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REMARKS OF ACTING FCC CHAIRMAN MICHAEL J. COPPS
FREE PRESS SUMMIT:  CHANGING MEDIA
WASHINGTON, DC
MAY 14, 2009
Every year there’s one speaking engagement I look forward to more than any 
other.  Every year it’s the same one.  It’s getting together with my friends at Free Press to 
talk about media reform.   The last time we did this was last June at the Media Reform 
Conference in Minneapolis.  I talked then about how “winds of change” were blowing 
across America and were about to usher in a period of much-needed reform.  Well, now I 
can finally admit it—I wasn’t 100% sure.  As anyone who has lived through the past few 
elections knows, it ain’t over till it’s over—and sometimes not even then.  
But the good news, the happy news, the historic news is that change has come to 
America.  Change has come to Washington, DC. Reform breezes are blowing through the 
corridors of power all over this city.  And if things go well, we may be launched on an 
era of reform to match what the Progressives and New Dealers of the last century gave 
us.  What a shining, beckoning opportunity we have. 
But it’s no sure thing that it will end so well.  Reform is never on auto-pilot, and 
in spite of all the marvels of twenty-first century technology, there is no GPS system that 
can deliver us to a new, progressive promised land.   My friend, the late Arthur 
Schlesinger, Jr., believed that periods of reaction in America are succeeded—with a lot of 
blood, sweat, toil and tears—by waves of reform.  But it’s impossible to predict how long 
the window of reform will remain open.  I don’t think we’ll be circling the wagons any 
time soon—but if we’re not quick about it and smart about it and thorough about it, the 
winds of change could blow themselves out before our job is done.  We must seize the 
opportunity when we have it.  Us.  Now.
Change is different this time because it’s riding on a wave of technology 
transformation the likes of which we’ve never seen.  Change isn’t limited to just politics.  
Technology change is reshaping every aspect of our lives.  How we live, work, play, care 
for ourselves, entertain ourselves, govern ourselves—all is in flux.  The only questions 
are how quickly will change come in all these areas and how change in one will affect the 
others.  What will the world look like when the dust settles?  
In communications, will “old media” stalwarts like newspapers and broadcasting 
simply disappear—or will they adapt and survive?  How about journalism?  Will anyone 
figure out a business model to support in-depth, investigative journalism—or must we 
develop something completely new, perhaps based on philanthropy, non-profit models or 
public media?  What about the core values of localism, diversity and competition that 
Free Press fights so valiantly for?  Do they still hold sway in a world in which connecting 
with someone in Germany is as easy as connecting with someone in Germantown, or 
where you can find any opinion under the sun simply by typing “any opinion under the 
sun” on Google?  (153 million hits, by the way—I tried it.)  
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Important questions, all.  But if we focus too much on the questions it can leave 
us paralyzed.  Just ask Prince Hamlet.  We need to act thoughtfully, yes; but we need to 
act—and I mean act while the tide runs in our direction.  Shakespeare again—I think he 
said something about taking the tide at its flood or else being bound in shallows and 
misery. When it comes to public policy, eight years of shallows and misery was enough 
for me.  I don’t even want to think about any more such years!
Good ideas are running on the present tide.  Good people are stepping up to good 
causes.  I don’t want to start naming names because I’ll inevitably leave someone out.  
But if you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and watch Senator Kerry’s hearing last 
week on the future of journalism to get a sense of some of the creative ideas out there.  Or 
pick up a copy of Free Press’ new book, Changing Media: Public Interest Policies for the 
Digital Age.  I’ve already read, underlined and dog-eared it.  You should, too.  You don’t 
have to agree with everything in there—probably no one will, nor would its authors 
expect 100% agreement—but I commend it, not just to the Free Press faithful, but to 
those who may be diametrically opposed to the recommendations the book makes.   
Changing Media is an important contribution to our national dialogue.  It tees up issues 
we all need to be talking about, and it is particularly relevant now as the FCC sets out to 
develop a Congressionally-mandated broadband plan for America. 
In the few minutes we have together this morning, I’d like to focus on another 
piece of the puzzle—what are the organizing principles that should serve as our 
touchstone as we sift through the myriad ideas out there and try to create a media that is 
truly of, by and for the American people?  Here is my current short list.
