CNNFN Lou Dobbs Tonight Transcript

CNNFN

SHOW: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT 06:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

July 15, 2003 Tuesday

HEADLINE: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT; CNNfn

GUESTS: James Lilley, Byron Dorgan

BYLINE: Casey Wian, Peter Viles, Christine Romans, Jamie McIntyre, Suzanne Malveaux, John Zarrella, Haven Daley, Kitty Pilgrim, Kathleen Koch, Jan Hopkins, Matt Morrison

HOPKINS: A group of senators is taking on the Federal Communication Commission's new rules on media ownership. The senators say that allowing media giants to own more will take away viewing options for the public. Senator Byron Dorgan is leading the bipartisan effort to pass a resolution overturning the rules. He joins us now from Capitol Hill.

And you have enough signatures to bring it before the Senate. Yes?

SEN. BYRON DORGAN (D), NORTH DAKOTA: I do. I have enough signatures that will give it—give it what is called an expedited procedure. So we're guaranteed a vote in the Senate to try to overturn these FCC rules.

And if I might just mention to you, what the FCC has done is to stand logic on its head. Their rules would allow one company in the largest cities in the country to own the newspaper, three television stations, eight radio stations and the cable company. I don't think that's moving in the right direction.

HOPKINS: What are you hearing from your fellow senators? Why are they concerned about this and why do they want to vote on it?

DORGAN: Well, the whole notion of, particularly in broadcast, television and radio, is to license the airwaves. The airwaves belong to the American people. License them for use. But part of that licensing is about localism and diversity and competition, and what the FCC is doing is to say, you know, the sky is the limit, buy who you want, concentrate as you will.

We have one company now owning 1,200 radio stations in the country. And the same is happening with television stations. And now the FCC says, oh, by the way, you know, Katie by the door, the newspapers can get involved as well. And I just think people here are very concerned that this aggressive orgy of mergers and acquisitions and this concentration is not healthy for our country.

HOPKINS: What do you think it does?

DORGAN: What do you mean, what does it do?

HOPKINS: The combination of ownership in just a few hands. What does it do to the viewing public?

DORGAN: Well, it's interesting. The big broadcasting companies and others who want this and who are seeing more and more concentrations through their acquisitions, they say, well, what we have are many, many more voices. What you have are more voices by a single ventriloquist. They say, well, you've got all these cable channels. You know what? The top cable channels are owned by the same big broadcasting companies.

They say, well, but now you have the Internet, you have all these new sites on the Internet. Most of the new sites on the Internet are owned by the same companies. I just think it's unhealthy. Most of my colleagues do as well. I think this country is best served by a broad-based ownership of its broadcast and newspaper opportunities, and I—the FCC rule moves in exactly the opposite direction.

HOPKINS: You're from North Dakota. Has this impacted your state?

DORGAN: Meinhot (ph), North Dakota, a town of about 40,000 or 50,000 people has six commercial radio stations, one religious and one public broadcast. All six of the commercial radio stations were bought by one company. All of them, owned by one company. At 2:00 in the morning, an anhydrous (ph) ammonia car exploded on the tracks, derailed, exploded. Deadly aroma, deadly gas, flood of gas covered the town and they called the radio station to try to put out an emergency bulletin. Guess what? Couldn't get an answer on the phone.

Does it affect these communities where one company buys up all the stations? You bet it does.

HOPKINS: You also are looking into government waste and spending for training of the TSA workers. What did you find out? They stayed in some pretty elaborate places.

DORGAN: They sure did. You know, the Transportation Security Agency is supposed to be making the skies safe for travelers and for the airlines. And in fact, they were out hiring recruiters. They hired a company that wasted hundreds of millions of dollars. They went to ski resorts, big hotels and spent a lot of money and spent seven weeks at one resort trying to hire 50 people. They've wasted a tragic amount of money.

HOPKINS: So what are you trying to do, get the money returned? There is the Waldorf-Astoria, that's one of the places they stayed.

DORGAN: What we're trying to do is find out who is accountable and see if we can't get them off the public payroll. I think there ought to be accountability in government. When people waste money, we have to understand who sanctioned it, who did it, and get them off the public payroll.

HOPKINS: Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat from North Dakota, thanks for joining us.

DORGAN: Thanks a lot.