Bill Moyers Journal

BILL MOYERS: You said in a recent speech that-- that America's playing Russian roulette with all of our media. Broadband, internet, television, radio, newspapers. How so?

MICHAEL COPPS: Well, we're going at it without a policy. We're going at it without a vision. We're going at it without realizing what these things mean to the future of our country. Whether it's broadcast or broadband.The public airwaves are to be used for serving the public interest. Expanding our cultural horizon, covering community news, enabling the democratic dialogue. Increasingly, we have moved away from that vision and they're being used for corporate profitability.

BILL MOYERS: And some people will say, that's the market, Michael Copps. That's the way business and capitalism work.

MICHAEL COPPS: But the market is a little bit different than the public airwaves. This is our most precious resource I think in the United States of America and probably the most influential businesses we have is media, is communications.

So it's different than just the usual business transaction. Because we tell these companies particularly to go back to broadcasters, you have the right to use these airwaves. But you've got to be stewards of these airwaves.

Yes, you can make a good living. Nobody's trying to get in your way of that, and most of them continue to make a pretty good living, as you know from watching what a lot of the commercial broadcasters are doing these days.

But in return for that privilege, you need to be stewards of the public airwaves and serve the public interest.