LET THEM EAT CAKE

A prolific author and outspoken radio personality, Robert McChesney has written several books about the conflicts between media and democracy. But reconciling the clash between democracy and telecom, as he recently told Telephony, will be no piece of cake.

Ever see “The Godfather, Part 2”? There's a scene where Hyman Roth and Michael Corleone are sitting on top of a hotel in Havana. They've got six or eight other gangsters from America there. They're carving up a cake shaped like Cuba. They're saying, “Joe from Cleveland, you've got the prostitutes. Frankie from Philly, you've got the numbers racket.” They owned the island, and the government was their pawn. No one else got a piece of the action, just the guys on the rooftop. But they were all fighting over who got the biggest slice of that cake.

That's how telecom policy is. A bunch of huge corporations — gangsters, so to speak — duking it out with their lobbies to get the biggest slice. They all agree, though, that no one else should get a slice. The public should not participate in cake making.

The 12 major telecom players from 1996 are soon to be down to four or five. We're talking about an oligopoly. A recent FCC study determined that if a cable company covered 27% of the nation with its systems, it would give it the effective power of having 51% of the market for buying shows. With AT&T Broadband, Comcast is going to have very serious market power and tremendous negotiating power over TV stations.

We desperately need real study and debate of this issue. All we get now is periodic debate between long-distance companies and Baby Bells — PR blitzes filled with half-truths and lies. That's not democracy. Congress should commission the FCC or some other group to take the debate on the road. Get it out of Washington. Let the public talk about it. Bathe it in democracy.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell's option would be to have maybe eight companies providing all the nation's telecom services with minimal regulation — eight monster companies handling an enormous chunk of our economy. The other option would be the traditional regulatory response: the New Deal. Hold these companies to standards of open access and universal service. Make them give something back to the public.

As the economy goes deeper into recession, there's pressure to move toward the New Deal. If the economy doesn't recess and these lobbyists resume flossing their teeth with politicians' underpants, it's more likely to go toward the Powell solution. The true resolution probably falls somewhere in the middle. But it depends entirely on the strength of the political lobbies of the people on that rooftop in Havana.

DOSSIER: ROBERT McCHESNEY

Occupation: Author and professor, Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois

Location: Urbana, Ill.

Current reading: “Wealth and Democracy” by Kevin Phillips

Favorite Web site: www.berniesinsiders.com, a site for Cleveland Browns fans

Next project: Writing a book on the political economy of the media called “The Big Picture”