Illinois Sen. Barack Obama hasn’t been in Congress as long as his rivals in the race for the White House, but he has stepped into some media issues that illuminate how he might govern the industry should he succeed in his bid for the presidency.
Mr. Obama has joined with Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to question how media consolidation could affect minority media ownership. He also has suggested TV is responsible for the “coarsening of our culture.”
Some of Mr. Obama’s criticism is of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin, whom Mr. Obama has known since both attended Harvard University Law School. Mr. Martin and Mr. Obama occasionally played basketball together in college.
Of the three presidential candidates, Mr. Obama is the only one to prominently showcase media issues on his campaign Web site. Perhaps in a sign of the importance he places on the issue, the Web site lists detailed positions on a number of media issues. The Obama campaign didn’t return calls seeking comment by press time.
Media Ownership
Sen. Obama wasn’t in Congress in 2003, when the Senate voted to stymie the FCC’s last attempt to ease media ownership rules, but he has spoken out against relaxing the rules. He and Mr. Kerry sent Mr. Martin several letters unsuccessfully urging the FCC to delay action.
Mr. Obama argued the FCC was acting without fully understanding the impact consolidation could have in reducing ownership of broadcast stations by minorities. He also has been concerned about media consolidation’s impact on local programming.
“Barack Obama believes that the nation’s rules ensuring diversity of media ownership are critical to the public interest,” according to his campaign Web site. “Unfortunately … the [FCC] has promoted the concept of consolidation over diversity. Barack Obama believes that providing opportunities for minority-owned businesses to own radio and television stations is fundamental to creating the diverse media environment that federal law requires and the country deserves and demands.”
The Web site also says the candidate will “promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public-interest obligations of broadcasters. An Obama presidency will promote greater coverage of local issues and better responsiveness by broadcasters to the communities they serve.”
Indecency
Sen. Obama has attacked lowbrow TV content, but questioned whether going after indecency violations is the right approach.
“Mass media is contributing to an overall coarsening of our culture,” he said in a November 2005 speech to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
In that same speech, he said the number of media choices available, as well as First Amendment questions, leave doubts that direct regulation of indecency is the answer.
“We know that with the pervasiveness of mass media today—the existence of so many means of communication—it’s very difficult to regulate our way out of this problem,” he said. “And for those of us who value our First Amendment freedoms—who value artistic expression—we wouldn’t want to.”
Instead, he suggested the government should focus on getting broadcasters to act on their public-interest obligations.
“The content of [children’s] viewing is not enriching their minds, but numbing them; not broadening intellectual curiosity or appreciation for the arts, but trivializing the important and desensitizing us to the tragic.
“We need to make it clear [to broadcasters] that there are larger civic obligations to the public … obligations to reflect not the basest elements of American culture, but the profound and proud.”
Mr. Obama has subsequently taken similar stances, and on his campaign’s Web site suggested that providing more tools for parents and a better ratings system are better answers.
“Mr. Obama will work to give parents the tools to prevent reception of programming that they find offensive on television and on digital media … [to] encourage improvements to the existing voluntary rating system, exploiting new technologies like tagging and filtering, so that parents can better understand what content their children will see and have the tools to respond.”
Internet
Mr. Obama not only calls for the FCC to ban Internet providers from giving one content provider a favored path to consumers’ computers—so-called “net neutrality”—but he wants the government to take a far more active role in boosting the Web’s speed and availability.
“America should lead the world in broadband penetration and Internet access,” his campaign Web site says.
Among the changes proposed: Redefine broadband as a far faster speed than the FCC has used, and improve use of wireless spectrum and promotion of next-generation speeds through tax and loan incentives. Mr. Obama has expressed some concerns that the U.S. is falling behind other countries and that poor and rural people could be left as lesser citizens if the government doesn’t step it.
Net neutrality had drawn a veto threat from the Bush White House.
Drug Advertising
Among Sen. Obama’s key supporters is Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, who has pushed to give the Food & Drug Administration the power to ban direct-to-consumer drug ads in their first three years. Sen. Kennedy could have a far more receptive president in Mr. Obama, but the legislation’s fate in Congress is difficult to predict.
With reporting by Sergio Ibarra