To attorney Andrew Jay Schwartzman, C’68, L’71, even whale calls are broadcast-worthy. The fact that the sonorous groans can be emitted over the radio waves of Kodiak Island, Alaska—where the chamber of commerce nets whale songs with microphones below the ocean—means that Andy is doing his job.

The Ralph Nader of the airwaves, Schwartzman is now in his third decade of creating static for giant media conglomerates like Viacom and AOL Time Warner. Most recently, he pulled off a stunning upset by successfully fighting to stay new FCC rules loosening restrictions on media ownership. The ruling was a major setback for FCC chairman Michael Powell.

Schwartzman, the tenacious president and CEO of Media Access Project (MAP), a telecommunications law firm in Washington, D.C., harps continually on the need for on-air diversity and local ownership. Democracy, he insists, works only when everyone’s voice gets heard. Mostly, he works with small, defiant groups like civil rights organizations, churches, school districts, and environmental activists. “Many of those I’m up against see the First Amendment as just another device to protect their revenue stream,” he charges. “My clients are living, breathing people, not artificial people like these companies.”

Schwartzman defended the 1992 Cable Act, which requires cable companies to carry local TV stations. He’s paved the way for low-power radio stations—those tiny blips under 5,000 watts on the dial between the big stations—to operate legally. And, as co-counsel in a Supreme Court case that toppled the Communications Decency Act, he helped to establish free-speech rights on the Internet.

“ I love the media! I just want to make it better,” exclaims Schwartzman, whose shocking white hair is partially concealed by the headphones he wears to channel-cruise radio and TV.

A precocious consumer of journalism and avid follower of legendary New York Times columnist James Reston, young Andy was reading the Times by the age of six. So fascinated was the boy by the media’s impact on public decisions that he would line up three TV sets and scrutinize the spins each station placed on the same news stories.

The one-time sociology major grew up in a politically active household in New York’s Westchester County. His physician father, Joel, C’31, GM’46, and journalist mother were active in local Democratic politics. (Brother Paul, C’71, is a Hollywood film agent.) In law school he spent a semester in the nation’s capital working for a public-policy law firm, evaluating standards for misleading advertising. Later he joined the communication office of the United Church of Christ, where he promoted minority employment and ownership in broadcasting. He started working for MAP in 1978 and has never left.

A small public-interest law firm, Media Access Project grew out of a movement that began with litigation against a Mississippi TV station for failing to serve the black community. Most of the firm’s caseload involves television, the rest radio and Internet. Its three attorneys and various interns operate on a starvation budget of $650,000 a year, a sum less than the annual salary of many corporate lawyers.

“ He’s been doing this thing on a nickel and a dime for years because he’s doing what he believes in,” says Shaun Sheehan, Washington lobbyist for the Chicago-based Tribune Company and frequent Schwartzman opponent. “You have to admire that.”

Pete Tridish, technical director for the Prometheus Radio Project, Schwartzman’s client in the FCC case, is awed by his encyclopedic knowledge of the regulatory agency. “His political sense of the FCC is like that of a naturalist who’s been watching a weird bird for years and understands its ins and outs,” says Tridish, who is amused by his lawyer’s quirky habit of nesting himself in “thousands and thousands of papers everywhere.”

Many of Schwartzman’s opponents call his arguments repetitive and without merit. He counters that the FCC is a highly politicized bird, dominated by well-funded interests with powerful lobbies. Lifetime wins have been few, but Schwartzman has stuck with his plan and his arguments. On September 3 of last year, that tenacity paid off.

Working on behalf of Philadelphia-based Prometheus, a nonprofit activist organization that fights for democratic ownership and regulation of media, Schwartzman surprised everyone—including himself. He defeated legal teams from the FCC and three major broadcast networks by convincing the court to freeze the new FCC ownership rules on the day before they were set to take effect.

Arguing before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Schwartzman claimed that the new rules, which enable media companies to seize greater market share than under the current rules, impede diversity in ownership and operation of broadcast stations. “Big is bad in the media because you lose touch with the people,” he contends.

The hearing on the future of the rules is scheduled for early February. Schwartzman, who spends his spare time reading newspapers and magazines and working computer keys to surf the Internet, will again insist that having many media owners will yield a diversity of perspectives. Unmoved by opponents’ arguments that corporate ownership means polished newscasts with highly trained on-air personalities, he will also drive home the importance of local ownership of media outlets, which, he maintains, preserves ties to communities. “We think that localism and having the opportunity to present different points of view is more important than slickness.”

Although many of Schwartzman’s clients engage in public protests and civil disobedience, he stays within more conventional bounds, believing that the order and justice of the legal system will prevail. By using the law to protect the rights of the little guy, he strives “to improve how we function as a democratic society.”
“ What keeps me in it is the sense that I’ve made a difference in people’s lives. Many of these things—free speech on the Internet, women and minority involvement in media management, ownership and newsgathering—are abstract. But,” he stresses, “they are no less real,” no less real than songs of whales over the airwaves of Kodiak Island—or the First Amendment principles Andy Schwartzman champions. n

Joan Capuzzi Giresi, C’86, V’98, is a journalist and veterinarian in the Philadelphia area.