Louise Slaughter: “This is a debate that has gone on one way or another here in the House since the early 1970s. It was considered a great…”

“This is a debate that has gone on one way or another here in the House since the early 1970s. It was considered a great reform in 1970 that we would try to do something about controlling television time. I even remember there was a bill way back in the dark days by Congressman Udall when he was here. Congressman Udall did not believe if you owned a major television station in a media market that you should also own the newspapers and all the radio stations, and Congress agreed with him. It was really quite an astonishing thing. We will never see the like of that again, because I think we have gotten to the point now where, at least in my media market, there is not a homegrown station there. They are all bought out by conglomerates back and forth, and several have one room where large machines spill out talk radio all day long, call-in shows. At any rate, that is media in America today. As my colleague, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens), pointed out, almost every civilized country in the world understands it is an important thing for democracy, not to help candidates out, but for democracy, to hear two sides of an issue. We have not been able to do that in the United States over the media since 1986 when it was taken away. We are on the cusp of history here, and I want to urge my colleagues not to take a chance on losing this bill by annoying the Senate, who passed this 2 to 1. Please vote 'no.'”