Principle Number One:  It’s all about democracy.  Paraphrase James Carville if 
you like: It’s the democracy, stupid. A democracy runs on information.  Information is 
how we make intelligent decisions about our future and how we hold the powerful 
accountable.  Deprive citizens of relevant, accurate, and timely information and you 
deprive them of their ability to govern themselves.  Indeed, if you look at the three core 
values of our media policy from time immemorial—localism, diversity and 
competition—they are really aimed at a single goal: to ensure that the American people 
have access to a wide range of information on issues of public concern.
We’re in trouble on this score.  Two decades of mindless deregulation—only 
briefly interrupted—topped off by a veritable tsunami of consolidation across not just 
communications, but most business sectors, have succeeded in bringing our economy low 
and endangering the essential civic dialogue on which democracy depends.  I’ve said it 
before but I’ll say it again: we are skating perilously close to depriving our fellow 
citizens of the depth and breadth of information they need to make intelligent choices 
about their future.  Newsrooms decimated.  Beat reporters laid off.  Newspapers literally 
shrinking before our eyes.  Infotainment.  Sensationalism.  Cable news mud-wrestling.  
Homogenized play lists.  You all know the bill of particulars.  
We’re not only losing journalists, we may be losing journalism.  Some blame the 
Internet and bloggers, and that’s certainly a part of the story.  But the problems started 
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way before that.  All that consolidation and mindless deregulation, rather than reviving 
the news business, condemned us to less real news, less serious political coverage, less
diversity of opinion, less minority and female ownership, less investigative journalism 
and fewer jobs for journalists.  
Hyper-commercialism and high quality news make uneasy bedfellows. As my 
hero FDR said in a letter to Joseph Pulitzer, “I have always been firmly persuaded that 
our newspapers cannot be edited in the interests of the general public from the counting 
room.”  Broadcast journalism is no different.  Readers, viewers and listeners are citizens 
to be informed and entertained, not products to be sold to advertisers.  This is not to say 
that good journalism is incompatible with making a profit.  But when TV and radio 
stations are no longer required to serve their local communities, when stations or 
newspapers are loaded down with crushing debt or owned by huge corporations 
preoccupied with cutting costs through economies of scale, it should come as no surprise 
that some things precious get lost.  
There are those who argue that’s all over now.  Consolidation and conglomeration 
are yesterday’s news.  I don’t buy it.  As soon as the economy begins to turn the corner, I 
predict we’ll see another urge to merge—to buy, leverage, and find those elusive 
economies of scale.  More news rooms closed. More journalists fired.  More private 
equity—less public dialogue.   
I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush.  Many broadcasters and publishers 
still have the flame of the public interest burning brightly in their breasts—I know, I meet 
them all the time—but the unforgiving expectations of Wall Street and next quarter’s 
earnings reports have made life more and more difficult for them and pulled them in 
directions many of them don’t want to go.
Whatever we do should help those stations that are trying to do the right thing and 
nurture the democratic dialogue.  And let me be clear.  When I say “democratic dialogue” 
it is not code for “the Fairness Doctrine.”  The Fairness Doctrine is long gone and it’s not 
coming back—as much as some conspiracy theorists see it lurking behind every corner. 
A couple of weeks ago, when we finally got the FCC back on track to do something 
about the shameful state of minority and female ownership of media properties, some had 
the gall to suggest it was just a ruse to bring the Fairness Doctrine back.  Resurrecting the 
straw man of a by-gone Fairness Doctrine to deflect this country’s belated passage to 
equal opportunity is a kind of issue-mongering that has no place in twenty-first century 
America.  We will not lose this opportunity to make real and lasting progress on media 
reform because some find it is in their self-interest to keep this phony issue alive.
That brings me to Principle Number Two: old media is not dead.  Judging by 
some of the stories out there, you’d think that just about everyone sits down at night to  
watch their favorite shows on Hulu and that TV news and local newspapers have gone 
the way of the buggy-whip.  The fact is that most consumers still get their news and 
information from their local newspapers and broadcast stations.  The Internet, for all its 
many glories, doesn’t yet fully compete with them in such areas as investigative 
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journalism or in-depth local reporting, and may not anytime soon.  Traditional media 
remain critically important and it’s something we need to deal with.   
I’m not saying that old media won’t fade away but we’re not there yet—and 
sometimes change takes longer to arrive than we think.  We’ve been out helping 
consumers with the DTV transition—you’d be amazed at how many people are still 
happily watching TV on 30-year old sets and 20-year old VCRs.
