether.
Tell the FCC: no more media consolidation.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
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We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
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With love, rage, and solidarity,
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