I apologize for having to conduct the rest of my presentation in a lesser language of much less beauty than yours, but it is all that the ignorant Americans know.

I want to thank Ambassador Richard Miles, [Counselor for Press and Culture, U.S. Embasy, Sofia] Jim [Hutcheson] and his staff, Ogie [Ognian Zlatev, Media Development Center] would you stand up -- I guess everyone knows you -- and the interpreters, Mariana Hill and Illyana Sherkova, without whom no communication would take place.

And thank you for your interest, most of all, for being here today.  I look forward to learning from you, because I think we all have to gain from comparative studies of the way in which various countries and cultures have gone about the matter of regulating media and integrating it into the society.

So I would certainly agree with what Jim said with regard to the American experience.  I have spent most of my life being a critic of the American system.  As a commissioner of our Federal Communications Commission for seven years, I mostly wrote dissenting opinions explaining why the F.C.C. and the media itself were wrong.  So I would agree with Jim that we are not here to say that this is what you should do.  I think ours is a system that it is worthwhile you are looking at, and considering the options that it offers you as a comparative study. But I would never suggest that you go out and copy every detail of the American system, even if you were inclined to do so, which you are too wise to do anyway.

My wife, Mary Vasey, I would also like to introduce, if you would raise your hand, Mary.  Mary is an expert in educational reform in the United States and has been, and will continue while here, to be consulting with educational leaders in Bulgaria with regard to elementary and secondary education.

And really, we are all in the same business of trying to educate and inform a citizenry to make democracy possible.  So in a way it’s all part of a piece.  We have always wanted to come to Bulgaria, and we have been very pleased here with the friendliness of the people, the energy we detect on the street and in the music, the beauty of the countryside that we have driven through.  We had a conference in Varna earlier, and Mary stayed over there for an educational international conference.

As Jim said, what I want to do briefly this morning to begin our discussion -- because most of what we are going to do today is have a back and forth  discussion rather than a long lecture from a boring professor.  But I am going to describe briefly the system that we have for regulation of the media in the United States.

Every country in the world as radio began around 1910 or 1920 had the wisdom to see the importance and the potential impact on education, on culture, on the economy, on politics and government that radio, and then television, were going to bring to that country.  The countries responded in different ways.

Some established broadcasting systems that were in effect an agency of government, the voice of the government.

Others established what we call “public corporations.” And these are often very independent of the government.  In fact, often times the head of the government -- I recall the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson some years ago telling me how angry he was at the B.B.C. because he felt they weren’t treating him fairly.  Sverges Radio, the public system in Sweden, Olaf Palme thought had contributed to the downfall of his government. So a public broadcasting system can be very independent of the government and not at all a state agency.

The third model which the United States chose was a model not unlike one we have used in other sectors of the economy where we mix private ownership and government regulation.  So it’s not a public corporation, it’s not a government agency, but neither is it a part of a free marketplace.  There is a measure of government regulation of the private commercial broadcaster who is left free to make a profit for shareholders but has public obligations.

Our law says that the broadcaster must operate in, and this is a quote, “the public convenience, interest and necessity.”  We sometimes say colloquially that the broadcaster is a “public trustee.”  That “the public owns the airways.”  That when you are a broadcaster you do not own your station, you have a license for a limited and fixed term to be a broadcaster.  But after that term is over you no longer have a right to broadcast.

Now virtually all of the broadcasters get their licenses renewed, but they do not have a legal right to insist that their license be renewed. And they do not have a legal right to broadcast unless they have a license.  It’s not unlike our members of Congress who do not have a right to be reelected, but 98% of them are reelected.  So the broadcaster is somewhat similar in that way.

We created a Radio Commission in 1927 and that was then folded into and came to be called the Federal Communications Commission in 1934.  And that act, the Communications Act of 1934, is the act that we still operate under.

A central feature of the Federal Communications Commission is that it is what we call a “fourth branch of government.”  It is not under the control of the president of the United States.  It is not under the control of the Congress.  It is not under the control of the courts.  It is what we call an “independent regulatory commission.”  It is independent of government.

