Former FCC Chairman Michael Copps, a longtime critic of corporate consolidation of media ownership, will speak in Honolulu on Thursday, March 20. His appearance is sponsored by Media Council Hawaii, Common Cause Hawaii, and the Society of Professional Journalists-Hawaii.

Among his other hats, Copps currently serves as special advisor to the Common Cause Media and Democracy Reform Initiative.

According to Common Cause:

From 2001 to 2011, Copps served as a member of the Federal Communications Commission. His tenure was marked by a consistent embrace of the public interest. As a strong voice in opposition of consolidation in the media, he notably dissented in the Comcast-NBC Universal merger. He has been a consistent proponent for localism in programming and diversity in media ownership.

Though retired from the Commission, he has maintained his commitment to an inclusive, informative media landscape. In addition to leading Common Causes’s media reform initiative, he sits on the boards of Free Press and Public Knowledge. Prior to his time at the FCC, he served as the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Trade Development at the Department of Commerce and Chief of Staff to Senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC) from the early 1970s to 1983. He has a Ph.D. in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Last month, Copps blasted the proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable, and other mega-mergers, in a letter posted at Columbia Journalism Review. which he fears will further erode the open internet.

Copps wrote, in part:

I notice now in the news the stunning announcement that Comcast hopes to buy Time-Warner, the second largest cable company, for more than $45 billion. That would make this one of the biggest mergers in media history, and I fear it will run roughshod over consumers in the end.

Let me be clear: Not every transaction is bad. Consolidation may offer some limited benefits, as when stations pool money to buy a better weather radar. But there is a huge difference between that and merged stations reporting the same news by the same reporters.

So instead of making good things happen, I would be spending untold hours listening to big media tell me how their latest merger proposal would translate into enormous “efficiencies” and “economies of scale” to produce more and better news. Meanwhile, everywhere I looked, I saw newsrooms like yours being shuttered or drastically downsized, reporters getting the axe, and investigative journalism hanging by the most slender of threads. Instead of expanding news, the conglomerates cut the muscle out of deep-dive reporting and disinvested in you.

Here are the details of his public appearance.

“DEMOCRACY AT RISK:

MEDIA AND THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY”

Michael Copps
Former chairman and member
Federal Communications Commission

DATE: Thursday, March 20, 2014

WHERE: The Outrigger Canoe Club 2909 Kalakaua Avenue, Honolulu

TIME: Noon–Lunch & Program (Registration 11:30 a.m.)

COST: $25 with salmon salad or veggie lunch, $10 without lunch

GUEST SPEAKER: Michael Copps, former chairman & member of the FCC, is an outspoken critic of Media Monopoly as a threat to our democracy. He will address both the consolidation of broadcast ownership and corporate control of the Internet.

Please RSVP at: conybeare@msn.com or call 225.6288 for information.