FCC, Chicago Meeting & Media consolidation go Moyers

Once upon a time the Federal Communications Commission — the FCC — was a sleepy bureaucracy on a quiet street in Washington. The FCC is the government body that sets the rules for media. And for a decade now, it's become a citadel of power, swarming with media tycoons, high priced lawyers and well placed lobbyists, finagling to make sure the rules and regulations are shaped and bent to allow big media to get even bigger.

A handful of mega-media corporations have gained unprecedented control over radio ... television ... publishing and the Internet. They determine what music you hear, what stories get covered, whose opinions get expressed.

Until five years ago, people like you — the public — didn't matter very much at the FCC. Then, when the FCC Chairman Michael Powell announced that the commission was about to change the rule and allow a few media giants to own even more television and radio stations in one town, you said enough's enough. And somewhere between two or three million of you spoke up and deluged the FCC and Congress with phone calls, emails, letters, and postcards.