Archive for November, 2006
Tuesday, November 28th, 2006 by Jen Howard
Reclaim the Media reports that the Seattle City Council has just passed a resolution in support of the Media Bill of Rights — rights that include access to media in an open marketplace of ideas, use of the public airwaves to serve the public interest and media that reflect and respond to local communities.
On passing the resolution, Council Chair Nick Licata encouraged other cities to do the same:
“I would hope that other cities will pass similar resolutions that will get the attention of our representatives in congress who have certainly watered down the public’s protections and access to these major media outlets.”
The Media Bill of Rights is backed by a broad coalition of consumer, public interest, media reform, organized labor and other groups that represent millions of Americans.
This resolution comes as Seattle prepares for a Nov. 30 Public Hearing on Media Ownership with FCC commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein. The commissioners will hear testimony on the FCC’s current notice of rulemaking that could further relax media ownership limits.
To read the full text of the Media Bill of Rights and learn more about the Seattle Public Hearing on Media Ownership, visit www.reclaimthemedia.org.
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Tuesday, November 21st, 2006 by Jen Howard
Clear Channel – the notorious radio giant – is being bought by a group of private equity firms in a $27 billion-deal that will include the sale over more than 448 radio stations in smaller markets and the chain’s 42 television outlets.
While it’s far too early to celebrate the demise of Clear Channel – which at its peak owned some 1,200 stations and imposed cookie-cutter content from coast to coast – it’s clear that the Big Media model has failed.
At big conglomerates like Clear Channel, Tribune, and Knight Ridder, investors’ appetite for quarterly profit growth couldn’t be satisfied by continually sacking newsroom staff, cutting out local coverage, or piping in remote DJs with their pay-to-playlists of J.Lo and Celine Dion.
In the end, the lesson from these companies’ demise isn’t that media isn’t a profitable business. It’s that the Big Media model fails to serve the needs of local communities, which ultimately leads to displeased investors.
But the breakup of Clear Channel or Tribune will do little to change the underlying problems created by the Big Media model and a complacent FCC. The era of Big Media is far from over, and the events from past decade clearly illustrate why good media policy is still so important.
The outcome of Clear Channel’s decision to exit the TV business and the smaller radio markets will depend upon who ends up buying each of these stations. In an ideal world, the stations would return to the control of local owners, who have a proven track record of better serving local communities.
Instead, most expect that Clear Channel’s stations will fetch top dollar when the deals close, selling in large clusters to other media conglomerates. The asking price for these properties will be very high, too high for many local owners.
It didn’t have to be this way. If the FCC had policies in place to promote female and minority ownership (which they are required to do by law), then Clear Channel’s breakup could create the opportunity to increase the abysmally low level of female and minority broadcast media ownership.
In 2003, the FCC chartered a Diversity Committee to look at this specific issue. The committee offered proposals for fostering female and minority ownership, including those that would give companies like Clear Channel very strong incentives to sell to women and minorities. But the FCC has ignored the recommendations of its own advisory panel.
Instead of the more diverse ownership – and content – we desperately need, the FCC seems satisfied to keep playing the same old song.
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Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 by Craig Aaron
The Center for Media and Democracy and Free Press just released the latest report on an epidemic of fake news on local TV stations across the country.
So far this year, they’ve uncovered more than 100 stations dropping corporate “video news releases,” or VNRs — sponsored segments produced to mimic independent news reports — into their newscasts without disclosure.
More than 80 percent of the stations snared in the probe are owned by large conglomerates. A list of the worst offenders reads like a who’s who of Big Media, including stations owned by Tribune Company, Sinclair Broadcasting, News Corp./Fox Television and CBS.
The evidence suggests a strong tie between media consolidation and the use of deceptive, pre-packaged propaganda. There’s a reason for this: VNRs are free. Reporting news that’s meaningful to local communities isn’t. By opting to air a VNR instead of sending a reporter into the field, station owners save a fortune.
Find out more:
Take action to stop fake news
Watch the video evidence
See if stations near you aired fake news
Read the full report
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Tuesday, November 14th, 2006 by Jen Howard
Today, the FCC announced that its second official hearing will take place in Nashville, Tenn. on Dec. 11th. Nashville is home to FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate. Given the setting, the hearing is likely to focus on musicians’ rights, payola and the consolidation of radio ownership.
In June, Chairman Martin pledged to convene six official hearings — with all five FCC commissioners — when the FCC launched the rule-making procedure that could change local ownership limits. The first, held in Los Angeles, was attended by nearly 1,000 Angelenos from all walks of life. An overwhelming majority opposed any rule changes that would let Big Media companies swallow up more local outlets.
According to today’s release:
“[T]his second hearing will provide an opportunity for those in the Nashville area to broadly discuss media ownership issues as well as those of concern to their community.”
Big Media is facing an increasingly uphill battle on efforts to further consolodate: subscriber revolt, public opposition, crackdown by incoming Congressional leadership, and Wall Street push back.
Click here for more information on round two in Nashville.
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Wednesday, November 8th, 2006 by Jen Howard
At a press conference today, soon-to-be House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) made it clear that under his leadership, the committee “will have to take a hard look at any FCC loosening of media ownership rules.”
According to Broadcasting & Cable:
Dingell said that there were questions about whether localism was being served under the current media ownership rules, and that the committee would have to make certain the FCC was acting in the public’s interest. Under court order, the FCC is taking a second try at revising media ownership rules.
