WASHINGTON, June 29, 2004 -- He's bright, personable, an excellent lawyer, a distinguished veteran, and the son of the Secretary of State. Yet, Michael Powell's record as the Chairman of the FCC has been one misstep and reversal after another. In telecom and media regulation, his quest to "deregulate" has disintegrated into a search for something -- anything! -- that will pass muster with the courts, the Congress, and, most importantly, the American people.

Now that a U.S. Court of Appeals has rightfully tossed out the Commission's new rules that would have exponentially increased media concentration and consolidation -- rules which Powell pushed through the FCC despite an overwhelming public outcry last year -- his tenure as Chairman, which so many expected would lead to him becoming a star in Republican politics, may instead be his political swan song.

Powell frequently cites his strong commitment to the First Amendment as grounds for media deregulation. Indeed, the "Powell Doctrine" claimed Big Media had a First Amendment right to consolidate and concentrate (although it said little about the First Amendment right of the public audience to be served by a wide diversity of voices and viewpoints). But despite his championing of the First Amendment and free expression, he tried to implement his new rules quietly, without a single public hearing. Finally, when the public rebelled, Powell grudgingly held one public hearing in Richmond, Virginia.

Powell even tried to run roughshod over Congressional opposition from leading Republicans such as Senator John McCain, his former patron. Instead of defusing the opposition, Powell galvanized it. Congressional offices were deluged by constituents' complaints about Big Media. The public simply had NO interest in what Powell claimed was the "public interest." Nevertheless, despite the FCC receiving an unprecedented two million public comments, near unanimous in their opposition, Powell pushed through his Big Media deregulation.

By seeming to snub both the public and Congress, Powell appeared to be a politically tone-deaf ideologue doing Big Media's bidding. And the "Powell Doctrine" appeared to be nothing more than "Let Big Media and Big Telecom do whatever it wants. If the public doesn't like it, let them eat cake. There's always the Internet."

Chairman Powell's tenure at the FCC will no doubt end after the election, whatever its outcome. His legacy, if there is one, will be that as rapid technological change gripped both the media and telecom industries -- change which could have made America's media more diverse, more local, and more competitive -- he used that change instead as a pretext to justify further consolidation and concentration, at the expense of competition, diversity, and localism.

Fortunately, Powell has been repeatedly stymied by several shifting coalitions and opponents who often could agree on only one thing -- that Big Media and Big Telecom are ultimately unhealthy for America's democracy and culture.

As Brent Bozell of the Parents Television Council memorably quipped, "When so many disparate organizations -- groups ranging from the Catholic Conference to Common Cause, from the Family Research Council and the NRA to Move On, the Writers' Guild and NOW -- when all of us are united on an issue, then one of two things has happened. Either the earth has spun off its axis and we have all lost our minds, or there is universal support for a concept." That universal concept was " Save Democracy, Stop Powell."

Then came the Super Bowl. The Chairman seized on Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" to rush to the head of the censorship parade and lead the fight against so-called "indecent" programming over the public airwaves. In his rush to become the "Nation's Nanny," Powell's FCC overturned long-standing bright line regulations and substituted far more expansive, vague, and opaque indecency rules.

The net result is that Chairman Powell has been responsible for the censoring of a significant amount of original, controversial, and worthy content on the nation's airwaves -- the very free expression that is not only protected by the First Amendment, but should be encouraged by the FCC! What should have been the Chairman's finest hour, defending the First Amendment he claims to cherish, became his worst. When the First Amendment needed him most, Chairman Powell abandoned it.

How will Chairman Powell be remembered? Probably not for the Commission's few accomplishments during his tenure. Rather, he will more likely be remembered for the tremendous opportunity he had to move communications policy forward in this country while at the same time his own political star ascended to the heavens. And how he squandered that opportunity. To use the lingo of Daily Variety when a Broadway show flops, Michael Powell has truly "laid an egg."

-- Jonathan Rintels is Executive Director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media.

© MediaChannel.org, 2004. All rights reserved.

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