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October 16, 2000, Monday, Late Edition -
Final
SECTION: Section C; Page 1; Column
5; Business/Financial Desk
LENGTH: 1454
words
HEADLINE: F.C.C.'s Rift With Industry Is Widening
BYLINE: By STEPHEN LABATON
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Oct. 15
BODY:
What would be the plot line if television
tried to capture the rocky relationship between William E. Kennard, the chairman
of the Federal Communications Commission, and the nation's largest broadcasting
companies?
If it were produced by Mr. Kennard, the series might be
called "Lost in Place." It would be the saga of a crass industry that, swimming
in a sea of profit and consolidation, has forsaken its obligations as trustees
of the airwaves, corrupted children through sexually explicit and violent
programming, ignored the political weal by refusing to provide adequate air time
for candidates, and pretty much forgotten about opening its ranks to minorities.
If the script were written by the broadcasters, about Mr. Kennard, they
might call it "As the Regulator Burns." It would be the biography of a
frustrated and antagonistic Washington bureaucrat hell-bent on imposing his
skewed public-interest vision of what's best for the marketplace by unfurling
rolls of red tape, impeding the technological advancement of digital television
and chilling free speech.
In recent weeks, the clashing story lines have
been playing out in public, as the acrimonious relationship between Mr. Kennard
and the broadcasters has bubbled over into the courts and Congress.
Consider these:
*On Monday, the F.C.C. will conduct a day-long
hearing that examines the public-interest obligations of broadcasters, but both
sides have already staked out irreconcilable claims. Mr. Kennard maintains that
the industry has neglected its responsibilities to protect children and provide
more airtime to candidates. The broadcasters have responded that the current
rules are too onerous, and in any event, should not be applied to digital
television.
*Last Wednesday, the broadcasters won a decades-long legal
battle when a Federal appeals court repealed two rules that were the last major
vestiges of the fairness doctrine. The rules had required television and radio
stations to provide free reply time to candidates and others attacked on the
airwaves. Mr. Kennard had hoped to avert the repeal when he moved a week earlier
to temporarily suspend the rules to demonstrate why they were necessary.
*A day earlier, Mr. Kennard delivered a broadside against broadcasters
reminiscent of the excoriation of television as a "vast wasteland," in 1961 by
another F.C.C. chairman, Newton N. Minow. Speaking at the Museum of Television
and Radio in New York, Mr. Kennard derided the "disarray and disinterest of our
mass media towards fulfilling its crucial democratic commitments" and criticized
the broadcasters for "increasingly elevating financial interests above the
public interest." He proposed that they rapidly accelerate their conversion to
digital television or face a special tax.
Edward O. Fritts, the
president of the National Association of Broadcasters, replied: "Chairman
Kennard has failed the test of leadership. Sadly, he is trying to shift the
blame for a faltering DTV transition."
*Earlier this month, the
broadcasters were once again in court, challenging the heavily watered down
F.C.C. guidelines for eliminating discrimination by broadcasters. Those
guidelines had came after earlier court setbacks for Mr. Kennard, a Clinton
appointee who, as the agency's first African American leader, has strived to
open the industry to those who have historically been shut out.
*A
centerpiece of Mr. Kennard's agenda, a plan to issue licenses to hundreds of
low-power FM radio stations run by schools,
churches, civic groups and others, has also come under heavy assault by the
broadcasters' association and may be killed by Congress in the next few days.
What makes the wide gulf between Mr. Kennard and the industry so
surprising is that, for more than a decade before he entered government, Mr.
Kennard was a lawyer who worked for the National Association of Broadcasters.
Mr. Kennard said in a recent interview that, as chairman, he had reached out to
work with the industry, but he more recently found their complaints about the
agency to lack consistency.
"The broadcasters play a blame game," he
said. "They argue against government intervention in their industry. But then
they demand that we become as intrusive as possible in other industries." He
cited the must-carry rules that require cable companies to carry the signals of
local television stations and the technical standards for manufacturers of TV
sets.
