[To reply to Rick: I never claimed that Powell said public interest and market forces are the same. Powell's claim was far weaker; which is why I characterized it as such a "mild" statement. As for the consolidated ownership point, I'm not willing to leap to a big-is-bad conclusion. Large companies may be easy targets to assail, but (1) a lot of people really do want to listen to top 40 dreck and (2) being big may bring some economies of scale. --Declan]
--- Subject: RE: FC: Senator tells FCC chairman he should be at U.S. Chamber of Commerce From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 20:01:51 -0500 To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> You wrote: > Of course Michael Powell was merely telling the truth and Senator > Hollings knew it. But Hollings would rather score political points by > assailing someone who dared suggest -- mildly! -- that government > intrusion may not be the best solution to every problem. To Hollings, > that's apparently more important than speaking his conscience. Shame > on Hollings for being a knave; shame on Safire for sounding more like > Ralph Nader or Pat Buchanan than someone who once called himself a > conservative. --Declan] And shame on you for letting your A-is-A blinders obscure the real point: Powell said, "public interests and market forces _can_" be the same (emphasis added). He didn't say they're _inevitably_ the same, that the relationship is an identity. The question Safire asks -- rightly -- is whether the public interest is served by allowing unregulated markets to lead to consolidated ownership of a limited public resource, namely radio spectrum assigned to broadcast media. Is Clear Channel's control of a massive segment of US radio broadcasting warranted, or in the best interests of the public? Your comment presupposes that the debate itself is an irrelevant distraction; I think that you do yourself and your readers -- even your most ardent libertarian readers -- a disservice by making that assumption. -- Rick Karr (Cultural Correspondent, National Public Radio, for identification purposes only) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
