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Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, S.W.
Washington, D. C.  20554
This is an unofficial announcement of Commission action.  Release of the full text of a Commission order
constitutes official action.  See MCI v. FCC. 515 F 2d 385 (D.C. Circ 1974).
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEWS MEDIA CONTACT:
July 21, 2010 Joshua Cinelli at (202) 418-2000
STATEMENT OF 
COMMISSIONER MICHAEL J. COPPS
ON THE FCC’S REPLY BRIEF TO THE THIRD CIRCUIT
ON MEDIA OWNERSHIP
“It is difficult for me to believe that our new FCC, with its new majority, is in court today 
basically accepting the validity of the pro-consolidation decision of a previous Commission. We 
have had 18 months to reconsider the awful vote that loosened our newspaper-broadcast cross 
ownership rules, but the best we can do, judging from today’s brief, is to kick the media 
ownership can farther down the road. Months ago we asked the court to be patient with us while 
the agency deliberates where it wants to go on media policy. The court understandably ran out
of patience. Eighteen months is time enough to stop implementation of a rule that can only 
wreak more harm on our already threatened and diminished media.
“No item on the Commission’s agenda is so important to the future of our democracy as 
the future of our media. Three decades of hyper-speculation have diminished media diversity, 
put investigative journalism on the endangered species list and significantly dumbed-down our 
fact-based civic dialogue. More often than not, the FCC aided and abetted the process, 
encouraging the evisceration of our media ownership limits and abandoning our most basic 
public interest responsibilities regarding radio and television. Local, diverse and competitive 
media attuned to the needs of the myriad communities that comprise America are not a luxury 
that it would be nice to have. They are a necessity without which our democracy cannot thrive.
“Millions of citizens across the land understand what has been lost—we know that from 
previous debates over the ownership rules. They are as impatient as I am for action to redress 
the costly policy mistakes that have inflicted such a heavy toll on our media.
“Rather than bemoan what has happened today, however, I intend to redouble my efforts 
to move this issue to the Commission’s front burner where it deserves to be. We should have 
changed our media policy by now. We must change it in the months just ahead.”
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