In Varna I told an anecdote I will tell you today.  I was one of the first appointments by President Lyndon Johnson when he appointed me in charge of the United States ocean shipping and I was 29 years old.  And he took a great interest in protecting me and bringing me along and being helpful, inviting me to the White House and so forth.  The day I was appointed to the F.C.C., an independent regulatory commission, we no longer had any communication.  For the seven years I was on the Federal Communications Commission, I never talked to Lyndon Johnson; I never got any messages through third parties that this is what the president wants you to do.   And then as soon as I left the F.C.C. we again established our relationship.  Just to give you a sense of what we mean by “independent.”  Just absolutely no connection, at least in my experience, between the White House and the Federal Communications Commission.  And that is a very important quality of that body.

Our public broadcasting system. We have in addition to the commercial broadcasters a public broadcasting system, national public radio. They are deliberately -- by our parliamentary body, our congress -- they are deliberately set up as insulated from congress. Because the members of congress wanted to give them the assurance that members of congress would not interfere with them. Because they knew that they would want to interfere with them and that that would be a bad thing.  So they set up a Corporation for Public Broadcasting with its own corporate board. And the congress must deal with the board members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, none of whom are in the government; all of whom are independent, private citizens.  But members of congress can’t get to the producers of the programs or the managers of the public stations.

We have been very conscious of the problems that arise when politicians and government officials want to try to interfere with and control the content of the broadcasting and we set up layers of insulation and provide for independence.

As an F.C.C. commissioner I had a seven-year term.  President Johnson left office; President Nixon came into office.  President Nixon wanted to get me off of the F.C.C.  He tried to find a way to get me impeached.  But he found out there was nothing he could do.  And so I was there and he was very angry at what I would write as an F.C.C. commissioner, but he could not remove me, he could not punish me in any way.  And then later President Nixon discovered, as you may have heard, that there are procedures for impeaching presidents of the United States.  So I was somewhat pleased that he was impeached and I was not.  But that’s another example of the independence of the commissioner of the F.C.C.

We have within the Communications Act of 1934 a provision called Section 315 that contains within it the concept of “equal opportunity.” And it provides that if a station puts on the air a candidate for public office they must provide an equal opportunity for every other candidate running for that office.

There are then exceptions to that for news coverage.  And the word there, the phrase there, is “bonafide.” “Bonafide” meaning genuine, professional, journalism.  So long as a legitimate, bonafide, professional, journalistic judgment is made that what this candidate is doing really is news, or this event that they wish to cover live, or even a news interview with the candidate, or a documentary.  So long as that is legitimate journalism, and the station is not doing it just for one candidate all the time to try to get that candidate elected, the equal opportunity rule does not apply.  So journalists have freedom to report on the campaigns and the candidates as news without any triggering.

There is no payment by a candidate to be a part of a news program.  There is no payment by a candidate to be a part of a debate.

There may be commercial time sold to commercial advertisers, to advertise whatever -- automobile, soft drink or whatever.  But the candidates would not pay to use the facility.

Originally our rule was that you could not have a debate because debates would trigger the equal opportunity doctrine and you would have to put everybody in the debate.  But that has gradually changed over time starting in 1960 with the Kennedy and Nixon debates, Congress had to pass a special law just for the Kennedy-Nixon debates.  Because we do not have the 96 parties that you have, but we do in presidential elections have maybe 15 or 20 parties, most of which nobody has ever heard of.  We have a system that is dominated by two parties, the Democratic party and the Republican party.  So it’s not really an abuse of the media and the political system when you have a debate, to have a debate between the Democrat and the Republican since 99.9% of the time, the person who is going to be elected will be either the Democrat or the Republican.

Most stations make an effort to give all the candidates some exposure.  More than the 30 seconds that is going to result under your regulations.  But we would not have a presidential debate with the Vegetarian Party candidate getting equal time with the Republican and the Democrat.  But Congress had to pass a special law to make that happen in 1960 for Kennedy and Nixon.

Then in 1975 the F.C.C. said, you can treat a debate, you the broadcaster can treat a debate as an exemption, as an “on the spot coverage of a news event,” if the debate is sponsored by someone who is not a broadcaster, not a candidate and not a political party.

