State of Media Ownership a National Disgrace

During a national press briefing, two Federal Communications Commissioners and a group of civil rights leaders expressed outrage over the appalling lack of diversity in TV station ownership uncovered in the Free Press study, Out of the Picture.

The exhaustive research conducted by S. Derek Turner and Mark Cooper revealed that women and minorities have been almost completely shut out of TV station ownership.

Both FCC Commissioners cited the study’s findings as a chief reason to put the brakes on any rules that would further media consolidation.

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps:

“There is something terribly wrong when women and minorities comprise such substantial parts of the U.S. population but own so few broadcast television stations. This isn’t just a problem. It’s a national disgrace. We just should not be voting again on changing media ownership rules unless and until we have tackled this problem and come up with initiatives to redress a crying national need.”

FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein:

“A bad situation has gotten worse while the FCC sat idly by and did nothing. We have a legal and moral obligation to take immediate steps to make broadcast media and coverage more diverse. This study shows that allowing more media concentration will only aggravate what is already a pitiful lack of minority voices over the airwaves.”

Civil rights leaders blasted the FCC for its failure to adequately address the persistent underrepresentation of women and minorities in media ownership, resulting in the invisibility of issues and ideas from an enormous segment of the population.

Nancy Zirkin, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights:

“The findings here - the low levels of female and minority ownership - should be a national embarrassment. And the fact that some on the recent FCC have been more interested in giving more power to those who already have too much, rather than addressing decades of discrimination and ensuring that the little guy will get a chance, should be a national scandal.”

Kim Gandy, National Organization for Women:

“There are so few women’s voices on broadcast television, and part of the absence of women’s perspectives stems from the absence of women owners. We are half of the population but only 5 percent of station owners. And the problem is getting worse — the increasing consolidation of ownership is making women invisible.”

Janet Murguia, National Council of La Raza:

“This is a critical issue for our community. Latinos continue to be severely underrepresented in the mainstream media in terms of employment, content, and ownership. This report confirms what we strongly believe — that increased media concentration has significantly exacerbated this situation and that increasing diversity in media ownership could help stem it.”

Gary Flowers, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition:

“This attempt by the FCC to change ownership rules once again will result in too few owning too much, at the expense of too many.”

David Honig, the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council:

“In addition to being morally wrong, the lack of minority ownership is anticompetitive and inefficient. It deprives America’s television viewers of the entrepreneurial, managerial and creative skills of a third of the nation’s people.”

Cheryl A. Leanza, United Church of Christ, Office of Communication Inc.

“Today Americans are realizing that it is important that each of us own a stake in America. This study demonstrates something we already intuitively realize that the people running the media industry do not represent most Americans and are not based in our communities.”

Today’s press call can be heard at: www.stopbigmedia.com/files/minority_call.mp3

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