Dingell also touches on how his “stronger hand” will effect issues like Net Neutrality, the AT&T/BellSouth merger and new telecom reform legislation.
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Wednesday, November 8th, 2006 by Jen Howard
Dean Baquet, editor of the Los Angeles Times, who defied orders from his corporate bosses at the Tribune Company to cut jobs, was forced out of his job on Election Day. Baquet’s firing follows that of the paper’s publisher, Jeffrey Johnson, who also openly disagreed with job cuts ordered by the paper’s parent company and was terminated last month.
Baquet has been very vocal in encouraging editors at other newspapers to push back against owners who wanted to cut newsroom staffs to increase profits. The timing of Tribune Company’s unpopular decision to fire Baquet on one of the busiest news days of the year was no coincidence. In response, a corporate watchdog group has set-up a Subscriber Revolt Letter for subscribers to the L.A. Times to express their dissatisfaction with these recent moves.
That’s not the only local campaign aimed at the Times. For years, Tribune Co. has inched its way around the cross-ownership rule managing to own both KTLA-TV (Channel 5) and the Times. Tribune’s license for KTLA is up for renewal, and they’ve requested that the FCC allow them to maintain control of both outlets. This has prompted a huge backlash from the community and its leadership.
Rep. Maxine Waters, along with community leaders and Los Angeles-based organizations, has filed a petition to deny Tribune’s request to waive the rules. Tribune has skirted around the rules for six years. Without the waiver, Tribune will have to sell KTLA-TV, whose license expires in December.
In a recent statement, Waters said:
“When combined with the influential presence of KTLA-TV, the Tribune Company has the ability to negatively impact the local community by drowning out alternative perspectives — perspectives that usually belong to the poor, minorities, and women.”
Newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership is still prohibited in most of the country. But FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is determined to strip that rule at the request of the broadcasters. In L.A., Tribune and the FCC are getting a preview of the widespread public opposition to media consolidation.
Update: The Tribune Co. has started shopping its L.A. television stations in light of the pending expiration of broadcast licenses. Experts say the “sweep by Democrats in Tuesday’s election will only solidify support for ownership restrictions.”
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Thursday, November 2nd, 2006 by Tim Karr
The newspaper industry’s publication of record today critiqued publishers for refusing to acknowledge public involvement in the debate over common ownership of a newspaper and a broadcast station.
In a commentary for Editor & Publisher, Mark Fitzgerald writes that newspapers and the news media in general “scoff at — and never engage in public debate with — the many pro-regulation activists who have figured out how to stoke and channel public distrust of Big Media.”
Big Media owners imposed a news blackout on the issue when it came before the FCC in 2003, according to Fitzgerald, writing next to nothing about the proposed rule changes:
“When the public did start hearing about the proposals — mostly from ‘media democracy’ advocates and their Op-Ed sympathizers — it turned out the more they knew about media deregulation, the less they liked it.”
Back then, citizens overran the FCC with objections to then Chairman Michael Powell’s plan to lift the last remaining limits to cross ownership and unleash a wave of more media consolidation. Now, Republican FCC chairman Kevin Martin is poised to lift the cross-ownership prohibition.
But, according to Fitzgerald, “the newspaper industry appears to be falling back on the same strategy of engaging bureaucrats and commissioners — but mostly declining to take its case to the American people.”
Even industry lobbyists such as the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) is afraid to engage the overwhelming public opposition to cross-ownership.
NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm (pictured right) told Fitzgerald that the association “will not participate in the unofficial hearings that have taken place that I think are nothing but unstructured pep rallies, [and concern] issues that have nothing to do with cross-ownership.”
So much for the democratic process. Reading between the lines, you can discern Sturm’s age-old approach to making policy: “Screw public input; we’ll get this done in quiet consultation with Washington bureaucrats.”
Fitzgerald writes:
“Newspapers cannot on the one hand argue that their special place in democracy and liberty of expression entitles them to be free of government-imposed regulations like the cross-ownership ban — and on the other hand, refuse to mix it up by arguing their case in any arena more public than the file cabinets of the FCC.”
Fitzgerald adds:
“As important as debating the issue, is covering it. Newspapers and network television shamed themselves three years ago by telling the public little or nothing about media rule change that were in the works. It wasn’t a failure of journalism, so much as a willful dereliction of duty to democracy.”
The industry seems to believe that policies can be written without the public’s informed consent. Fitzgerald concludes that that approach failed in 2003, “and I’m betting it won’t work this time around, either.”
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Wednesday, November 1st, 2006 by Jen Howard
In the current edition of TV Week, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein writes about the first official FCC hearing on media ownership rules, the current media marketplace and the dangers of media consolidation.
On the FCC Hearing in L.A.:
“The public hearing was truly an exercise in American democracy. …[W]hat we heard was heartfelt testimony from many articulate, well-informed Americans from diverse backgrounds on myriad issues. What may upset critics is that only one out of hundreds from the audience encouraged the commission to relax our rules to permit greater media consolidation.”
On media consolidation:
“But can we honestly argue that owning three TV stations, instead of two, in one local market would improve the quality of news and entertainment programming? I think not.”
Adelstein — along with fellow FCC Commissioner Michael Copps — has participated in community-organized hearings on media ownership across the country. Both Commissioners have championed the public right to local and diverse media over corporate interests of expansion.
“Wall Street demands a good return on its media investments. Our job on the FCC is to demand a good return to the public, as well, in exchange for the free use of the airwaves.”
Read FCC Commissioner Adelstein’s article in TV Week.
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