Speaking at the Free Press Media Reform Conference last week in St. Louis, FCC commissioner Michael Copps urged his audience to help him hold at bay efforts to rewrite media ownership rules that will allow greater consolidation. In a May 14 speech, Copps told his audience that the courts have sent the media ownership question back the FCC where it originated. Calling the result of the commission’s efforts two years ago “awful rules,” Copps said the commission “screwed it up once” and that it is “100 percent capable of screwing it up again.” In his speech, he urged those in attendance to help him and commissioner Jonathan Adelstein “crusade to reclaim the people’s media for the people.” Recalling the grass roots campaign that derailed changes to FCC ownership rules the last time around, Copps said Americans from all walks of life banded together to object to rules that would have allowed greater media consolidation.
A similar effort will be needed once again to determine “who is going to control our media and for what purposes,” he said.
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