Activist Groups Hope for FCC Change   

Restoring the Fairness Doctrine tops their list.

No constituency is more elated about a Clinton presidency than the public interest groups that monitor the television industry. These organizations, shunned by the Reagan and Bush administrations, argue that their lack of influence during the last decade has hurt consumers and opened the way for deregulation policies that have thrown thousands of broadcast journalists out of work. With the Democrats controlling the White House and Congress, many of these activists foresee dramatic changes.

"These are critical times to determine policy for telecommunications," says Jeff Chester, co-director of the Center for Media Education. "Everything is in play, not just broadcasting and cable. Telephone companies want into the competition and newspapers and computer companies have a stake, too. What's significant about Clinton's election is that after 12 years, the public interest perspective will be part of the mix."

Chester and others believe the rights of the public have been undermined by the White House and particularly by its administrative surrogate, the Federal Communications Commission. They say it was not in the public interest for the FCC to eliminate broadcasting's Fairness Doctrine in 1987 nor to permit rampant station selling in the mid-1980s. They're also concerned about what they see as the FCC's indifference to the concentration of media power and the content of children's programming.

"While it has generally been without malice," says Andrew Jay Schwartzman, executive director of the Media Access Project, "it is most unfortunate that the FCC has substituted marketplace regulation for traditional regulation. This has left unserved those who are demographically unattractive to advertisers, such as the young, the old, the poor and those with a language barrier."

Schwartzman, an attorney who frequently litigates communications cases, is close to the leadership of the Clinton campaign. Candidate Clinton did not advocate an immediate return to regulation of the communications industry. But he told Broadcasting magazine last October he supports "healthy competition" with "all viewpoints..given an opportunity to be expressed and considered" and "government regulation only as a last resort to protect the vital interests of the public." Clinton cited as an example the new cable re-regulation bill that Congress passed last fall over President Bush's veto.

Clinton's communications philosophy has heartened public interest advocates, particularly those yearning for the return of the Fairness Doctrine. The doctrine required license holders to broadcast controversial issues with viewpoints from all sides. Opponents argued that the regulation violated the First Amendment and went to court in the early 1980s to eliminate the rule. Under judicial pressure the FCC repealed the doctrine despite vociferous objections from advocates and Congress. Congress tried several times to reinstitute the rule but couldn't muster enough support to override a presidential veto.

The Clinton FCC could move quickly to restore that controversial regulation. If not, Clinton is almost certain to support another legislative effort by Congress to do so.

Either move most likely will trigger a court fight.

"Perhaps even supporters realize the legal implications of the fact that since repeal of the doctrine, the electronic mass media has operated as fairly as before," says J. Laurent Scharff, counsel for the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), which has opposed the rule. "That fact, together with the arguments of increasing media diversity and the 'chilling effects' of regulation, may convince some that the rule is unnecessary and unconstitutional."

Not Schwartzman, Chester and other advocates. They believe restoring the Fairness Doctrine is a given, along with tighter regulation of children's programming and restraints on media monopolies. But they also see more momentous communications issues for the Clinton administration.

"There will be less attention to the mass media issues such as broadcast regulation and ownership," says Schwartzman, "..and it wouldn't have been different even if Bush had been reelected." He predicts the Clinton administration will concentrate on such matters as whether or not to allow telephone companies to provide television programming.

"Clinton has endorsed the idea of a national fiber optics network for the home, business and classroom," says Chester. This network would link each site with a wire transmitting all types of written and visual information. Chester adds that "it was one of the four major points in a Clinton-Gore position paper to rebuild America."

With two seats open on the five-member FCC – including the chairmanship – Clinton's impact on communications policy could materialize sooner than some expect. "Traditionally, the FCC in general and communications policy in particular is very low down in a new president's priorities," says Schwartzman. "That could be different this time." l