We have many organizations of citizens in the United States, people who are not affiliated with the government, but who are interested in the environment, women’s issues, or children or whatever.  And we have some organizations that are interested in improving the quality of government and one of these is called the “League of Women Voters.” And so the League of Women Voters came forward and said, “We sill sponsor a debate between the presidential candidates.”  And then the F.C.C. said, “Well as long as the debate is sponsored by the League of Women Voters, the broadcasters can cover it.  They have no control over which politicians appear and this will not be considered an equal opportunity event.”

Subsequently, in 1983 the F.C.C. said it is OK even for the broadcasters to sponsor the debate, and it will still be an exemption from equal opportunity.

And then finally in 1987 they said it is even all right for the candidates to create a debate. So the Democratic and Republican candidates got together and decided they would have a debate and the F.C.C. said, That’s OK; the broadcaster can cover it.”

In terms of the purchase, it is possible to purchase commercial time during a campaign.  Normally these are short commercials, short “spots” as we call them.  If you are a candidate who has not run before you need what we call “name identification.”  You need to establish your name with the voters so they know you even exist.  And then if you are better known, you may get into a little bit of an issue.  We also have what we call “negative campaigning” where you attack your opponent.  We try to discourage that, but it’s very effective politically so it tends to happen anyway.

And we have a law, again a special phrase, “lowest unit rate.”  The broadcaster is required to sell the time to the politicians at the lowest rate that a commercial advertiser would have to pay if they were buying lots of spots and so forth, because the practice had been that politicians were being charged more for time than commercial advertisers.

We also have a doctrine called, and this is another special phrase, “personal attack doctrine.”  And this provides that the broadcaster can attack somebody if they want to, and criticize them and make fun of them and ridicule them. But then the personal attack doctrine says you must let that person know what you said and when you said it, either with a transcript or with a tape and give that person the opportunity to respond.  So you can attack them, but then that triggers in them a legal right to come on your station and answer that attack.

We also have had a “fairness doctrine.”  Again two words, “fairness doctrine.”  Obviously you cannot legislate fairness in the colloquial sense.  This requires two things of the broadcaster:  (1) that the broadcaster must deal with controversial issues in the community. You cannot have a radio station that is, as we say, “a CD player with commercials.”  You have to have some news, some controversy as a part of your total programming.

(2) The second requirement is the one that most people know about, and that is that when you present controversy, you must present some range of points of view.

You do not have to give “equal opportunity” to all points of view.  You don’t have to present all points of view.  You don’t have to put any given individual on the air, as you do with the personal attack doctrine.  So a citizen can’t go to the station and demand that the station put them on the air because of the fairness violation.  It doesn’t really require very much of the station that good professional journalism wouldn’t produce anyway.  But it had been some check on an owner that wanted to use the station just for propaganda 24 hours a day.

Now the F.C.C. has repealed the fairness doctrine.  It is no longer required that broadcasters be fair. They can be whatever they want to be.  This has been something of a disaster in my view, but then who am I?  I am not even on the F.C.C. anymore to write dissenting opinions.

Finally, we have considerations, consequences of the new media.

What happens when you have 500 channels available to the home through a small satellite dish?

What about the Internet?  Most radio and television stations -- and newspapers -- most radio stations in the United States are broadcasting over the Internet.  While they are broadcasting over the air, a satellite may carry their signal as well.

And just as with cable television, you don’t have to have a broadcasting station to be on the cable.  You could go directly into the cable as Bulgarian MTV does.  I saw their studio yesterday.

So with a radio station you don’t have to have a transmitter either, you can just go directly into the Internet.

How do you regulate that?  All the theories behind broadcast regulation are no longer applicable.  There is no scarcity of frequencies; no justification for the regulation.

That is a few highlights to begin with, about 20 minutes, and I thank you for the fact that nobody has gone to sleep so far.  I have been watching very carefully.

Now I would welcome hearing from you what is going on here so I can bring back some good examples for my colleagues in the United States about what we should copy from Bulgaria.  And any questions you might have about the system in the United States or other countries that I have studied, or questions you may have about the issues that are currently confronting you here.