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(Note: On January 20, 2009, Kevin Martin stepped down as chair of the FCC to join the Aspen Institute in Maryland as a senior fellow. )
If Kevin Martin, chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), was worried that the citizens of the Pacific Northwest were going to storm the podium where he was standing, his face never betrayed it.
It was November 2007. The FCC was holding the last of six hearings, in Seattle, about whether to loosen restrictions on media consolidation, established during the Gerald Ford administration. Martin M.P.P. '93, a Republican, wanted to make it easier for a single company to own both a daily newspaper and a TV or radio station in the same market. "Cross-ownership," he believed, would boost the revenues of dying newspapers while acknowledging that consumers today have numerous options for learning about current events.
This is not a popular position. Politicians from both parties—along with media watchdogs, the public, and the two Democrats on the five-member FCC—insist there's already too much consolidation. The ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations by out-of-town conglomerates, they say, has led to thinner news coverage, less access for local artists, and fewer opportunities for female and minority ownership. "American distrust of the concentration of power is as old as our nation itself," Democratic commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said at one meeting.
What's more, during Congressional hearings at the time, Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and then-Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.) were accusing Martin of rushing the consolidation vote. So were advocacy groups that oppose media mergers. The public's anger came to a head at the Seattle hearing, which was called by the FCC on only a week's notice but nonetheless attracted hundreds of people from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.
"You're asking, why the rush, and why no notice?" Martin said to the audience, his voice carefully modulated. "Throughout the process, I've been as transparent as I could be." The room erupted in boos.
"Sit down!" one woman shouted.
"No, I'm not quite done," Martin said quietly, holding up a hand to shush the crowd. "I'll sit down in a second, and you'll have your chance tonight."
Then he did sit down—and for more than nine hours, listened as speaker after speaker pleaded with the commissioners not to relax the ownership restrictions. "I'm a Republican, and I'm a capitalist, but some areas of a private sector must be regulated," testified King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn. "Why would we want to implement policies that could limit the diversity of our media?"
Adelstein, the Democratic commissioner, warned the audience that the meeting might ultimately prove a charade. "If you see a proposal for more consolidation made quickly after this final hearing," he said, "you'll know your input was dismissed."
Indeed, the next business day, Martin rolled out his proposal allowing newspaper companies in the twenty largest markets to buy broadcast stations in those same locales, as long as they meet certain conditions. Newspapers in smaller cities could do the same if they could prove the public would benefit.
"It's no secret the newspaper industry is struggling," Martin explains today, noting that Americans are turning to the Internet and cable TV for their information. He says he believes the 1975 cross-ownership ban has become archaic in this new media environment, and he calls his own solution "a very modest step forward to try to find the right balance allowing for some relief but still protecting the diversity of information." Martin's measure passed 3 to 2 along party lines.
Democrats steamed. "Today's decision would make George Orwell proud," said commissioner Michael Copps. "We claim to be giving the news industry a shot in the arm, but the real effect is to reduce total news gathering." Critics wondered if Martin had even listened to his opponents. "When it got down to the end, he aggressively rammed through his final solution," says Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, a public-interest law firm. The rule is now tied up in court.
It wasn't the first time the forty-two-year-old Martin would face harsh words. During his seven years as a commissioner, including almost four as chair, he's tackled issues as controversial as when to allow expletives on broadcast television and how much to rein in cable companies. He's made no permanent allies: Sometimes he's a free marketer; other times, a regulator. He has formed 3 to 2 voting blocs with members of both parties.
He has been investigated by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, whose Democratic staff concluded in December that "important Commission matters have not been handled in an open and transparent manner." Martin insists the FCC under his leadership, which will end when incoming President Barack Obama names a successor, has been more inclusive, and more deliberative, than duty requires.
"I've been yelled at by Republican and Democratic congressmen alike," Martin says. It's hard to listen to such pointed criticism, he acknowledges. "But what I think is important, when you're in a position like this, is that you try to make a policy decision based upon the facts."
Martin was nominated to the FCC by President George W. Bush in 2001. By then, his boyish face—which inevitably evokes comparisons to Harry Potter—was well-known in the White House.
A native of Waxhaw, North Carolina, Martin had gotten his political start early—winning the student-body presidency at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on such bread-and-butter issues as parking. After earning a master's degree at Duke's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy and a law degree at Harvard University, Martin clerked for a federal judge in Miami before heading to Washington. There he found work as a telecommunications lawyer, first with a corporate law firm and later as an FCC staffer. It was a time of sweeping changes in the communications world: Not only were cell phones and the Internet taking off, but in 1996, Congress passed its first overhaul of federal telecom law in more than six decades.
Martin took a leave in 2000 to campaign for Bush, with whom he found common ground on some key economic principles. "In general, competition in the marketplace is the means of delivering lower prices for consumers and driving innovation," he says. "That's not the same thing as a complete libertarian approach. I believe that government does have a role to play, a critical role, in making sure the rules of the road are set up so that you can have fair competition." Martin believed that Bush's "compassionate conservatism" echoed his own belief in a hands-on government. At Duke, Martin had written his master's thesis on high-stakes educational testing, which both he and Bush support. Martin appreciated how, as Texas governor, Bush favored "setting high standards, but then providing resources to schools so they could meet those standards."
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