If old media is going to be with us a while still, what implications does this have 
for us?  It means we still need to get serious about defining broadcasters’ public interest 
obligations and reinvigorating our license renewal process.  Since we still need 
broadcasters to contribute to the democratic dialogue, we need clear standards that can be 
fairly but vigorously enforced.  It is time to say “Good-bye” to post card renewal every 
eight years and “Hello” to license renewals every three years with some public interest 
teeth.
I understand that many thoughtful people are ready to give up on the public 
interest.  They would rather just impose a spectrum fee on broadcasters and be done with 
it.  I’m not ready to throw in the towel.  The public interest standard is like a grand old 
theater that has been badly neglected over the years.  The structure is sound, and with a 
little imagination and a lot of hard work we can make it a showplace once again. 
Principle Number Three is to make sure that the sins visited upon old media are 
not permitted to deny the promise of new media.  You know me as someone who has 
supported and pushed the cause of Internet Freedom, Internet Openness, Net Neutrality, 
whatever you want to call it, for a long, long time.  While the tide runs we need to assure 
this, and, for openers, I will be working for a Fifth Principle of Non-discrimination to be 
one of the first fruits of our reconstituted FCC.  
Looking farther ahead, as broadcast and other content migrate online, how do we 
promote the goals that we, as a society, really care about?  How do we nourish a dynamic 
civic dialogue?  How do we get information about real issues of public concern?  How do 
we educate and protect our kids?    Historically, government regulation has been based on 
some sort of licensing relationship or statutory directive.  But how does that apply to the 
online world, where websites not only are not licensed, but they may not even be in the 
United States?  And what if the new media fail to provide the things we care about—the 
things we need?  How do we advance those interests in ways that are effective and 
respectful of constitutional and jurisdictional boundaries?  How do we accomplish our 
goals as a free society while making sure we don’t impinge the potential of these open 
and dynamic new technologies?
I don’t pretend to know the answers to these questions, but I do know we need 
to begin a serious national discussion.  That’s why I welcomed Changing Media’s call for 
a top-level Commission charged to tackle big issues like these.  How sweet it would be to 
have that kind of dialogue rather than yet another mindless go-‘round in that tired old 
debate about “regulation” versus “deregulation” that so poisoned our ability to reason 
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together over the past too many years.  Certainly we need more regulation than the 
country has had these past several years, but regulation isn’t always the answer. We’ll 
need ways to address market failures in different ways.  For example, should we find a 
way adequately to fund PBS or some other group that is actually interested in doing the 
job?  Maybe PBSS—a Public Broadcasting System on Steroids.   That can’t be done on 
the cheap, and we’ll hear laments that there’s not a lot of extra cash floating around these 
days.  But other nations find ways to support such things.  The point is we need to start 
talking, start planning, now. 
Principle Number Four is: Remember what got us here.  A lot of organizing.  
Grass-roots work everywhere.  Town hall meetings, media reform conferences, teach-ins, 
marches.  Don’t anyone think: “We won, it’s over, now let’s just go harvest the fruit.”  
Change has come to Washington, but Washington has not been conquered.  The tools that 
got you this far are still the tools to turn promise into reality.    
At the end of the day I remain an optimist.  Lessons are being learned.  Old 
dogmas are dying.  Opportunity is all around us.  Even, believe it or not, at the FCC!  
Finally, the FCC can actually become an agent of change.  What a change that is!  I 
believe the national broadband strategy that the Commission is tasked to develop by next 
February is the most important charge we have been given, certainly since the ’96 Act, 
and perhaps the most important challenge we have ever been given.  I can’t say exactly 
where it will lead, but I’m optimistic it will be a strategy that unleashes the power of truly 
transformative technology to change the lives of each and every citizen across this land of 
ours—no matter who they are, where they live, or the particular circumstances of their 
individual lives.  Every citizen has a right to expect that. It’s our job to make it happen. 
Building a communications environment that truly reflects and truly nourishes 
diversity and democracy is arguably our nation’s greatest calling because, without that, 
all the other huge issues we confront—and goodness knows they are legion—don’t 
receive the scrutiny they deserve.  So let’s get on with the agenda.  This is about the 
people’s business, about citizens working together to strengthen our democracy.  Isn’t 
that how we built this country of ours?  It wasn’t just that we declared our independence 
in one glorious document; it was that we made a declaration of inter-dependence, one 
upon the other, to win and sustain our freedom and to build a better place.  Every 
generation faces the challenge.  And today strengthening democracy means building 
media democracy.  The media agenda is at the center of democracy’s agenda.  If we work 
at it—really work at it—you and I can realize the dream.  Us.  Now.
Thank you for listening, and thank you for everything you do for America.