Archive for October, 2007
Monday, October 29th, 2007 by Craig Aaron
Two notable senators are teaming up on the crucial issue of minority media ownership. In a joint op-ed in the Boston-Bay State Banner this week, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) write that “providing opportunities for minority-owned businesses to own media outlets is fundamental to creating the diverse media environment that federal law requires and the country deserves and demands.”
They call out the Federal Communications Commission for considering “changes in the media ownership rules that only help big media get bigger, but do nothing to make media more responsive to minority viewpoints and local communities.” And they send another strong message to Chairman Kevin Martin that minority ownership issues shouldn’t take a backseat while consolidation advances unchecked.
Kerry and Obama conclude:
For too long now, the FCC has been putting corporate interests ahead of the people’s interests. It’s time for that to change. We need to not only create the opportunity for minority-owned businesses to participate in the market, but we also need to help the minority entrepreneur who wants to enter this business succeed. We will keep fighting until we have a free and open media that represents every American in our diverse nation.
Read the full article here.
Take Action: Minority Ownership Matters >>
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Thursday, October 25th, 2007 by Craig Aaron
Pressure from Capitol Hill to slow down the headlong rush to gut media ownership rules intensified this week, as dozens of members of the House and Senate set their sights on FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.
Thursday, more than 40 members of the House joined Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) in a letter Martin asking the Commission to “resolve significant shortcomings in [the agency’s] plan regarding accountability, transparency, and scientific integrity” within the current media ownership proceeding.
The letter was prompted by last week’s revelation that Martin secretly circulated a timeline that would complete the current media ownership proceeding by mid-December, even though the FCC hasn’t completed a series of public hearings, addressed the dismal state of female and minority media ownership, or explained its shoddy and slanted research.
Also firing off a letter to Martin on Thursday were Sens. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). The bipartisan duo called media consolidation “a critical issue” that “requires a completely transparent process” and urged the FCC head to complete its proceedings on localism and minority ownership before moving forward with any new rules.
Both these letters follow another one sent last week by Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D) and Trent Lott (R-Miss.), urging the FCC to “slow down and proceed with caution.” The two senators had even stronger words for Martin at a press conference on Wednesday.
Dorgan and Lott pledged to introduce a “resolution of disapproval” — a rarely used legislative veto of bad regulations — if the FCC continued to ignore public input and proceed with an unfair process. The Senate last approved such a resolution following ex-FCC Chairman Michael Powell’s ham-fisted efforts to do away with media ownership limits in 2003.
“If the FCC proceeds on the schedule it is planning, it will be a big mistake,” Dorgan said. “It’s clear the concentration of media ownership that has already taken place has not been good for our country. I’m confident any plan to allow additional concentration of media ownership will be rejected.”
“I think we’ve already got too much media concentration,” Lott added. “I can’t understand why a Republican administration would want to allow more concentration.”
(You can find video of their entire press conference here.)
Despite the increased scrutiny from Congress, Martin barely gave the public any advance notice about the final localism hearing — which is happening on Halloween at FCC headquarters in Washington.
In case Martin didn’t get the message or forgot to pick up his mail, now might be a good time for Congress to invite the chairman over to the Hill for a visit. Better yet, how about an oversight hearing?
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Thursday, October 25th, 2007 by Tim Karr
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps is making good on a promise not to let News Corp’s acquisition of Dow Jones & Company sail through Washington unchallenged.
Earlier today, he sent a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin asking for a proceeding to scrutinize the merger, which would hand News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch control of the Wall Street Journal among other Dow Jones properties.
 Commissioner Copps: Murdoch Deal No Slam Dunk |
“I believe the FCC’s obligation to consider the public interest—which the agency has traditionally defined as localism, diversity and competition—requires us to consider the implications of a merger between these two media giants,” Copps wrote.
The move follows Copps’ pledge in August to investigate the merger. “I hope nobody views this as a slam-dunk,” he said in a statement as news of the acquisition was making headlines.
Copps concerns were echoed in Congress by Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) who both sounded the alarm about the deal’s devastating impact on quality journalism and media diversity.
“I am concerned that it will be very difficult for the Journal to offer fair and balanced reporting under the pressures of a giant-media conglomerate’” Sen. Dodd said in a statement this August.
Sen. Dorgan suggested we may need new rules to rein in national media concentration. “The proposed merger between News Corp. and Dow Jones raises the serious question of whether a single company’s concentration on a national scale should continue to be unfettered and unchecked,” he wrote in a sharply worded August 3 letter to Chairman Martin. “I believe the FCC should consider studying whether the public interest would be served if media cross-ownership rules existed at the national level.”
