NCC opposes telecommunications act - General Secretary Joan Brown Campbell of the National Council of Churches

Christian Century, Oct 11, 1995

Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, has asked the council's officers, General Board members and 32 heads of communion to give urgent attention to the Telecommunications Act of 1995. The legislation may result in a greater concentration of media control, higher cable rates and "electronic redlining," shutting out low-in come, minority and rural communities, along with schools, libraries and other community groups, from the in formation highway, according to Campbell.

Different versions of the act have been approved by the House and Senate, and a conference committee is to work out the differences so that the final measure can be passed and sent to the White House, probably by Thanksgiving. If President Clinton does not veto the final version, it will become law.

An analysis of the act by Beverly J. Chain and Anthony Pharr of the United Church of Christ's Office of Communication used as supporting material by the NCC argues that communication conglomerates have played a leading role in shaping the legislation and that they, rather than the public, will be the true beneficiaries of the act's "reforms."

According to Chain and Pharr, some of the act's most dangerous provisions are:

* It will allow greater concentration of media control, leading to fewer choices and less diversity. Both the House and Senate bills permit a single broad caster to own unlimited numbers of television stations across the country and to reach up to 35 percent of the viewing audience. The Senate bill permits unlimited numbers of radio stations to be owned by a single broadcaster nationally as well as within an individual market. The Senate bill also permits a broadcaster to own both cable TV and television outlets in the same market. The major multimedia conglomerates (Disney, Westinghouse, Time Warner and Fox) will be able to control the flow of news and information to the majority of the population and thus those persons whose views will be allowed to shape public opinion.

* Media companies will be able to deny service to poor neighborhoods and rural areas on the grounds that such service will be less profitable. Under the Senate bill, a carrier may refuse to provide service to a community if it can show that over the long term servicing the community would be less profitable than providing service in areas it already serves or proposes to serve. The House provides for a limited restriction on "electronic redlining." Chain and Pharr contend that rural and poor regions of the country will be the last to benefit from advanced information technology and that the quality-of-life gap between affluent and nonaffluent communities will widen.

* Churches, community organizations and other nonprofit groups, along with many individuals, may lose their current low-cost access to the information highway, creating a wider gap between the information-rich and the information-poor. The analysts say that the legislation fails to ensure that institutions which traditionally have provided social services to their communities (churches, juvenile centers, multiservice centers) will have access to the information highway since these institutions require low rates as well as training in the use of advanced telecommunications technology.

Chain and Pharr do support one aspect of the Telecommunications Act: provisions that will require the media industry to agree to a voluntary ratings system and the employment of V-chip blocking technology. The former would allow one year for development of rules that would rate video programming containing "sexual, violent or other material about which parents should be informed before it is displayed to children." V-chip technology would provide for the installation of computer chips in televisions which would electronically embed and read the codes for the program ratings. This part of the legislation would allow parents to choose the kind of programs their children may watch by providing for uniform voluntary ratings systems coupled with the availability of V-chip blocking technology, according to Chain and Pharr.