TO:

Honorable Senators and House Of Representatives
Committees on , Communications, Transportation, Infrastructure
Which oversee the Federal Communications Commission

FROM: PUT YOUR NAME, ADDRESS, TELEPHONE # HERE AND TYPE IT IN AGAIN AT BOTTOM OF LETTER

Dear Honorable Senators and House of Representatives:

I would like to file my personal complaint concerning the recent FFC ruling changes to allow corporations to allow large media corporations to buy up more TV stations, newspapers and radio stations.

Our democracy has been dealt a heavy blow by these recent ruling changes.

Big media corporations will not have to make a commitment to provide better news much less even unbiased news. The same with local news and children's programming. What is so disturbing is the fact that the new rules dramatically worsen opportunities for local news coverage, diversity of different views, and especially competition. Doesn't this remind you of the old robber barons slogan of ages ago, "public be damned?" from the Gilded Age.

These rulings have removed the ban on broadcasting and newspaper cross-ownership. They have raised the national cap on audience reach by station group owners to 45 percent. Corporations will now be able to own two stations in more markets and three in a handful of markets.

The airwaves belong to the American public, not the corporations. Yet, these corporations have laid claim to them. What is worse, the new rules allow new merger possibilities without any public-interest review. This is deplorable and a huge insult to Americans.

Under the FCC's new rules, one company can now own UFH TV stations in 199 of the 210 TV markets. This basically means that one corporation could own 95% of the television stations in this country. This places too much power in the hands of one corporation headed by a Chairman and a few board of directors. This means that a single corporation owning all of these stations could influence the elections for 98 U.S. Senators, 382 members of the House of Representative, 49 governors, 49 state legislators and the list goes on and on of what they could control.

This cross ownership of all these news media outlets means that local areas, one corporation could own its leading daily newspaper and many times its only newspaper, along with its top market television station in the area, the local cable company and as an extra five to eight radio stations, all in any American city.

Several years ago, the FCC changed the rules to allow one company to own as many radio stations as it wanted. The results prove what I just stated earlier. The local markets were monopolized with basically THREE national companies owning over 50% of the radio stations in America and in which they basically abandoned local news coverage and emergency services notices.

During the 911 attack and recent major catastrophes in the U.S. such as tornado damage, there is no local radio emergency notices from local radio stations. Why, because it is all automated at some central data bank that pumps the same music and programming to 100 other radio stations because most of these radio stations do not have local live disc jockeys to report on such local disasters. This is not in the best interest of Americans by any means. For Sale signs are already going up on many of them because the stations owners know one thing, either sell now or lose everything they have worked so hard for in their local areas.

More power in the hands the hands of a few corporations controlling all news media is an attack on our country's free speech. Corporations, because of their business interests in other corporations could use that power to prevent the reporting of important news. That is too great of a risk to take.

Now that three corporations will be able to own 95% of market news media, it means fewer journalists and independent ones will be reporting on many things, including exposing fraud, corruption of politicians and the list goes on and on of what will not be reported. Why, because the executives of these corporations that own these news media corporations are also heavy contributors to politicians. It is the old story, "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours", but the scratching is what the American public will no longer receive in honest news reporting.

An example of this control and power in the hands of a few is Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. It is a global media and entertainment empire. The company, which is one of the world's largest media conglomerates, publishes scores of newspapers The Times of London and books HarperCollins. The company's 80%-owned Fox Entertainment Group has significant entertainment holdings, including FOX Broadcasting, a TV network with 200 US affiliates in the US. It also owns Twentieth Century Fox films, and the Los Angeles Dodgers. It also owns 35 US TV stations and cable and satellite operations in Asia, Australia, Europe, and Latin America. More than 75% of News Corp.'s sales are from its US businesses.

In the UK, the newspaper arm for The News Corporation, it owns and publishes four national newspapers The Sun, The Times, News of the World and The Sunday Times. And let's not forget the DIRECT TV satellite programming that Murdoch owns.

And last, the News Corporation recent purchase of the majority of stock in Hughes Electronics. General Motors is the other majority stockholder of Hughes. Hughes makes all of the electronic parts for GM cars. How can a newspaper, who is suppose to report the facts and truth on all issues, especially consumer matters, be unbiased should a major defect is discovered in the electronic parts of the very cars they are making the electronic parts for?

Your rulings must be reversed to insure that the power of the free speech is not destroyed by allowing the power of the free press to be placed in the hands of few. This is not what this country was based upon for free speech and freedom of the press. And, I know that I am not the only one that has written to the FCC and their Congressman regarding these recent decisions. There have been hundreds of thousands.

William Safire of the New York Times recently stated, "the concentration of power, either political, corporate, media, cultural - should not be ignored by conservatives." And John Roberts of the Chicago Tribune also recently stated that he deplores the "blatantly ingenious, if not dishonest, explanations being given by FCC Chairman Michael Powell and his "supporters" for their actions."

Even John Adams, one of our founding fathers of this country said in a speech, "the government must always protect its' citizens to have free speech and that those that print and publish newspapers do not control all of the reporting of our affairs."

Based on these comments from these leading columnists, I strongly advise each of the FCC Commissioners to review your decisions pertaining to these issues, and reverse your decisions and restore public trust that you are protecting the interest of Americans. Otherwise, you will receive a back lash from the American public that will be so strong that you will need to find a place to hide. I believe it has already begun with the hundreds of thousands already writing their elected officials in Washington and more will follow soon.

Sincerely,

PUT YOUR NAME, ADDRESS, TELEPHONE NUMBER HERE AS WELL.