In his letter today, Commissioner Copps calls the Murdoch buyout unprecedented in the history of the FCC. Copps wants an official proceeding to determine “whether approval of this transaction accords without public-interest responsibilities.”
He questions whether existing media-ownership rules “are adequate to deal with this proposed transaction.” Chairman Martin is now rushing to scrap the same cross-ownership rules that might apply to the Dow Jones-News Corp. deal.
Commissioner Copps’ full letter to Chairman Martin is below:
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Dear Mr. Chairman:
I write concerning the proposed News Corporation acquisition of Dow Jones & Company (publisher of the Wall Street Journal) for approximately $5.6 billion. If approved, this transaction would leave News Corp. in control of a Big Four broadcast network and two of the nation’s five largest newspapers (as well as a vast collection of cable channels, satellite networks, motion picture studios, and publishing outlets). For residents of the local New York metropolitan area, it will also mean that a single company operates two of the area’s most popular television stations and two of its most popular newspapers.
Both aspects of this transaction are unprecedented in the history of the FCC and, indeed, of the United States. It will create a single company with enormous influence over politics, art and culture across the nation and especially in the New York metropolitan area.
I propose that the FCC open a proceeding to examine the implications of this proposed acquisition on the national media market. Given what you have described as “dramatic change” in the media marketplace over the past decade, I think it is essential that the FCC determine whether approval of this transaction accords with our public interest responsibilities and whether our existing media ownership rules and precedents are adequate to deal with this proposed transaction.
The proposed transaction would appear directly to affect the New York metropolitan market in terms of localism, diversity and competition. We need to study these effects before the transaction proceeds. Additionally, we have before us two pending challenges to the number of media properties News Corp. currently owns in this market. These challenges should be acted upon expeditiously.
There is no question that News Corp. ranks today as one of the most influential media companies in the world. In addition to owning Fox Broadcasting, it holds 35 full power TV licenses in the United States, including WNYW and WWOR in the New York metropolitan area. It already owns newspapers all across the world, including the New York Post with a total paid circulation of 724,748. According to the Post’s own website, this figure makes it the “5th largest newspaper in the country” and includes “almost 500,000 … exclusive readers you can’t reach through any other New York paper.”
Nor is there any question that Dow Jones & Co. and the Wall Street Journal play a tremendously important role in both the national and New York media markets. The paper reports a total circulation of over 2.6 million, with a United States print circulation of 1.7 million. It is estimated that 302,000 of these readers live in the New York metropolitan area.
I believe the FCC’s obligation to consider the public interest—which the agency has traditionally defined as localism, diversity and competition—requires us to consider the implications of a merger between these two media giants. Indeed, the FCC has never had occasion to receive comment or do research on the important public interest issues raised by (1) a national network owner owning one or more newspapers that are read across the nation or (2) a company already operating under waivers of the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban acquiring a second newspaper published in that locality. These are important issues that surely deserve serious consideration by the Commission and the American public.
I am of course aware that in 1986 and 1995 the full Commission declined to apply the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban to companies found to publish “national” newspapers. FN7. However, I do not believe that this line of precedent should preclude the FCC from conducting a thorough analysis of the proposed Wall Street Journal acquisition. To begin with, both decisions were reached with very little specific economic or legal analysis—the first is only 2 pages long and the second contains a single sentence of analysis on the critical issue. In other words, these antiquated orders are no foundation on which to build a media policy for the 21st Century. Moreover, whatever one thinks about the wisdom of these earlier decisions on their merits, they clearly involved facts and public interest concerns dramatically different than those before us now.
I look forward to your response.
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Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 by Craig Aaron
Late Wednesday night, the FCC announced that its next hearing on localism will be on Oct. 31 at FCC headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The hearing’s belated announcement — just five business days before the event — follows reports that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is rushing to eliminate longstanding media ownership limits before the end of the year.
Josh Silver of Free Press says it all:
How can you have a hearing on localism without giving the local community time to find out it is happening? Chairman Martin’s actions suggest that he’s never been serious about paying attention to the public. He’s already made up his mind, and is hell-bent on gutting the rules.
This is a slap in the face to the vast majority of Americans who oppose consolidation and a direct insult to the bipartisan members of Congress who have called for a fair and transparent public process. The chairman is ignoring the undeniable evidence that media consolidation has a devastating impact on local news and diversity.
It feels like déjà vu all over again. Chairman Martin is repeating the same mistakes that ignited a firestorm of opposition four years ago. He may not want to listen to the countless Americans who are sick and tired of a broken media system — but they will be heard.
Go here for the latest info on the D.C. hearing.
Tell Congress we need oversight hearings — now!
