Dear Editor:
A recent "Review & Outlook" piece ("The Soros Agenda," December 30, 2003) describing the relationship of George Soros to groups working on media ownership issues (including my own Center for Digital Democracy) illustrates one of our concerns about consolidation within the news industry. Journalism has suffered, in our view, from the tight grip (both managerial and financial) that the ever-declining number of media companies holds over broadcast, cable, and print newsgathering. While the Journal stands as one of the few remaining independent outlets, we are distressed by what appears in this instance to be ill informed reporting. However one feels about Mr. Soros's politics, the notion that he "is using his money to restrict everyone else's freedom" is hyperbolic at best, irresponsible at worst, and would seem to have no place in a publication of the Wall Street Journal's stature .
The editorial fails to acknowledge, moreover, that there is a legitimate public concern over the consolidation of the media industries, and especially over the impact of such consolidation on journalistic standards. The debate over this issue is not concerned with what "will happen if some market is deregulated," as you claim, but rather over how news and information are produced and distributed in a democratic society. Your editorial colleagues at the Washington Post --Len Downie and Robert Kaiser--recently documented the current crisis in journalism in their "News About the News." Many of the groups involved in the media ownership debate that support--yes--some regulatory safeguards, represent writers, editors, and creators, including the Newspaper Guild, the Writers Guild, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Concern over TV network consolidation has also been expressed by the National Association of Broadcasters, and online companies such as Earthlink are fighting cable's growing monopoly in broadband. Our goal is exactly the opposite of what we are accused. We are working to promote media competition and to enhance political speech by not permitting a few media giants to lobby and win from the Washington political establishment a host of policies that serve only their parochial corporate interests.
Second, the "crushing regulations" that we are accused of seeking to impose on the new broadband networks are nothing more than the same level playing field that has long governed the dial-up Internet--where open access and nondiscriminatory transport are ensured--which has been a boon rather than a hindrance to competition online.
The work that my group has conducted on media policy long preceded the establishment of Mr. Soros's foundation. Indeed, your editorial was simply incorrect in attributing money to us that was given to my former group, the Center for Media Education. A little investigation would have revealed that CME was given a grant to support its ongoing work on youth civic media, not media consolidation. Indeed, CDD has not received a dime from Mr. Soros's foundation for our two-year project on media ownership. Nor are the four public interest groups "closely coordinated," as you suggest. Yes, we work together on occasion, but not always and certainly not in a lock-step fashion. And we often approach these issues quite differently. Dismissing us as part of the "liberal wing" of the Democratic party might be ideologically convenient, but it overlooks our record as one of the biggest critics of the Clinton policy on media. Such material is still available on our website (www.democracticmedia.org).
As the advocate who coined the unfortunate term, "the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse," I might be accused of flippancy, and perhaps deserve to be hoisted on my own rhetorical petard. But your assertion that our success in generating a national debate on media ownership somehow refutes our critique of the growing political power of media conglomerates doesn't bear up under scrutiny. We succeeded despite the scant coverage by the TV networks of what their parent companies were (and are) lobbying for, and despite the similar failure of major newspaper companies such as Gannett, the New York Times, and the Tribune Company to explain their own political advocacy on media ownership. Such self-censorship by these influential American institutions is disgraceful. And that's why a few good horsemen are still necessary.
Respectfully,
Jeff ChesterThe press corps is finally giving billionaire George Soros the attention he deserves as the new Daddy Warbucks of the Democratic Party. Mr. Soros has responded that all he's doing is exercising his own Constitutional right to free speech. We'd agree, except for the detail that the world's 38th richest man (according to Forbes) is using his money to restrict everyone else's freedom.
In his political funding, Mr. Soros is exploiting the loophole in campaign finance laws that lets billionaires donate however much they want to private political lobbies. But more than that, he also turns out to be a leading cash cow for the Washington lobbies trying to restrict media competition and political speech. Mr. Soros is the personification of what deserves to be called the "public interest" conceit.
This is the idea that folks like Mr. Soros are merely selfless benefactors of truth and justice, but companies trying to protect their rights in Washington are greedy special interests. The hedge-fund operator made his money practicing capitalism but now he spends it trying to give himself and his ideological allies an advantage over other voices. Among his fundees in this case are four, closely coordinated groups. The men who founded or run them are known in the Beltway as "the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," after what they are always claiming will happen if some market is deregulated.
They are the Media Access Project, the Consumers Union, the Consumer Federation of America, and the Center for Media Education (which has morphed into the Center for Digital Democracy). Don't be fooled by their consumer-friendly names. All four organizations have long been mouthpieces of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. In the past three years they have bashed or knotted up many of the Bush Administration's major communications proposals.
Take Andrew Schwartzman, head of the Media Access Project, and leader of a campaign to sink FCC Chairman Michael Powell's rules raising ownership caps for broadcasters. MAP's revenue for fiscal 2001 was $526,000, and according to the Soros foundation Web site the billionaire gave the group $600,000 from 2000 to 2002.
The Center for Digital Democracy, meanwhile, has sued to block the FCC's new broadband rules that would free fast Internet access from crushing regulations. The Center is run by Jeff Chester, who spun it off from the Center for Media Education. CME received a $90,000 donation from Mr. Soros in 2001-02.
Mark Cooper, research director at the Consumer Federation of America, has a talent for churning out studies about how Mr. Powell's deregulation would "undermine democracy." His group took $80,000 from Mr. Soros in 2000. And the Consumers Union, run by Gene Kimmelman, also dipped into the Soros pot for $175,000 from 1999 to 2001. The two groups teamed up last year to release a report blaming Mr. Bush and the FCC for widening the "digital divide."
Not that the Four Horsemen fight only to control the airwaves. A few also played roles in promoting the campaign finance laws that have given Mr. Soros and his cash such a big political advantage. Combine their funding with the $1.7 million that Mr. Soros gave the Center for Public Integrity, the $1.3 million he gave Public Campaign, the $300,000 to Democracy 21, the $625,000 to Common Cause, and the $275,000 to Public Citizen -- and you can be forgiven for believing Mr. Soros got campaign finance passed all by himself.
Like Mr. Soros, all of these groups share the view that the real arbiters of public policy should be elites like them. Their own political success refutes their contention that somehow Big Media dominate our public policy debates. And with the new limits on what other Americans can donate to political campaigns, and even on when they can run TV advertising, the Soroses of the world will wield even more influence. Which is of course their point.
As his clout grows, we hope the media pay even more attention to the views of Mr. Soros and his web of left-wing activists. Our readers can examine for themselves the nearly 1,900 payouts that Mr. Soros made to entities since 1999 at http://prs.soros.org/GrantsList/GrantSearch.asp. We'd say they reveal a billionaire who is himself a threat to what he likes to call an "open society."