NAHJ Opposes Further Consolidation
By Rafael Olmeda
President of National Association Hispanic Journalists
It didn’t seem like an unreasonable request. NAHJ asked the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) earlier this year to conduct an analysis of the state of minority broadcast ownership in the United States. Such a study had not been conducted since the Clinton Administration.
Today, with the Federal Communications Commission once again seeking to revisit rules on broadcast ownership, NAHJ felt a look at minority ownership was warranted.
So we asked for it. And the NTIA said no.
That was in the spring. Now, months later, we can begin to see reasons for the reluctance.
A national, non-profit and non-partisan media policy organization called Free Press took it upon itself to review the ownership records of the nation’s 1,350 broadcast television stations. What the researchers found was disappointing but not terribly surprising: People of color comprise a third of the nation’s population, but only 3.26 percent of broadcast television station owners. Hispanics are 14 percent of the population, yet only 1.1 percent of station owners.
Another finding is of vital importance to NAHJ: The more concentrated a media market, the less likely it is to have a minority owner. In other words, the more we see media consolidation taking root in a community, the less likely we are to see a minority-owned television station in that community.
For over a year, NAHJ has expressed its disapproval of increased media concentration, primarily on the grounds that its effect on minority ownership has not been addressed. Now the evidence is beginning to show what we’d already suspected. Increased consolidation means less minority ownership.
There’s more. Two apparently suppressed FCC studies reveal that local ownership of broadcast stations means more local news content. And the Free Press study showed that minority owners are more likely to be local owners.
In response to NAHJ’s rejected request to the NTIA, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has called on the U.S. Senate to hold up the nomination of the new NTIA assistant secretary until the agency agrees to conduct another minority ownership study. As journalists, we did not request this action. We do agree, wholeheartedly, that the agency must do its job when it comes to this important issue.
Because we care about minority ownership, because we care about local news coverage and because we care about the overall quality of journalism in America, NAHJ continues its opposition to further media consolidation. Our board recently affirmed and strengthened its statement concerning media concentration, and NAHJ Vice President Cindy Rodriguez joined me, our deputy director Joseph Torres, and two representatives of Free Press to discuss the issue in Washington, D.C. with aides of eight members of Congress.
NAHJ is co-sponsoring a public hearing on media consolidation in New York City on October 19. I urge every NAHJ member to carefully review the available information on this issue and understand why we continue to feel the need to take this stand.