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Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 by Craig Aaron
StopBigMedia.com Coalition members Free Press, Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union filed thousands of pages of research with the FCC this week, blasting the agency for its “inconsistent, incompetent and incoherent” attempts to skew official research in support of Chairman Kevin Martin’s dubious but foregone conclusions about media consolidation.
The consumer groups use the FCC’s own data to show how ownership limits protect the quantity and quality of local news. The new study dismantles claims that removing the ban on newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership would increase local news. In reality, cross-ownership results in a net loss in the amount of local news produced across local broadcast markets.
“The FCC’s entire basis for removing the cross-ownership restriction is that consolidation creates more news,” says S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press. “But in fact, the FCC’s own data obliterate that argument, confirming that fewer owners produce less news for the local community as a whole. This is the nail in the coffin for the FCC’s pro-consolidation agenda.”
Despite overwhelming public opposition to further media consolidation, the FCC’s entire media ownership proceeding has been skewed toward foregone conclusions from the start. The FCC buried studies demonstrating the harmful impact of consolidation and then commissioned a biased, “junk science” agenda to prove otherwise.
“The Commission wanted to eliminate the cross-ownership rule, so it put together a series of studies to support its preconceived notions,” says Mark Cooper, director of research at Consumer Federation of America. “The outcome of this biased, tainted process is an ad-hoc collection of flawed research that trades objectivity for blind faith in deregulation.”
The FCC produced 10 ownership studies with no public input, peer review, or transparency about the studies’ authors or methodologies — then gave the public just 60 days to respond. But before that window for comment had even closed, Chairman Martin’s secret plan was revealed to push for a vote to relax media ownership rules by Dec. 18.
“Our research challenges the very foundation of the Commission’s legal and economic rationale for deregulation,” says Gene Kimmelman, vice president of international and federal affairs at Consumers Union. “The public record is now clear: Chairman Martin has no public interest basis for proceeding with his plan to relax the media ownership rules.”
Chairman Martin’s plans are now the subject of scrutiny by Congress — and the public, which is demanding action to rein in runaway consolidation.
Chairman Martin’s efforts to slant the official record, conduct a sham process, and move for a rapid vote without full consideration of public comment are starting to backfire. Big Media backers should expect a rough road ahead if they try again to cut the public out of the process.
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Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 by Josh Stearns
When news of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s plan to push through sweeping changes in media ownership rules broke on Capitol Hill, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) predicted that there would be “a firestorm of protest” and promised that he “would be carrying the wood.”
He won’t be alone. In recent days, a number of members of Congress have stepped forward to feed the fire, each calling on the FCC to rethink its process, listen to the public, and address the shameful state of female and minority ownership before considering any rule changes.
Flaws in the Process
When Chairman Martin’s aggressive timeline was made public, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) joined Dorgan in a joint letter to the FCC calling for a more transparent and open public review of the media ownership rules.
“The FCC should not rush forward and repeat mistakes of the past. We applaud this Commission for its efforts to include the public through a series of hearings around the country,” they wrote. “However, we understand there have been a series of problems with the process, including the selection of study authors, the peer review and the brief length of the studies comment period, which give us additional cause for concern.”
This week, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) jumped in, calling on the FCC to further study the impact of media consolidation on minority ownership before moving forward with any rule changes. He said:
I believe both the proposed timeline and process are irresponsible. Minority owned and operated newspapers and radio stations play a critical role in the African American and Latino communities and bring minority issues to the forefront of our national discussion. However, the Commission has failed to further the goals of diversity in the media and promote localism, and as a result, it is in no position to justify allowing for increased consolidation of the market.
Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) also warned of the dangerous consequences of Chairman Martin’s plan to relax media ownership rules:
The Federal Communications Commission’s plan to lift its anti-monopoly regulations could have dangerous consequences. If this plan goes forward, two or three media conglomerates could end up controlling every broadcast medium in the country. From a safety perspective, what happens if one company controls the television, radio and internet services in a region and its servers go down during a natural disaster or terrorist attack? From a constitutional perspective, what happens when one company owns all of the airwaves in an area and it refuses to broadcast certain content? These are important security and constitutional issues best addressed by keeping the current rules in place.
Déjà Vu All Over Again
With recent reports of flawed research, agency leaks, and a track record of ignoring public input, policymakers agree that the FCC has a long way to go before they can make reasonable and responsible changes to media ownership rules.
