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• Monday, December 3, 2007 09:08 PM

  It runs deeper than Taft-Hartley

  At least with broadcast media, it runs much deeper than that.

  The broadcast spectrum belongs to us all. It is part of the commons of this nation, and in fact, that idea was, in part, behind the Communications Act of 1934 which formed the FCC in the first place.

  Broadcasters are still licensed to operate in the "...public interest, convenience or necessity," and it is within the power of the FCC -- if not the will -- to deny a license to any broadcaster which fails to do so.

  Unfortunately, the FCC has abdicated that responsibility, and we-the-people have failed in our duty to force that body to do its job, just as we've failed the nation in so many other ways.

  I grew up in and around broadcasting -- shot my first roll of news film in 1962. Edward R. Murrow was my personal hero. I was working for a TV station in Dallas in November, 1963. Left TV disillusioned in 1971 for academe, and moved into advertising two years later because I figured if I was going to be a prostitute, it was better to be a high-priced one than a street hooker. Sold my first freelance article in 1972, and have been a freelance word-pusher on and off since then, with real jobs in media production here and there when I needed the money.

  And one thing I've learned from all that experience is that people get the media -- TV, radio, print, Internet -- that they deserve and demand, and absolutely nothing more.

  But they are still our airwaves -- yours and mine. That includes not only radio and TV stations, but the satellite links and microwave relays used by cable companies, and if we've lost control of them through sloth and apathy, we can take them back from Clear Channel and NewsCorp and CNN and Time-Warner if we only have the collective will to do it.

  Unfortunately, another thing I learned is that the majority of Americans just aren't interested in ideas and progress and knowledge any more. They just want to be entertained, and are more excited by a 42-inch flat screen TV than by the possibility that they could actually find out what was really going on if they demanded it.

  Even so, I remain unwilling to just say, "Let 'em have the mainstream media and sink under the weight of their own lust for power and money."

  No. They're my media, and I want my share of them back.

  Anyway, somebody's got to keep tilting at windmills.

  —Donf Read Donf's other letters
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