"There's a fundamental disagreement on the terms of engagement,"
he added. "I feel that I have a responsibility to ensure that broadcasters
fulfill their public trustee obligations. But when I want to engage on what
those obligations are, all I get is a brick wall. They insist that the
public-interest obligations are what they decide they are."
Mr. Fritts,
the association president, said that while there were many legitimate policy
disputes and that the broadcasters had been singled out, the industry was hardly
alone in its regulatory battles with the F.C.C.
"Maybe it's just our
turn in the barrel," he said. "There is a fundamental premise that if you lack
competition, you need regulation and if you have competition, you need less
regulation. We have an F.C.C. that is attempting to layer more regulation. If
you look at cable, satellite, telephone services, broadcasting is the only one
that is offered for free, and the only one that offers the most localism, local
news, local entertainment, local programming."
Washington politics are
also a factor, Mr. Fitts said. "It is the end of an administration," he said.
"Some people are putting their stake in the ground for the future, for their
legacy."
Still, there is more to the disputes between Mr. Kennard and
the broadcasters than either legacies or philosophical differences.
To
Mr. Kennard and his supporters, the bitter disagreements are a byproduct of
fundamental power shifts in Washington, of a Republican Congress generally
supportive of broadcasters who have come to play such a life-and-death role in
elections. The lawmakers, in turn, are an easy avenue to apply pressure on the
agency, and that has only soured already bitter relations. The Republican
Congress has been unsympathetic to Mr. Kennard's agenda of civil rights and more
open access on the airwaves for diverse voices and political debate.
"While the N.A.B. has done reasonably well at the F.C.C. over the last
few years on a whole bunch of issues, it has been in most cases not by
convincing Kennard, but by politically beating on him, by using their muscle,"
said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, a
nonpartisan organization devoted to promoting diversity on the airwaves that
also has often found itself at odds with the broadcasters.
"The nature
of Washington and the nature of the independent agencies has changed because of
money and politics," Mr. Schwartzman said. "The Congressional oversight role has
changed from an occasional review of agencies to a micromanagement of an agency
on a day-to-day basis, fueled by campaign contributions and political influence
and that runs to the N.A.B.'s strength."
From their perspective, the
broadcasters see an agency that has been paralyzed by indecision, delaying final
rule making on crucial issues for years, and then blaming the industry for
problems.
"There is blame on both sides on some of these issues," said
Richard E. Wiley, who was chairman of the F.C.C. in the 1970's. "The commission
needs to get its act together. The industry needs to get its act together. It's
too bad, because they are talking past each other."
It was Mr. Wiley's
law firm, Wiley, Rein & Fielding, which now represents a number of major
broadcasters, that won the fairness doctrine case last week. He said that one of
the biggest failures of the F.C.C. was that, rather than confronting issues, it
sometimes tried to side-step them, which ultimately offends both Congress and
the courts.
"Decisions put off are always going to come back to haunt
you," Mr. Wiley said.
Mr. Kennard's supporters said the agency had not
intentionally delayed its rule making, but had moved cautiously as a matter of
internal politics. With the two Republican commissioners often voting together,
Mr. Kennard has had to make fundamental compromises to keep the two other
Democrats in line.
For his part, Mr. Fritts is looking forward to the
election, which, regardless of which party prevails, will inevitably lead to a
turnover in regulators by the middle of next year.
"We are proud of what
we've accomplished and would like to continue to do it unencumbered by red
tape," he said, noting that he is fond of observing in speeches how, "they cut
the red tape lengthwise here in Washington."
http://www.nytimes.com
GRAPHIC: Photos:
Acrimony has grown between William E. Kennard, left, the F.C.C. chief, and
Edward O. Fritts of the National Association of Broadcasters. (Associated
Press); (Reuters)(pg. C2)
LOAD-DATE: October 16, 2000 