It was just four years ago that the FCC, then under Chairman Michael Powell, tried a similar move and was rebuked by Congress and the courts. Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, referred to this history in his statement:
I urge the Commission not to rush to judgment in its media ownership proceeding. Issues of this magnitude and importance deserve nothing less than the full and measured consideration of the Chairman and Commissioners. The Commission’s last attempt to craft ownership rules was largely invalidated by an appellate court, and the Commission should avoid that outcome in this instance. It is my sincere hope that the Commission will allow reasonable time for evaluation of the public input received on its media ownership studies and at all of its public hearings before finalizing rules.
Female and Minority Ownership at Stake
Another key concern in the letters and statements that have been circulating from members of the House and Senate has been the Commission’s historic neglect of female and minority ownership. So profound is the agency’s mistreatment of this issue that it was recently revealed that after months of taxpayer-funded research, the FCC still lacks the basic understanding of which stations are actually owned by women and people of color. The FCC’s official media ownership research failed to account for the majority of the female- and minority-owned broadcast stations in America.
In September, Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein called for the FCC to establish a task force on female and minority ownership to address this and other oversights at the agency before any rule changes are made. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) all have endorsed the creation of a task force in public statements and letters sent to FCC Chairman Martin.
Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) went even further this week when he asserted that the FCC “simply doesn’t care” about female and minority ownership.
Is your member of Congress mentioned here? If not, click here to demand they take action to hold the FCC accountable. We’ll update the comments section of this post as more members of Congress speak up.
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Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 by Josh Stearns
Last night, more than 100 people logged on to the new Free Press Action Network to talk with FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. The conversation came just days after the New York Times revealed that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin was fast-tracking sweeping changes in media ownership rules.
 Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein |
People asked in-depth questions about strategy for stopping media consolidation and making change at the FCC. Others inquired about the nitty-gritty details of certain policies and structures within the agency. One commenter seemed thrilled to be getting his questions answered, writing apologetically to Commissioner Adelstein, “Sorry for the many questions, by the way, but it’s not very easy to find this information just through a web search. I really appreciate your willingness to answer them.”
A number of people invited Commissioner Adelstein and the FCC to their city or state, calling on them to hold more hearings in more places. He agreed that there are many communities throughout America that haven’t had a chance to weigh in about the media in their area. “The six hearings the Chairman has committed to do, with five under our belt, are totally inadequate,” he said. “I observed in L.A. that we could do six in that little town alone! We haven’t yet visited any truly rural areas. We have left out vast swaths of America.”
The Commissioner listened carefully to concerns about the FCC’s handling of everything from logistics at hearings to the process for submitting comments online. Offering advice and encouragement, Commissioner Adelstein invited everyone to make their voices heard at the FCC and in Congress, suggesting that there has never been a more important moment to speak up for a more local, diverse, and competitive media.
All in all, it was a rich discussion with new insight into the goings-on at the FCC and lots of ideas for people to take action in their own communities. If you missed it, you can still read the discussion and participate in next week’s session with Commissioner Michael Copps.
Don’t forget to take a minute to take action: Call on Congress to hold the FCC accountable, and stop Chairman Martin from gutting media ownership rules: http://action.freepress.net/campaign/fcc_oversight
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Friday, October 19th, 2007 by Josh Stearns
In this this guest post John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation, addresses the recent news of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s secret plan to push through sweeping changes in media ownership rules. This piece was originally published on his blog at The Nation. John Nichols is a founding board member of Free Press.
You can help put a stop to Martin’s secret plan by reminding your elected officials that they must hold the FCC accountable. Click here to take action on this important issue.
By John Nichols
 Guest Blog Post by John Nichols |
President Bush is the lamest of lame-duck chief executives, with no moral authority, no legislative majority and no popular domestic or foreign-policy agendas. So what can he do with the remaining months of a failed presidency? Make his corporate allies rich and destroy the essential underpinnings of American democracy.
To that end, Bush’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission has initiated a scheme to radically rewrite media ownership rules so that one corporation can own the daily newspapers, the weekly “alternative” newspaper, the city magazine, suburban publications, the eight largest radio stations, the dominant broadcast and cable television stations, popular internet news and calendar sites, billboards and concert halls in even the largest American city.
This “company-town” scheme, which would be achieved by lifting current limits on media cross-ownership, is the long-held dream of media moguls such as NewsCorp’s Rupert Murdoch and Tribune Company-buyer Sam Zell. With one FCC vote, media billionaires will be able to become media multi-billionaires by controlling the entire communications landscapes of major metropolitan areas — and by extension whole regions and states.
The mogul’s dream is the citizen’s nightmare. With this rewrite of the rules, local, state and national democratic processes would be run through the wringer of media monopolies designed to reap massive profits – while comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted in a manner that maintains the political and economic status quo. Basic liberties — freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom to petition for the redress of grievances — would exist largely within boundaries established and policied by local media managers.
It’s an Orwellian scenario that the American people rejected overwhelming in George Bush’s first term, when three millions citizens and activist groups of the left and right united to oppose a similar set of rule changes proposed by Martin and then-FCC chair Michael Powell in 2003. The public outcry influenced an intervention by the federal courts that thwarted the hopes of the Bush Administration to deliver on a big promise to big-media owners.
Now, the FCC is attempting in these waning days of the Bush era to meet the demands of its big-media allies. And Martin, an ambitious Republican who hopes to satisfy media corporations sufficiently to secure the campaign money he will need to launch a political career in his native North Carolina, is more sly than Powell. He’s trying to rewrite the rules quickly and quietly.
Only this week, in the course of a Senate Commerce Committee hearing, was it revealed that the FCC chair plans to have the committee vote on his radical rule changes before Christmas. Martin has the votes, as he and two other Republican members of the FCC form a majority that can defeat the committee’s two dissident Democrats, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein.
Only popular and official outcry, of the sort heard in 2003, will stop the Bush Administration from delivering for big media. And Martin’s plan is to move so rapidly that there is no time for serious scrutiny of the implications of the rule changes, and, of course, no time for the opposition to organize.
An official facade of proper procedures will be attached to the administration’s radical assault on media diversity and local democracy. But whatever hearings and studies may be rushed out in the coming weeks by an FCC establishment that already has been revealed as determined to game the process will be nothing more than window dressing. As Mark Cooper, the veteran director of research at Consumer Federation of America, says of Martin: “The chairman has already decided what rule changes he wants to make — he is just going through the motions. The FCC hasn’t even received all of the public comment in this proceeding, and Martin is already scheduling a vote.”
What will stop Martin and Murdoch? The right signals from Capitol Hill must be sent. And they are starting to come. Two key senators, North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan and Mississippi Republican Trent Lott, have written Martin and other FCC members, declaring that, We do not believe the Commission has adequately studied the impact of media consolidation. The FCC should not rush forward and repeat mistakes of the past. The Commission is under considerable scrutiny with this proceeding. We strongly encourage you to slow down and proceed with caution.”
That’s the necessary message. But it must be amplified — in Congress and in the communities across America that will become media “company towns” if Kevin Martin, George Bush and Rupert Murdoch get their way.
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Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 by Tim Karr
Have you ever thrown your shoe at the TV set? Sometimes media companies air such junk that tossing a shoe, magazine, remote or whatever is close at hand is all you can do. Now you can do more.
Free Press just launched “Whack-a-Murdoch” a Web game that let’s you hit back at the big companies that air such bad programming.
While “Whack-a-Murdoch” is only a game, media consolidation is a problem that requires our urgent attention. Right now, the Federal Communications Commission is rushing to make sweeping changes to media ownership rules that would allow big media companies like Murdoch’s News Corp. to get even bigger.
The last time the federal agency attempted to do this, in 2003 under former Chairman Michael Powell, more than two million Americans spoke out against it.
They flooded the FCC with letters and created such a clamor that Congress and the courts reversed the agency’s attempt to handover more local radio, television and newspaper outlets to a handful of the nation’s most powerful conglomerates.
The FCC’s Big Media Agenda
Industry friendly bureaucrats at the FCC apparently didn’t learn their lesson. Now they’re seeking again to do away with two key protections: The rule on “cross-ownership,” which prevents companies from owning a television or radio station and the major daily newspaper in the same city. And the local ownership caps that limit a company from owning more than one television station in smaller markets.
If the FCC is successful and eliminates these safeguards, moguls like Murdoch could own the major daily newspaper, and as many as eight radio stations and three TV stations in a single city. Often these local monopolies are the same companies that control national newspapers, popular Internet sites, cable networks magazines, movie studios and publishing houses.
When we let a few conglomerates control so many outlets, quality journalism gives way to junk media, news and information to celebrity fluff, and our democracy suffers.
Lapdogs for Big Business
Murdoch’s expanding media empire is a case in point. His news programs are a spectacle of beauty queens, right-wing shock pundits and movie stars.
On Monday, he launched the Fox Business Network with an unusual mix of cleavage and stock quotes. Within hours of watching the new channel, it became clear that what Fox News Channel is for the White House, Fox Business Network will become for big business.
Here’s what I mean. A recent Columbia Journalism Review article cited research that could not find one out of News Corp’s 175 newspapers that questioned U.S. President George W. Bush’s arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. Fox News Channel was even more extreme, actually propping up false war claims by Bush administration officials, long after they had been debunked elsewhere.
Murdoch himself has already said that his business channel will be “more business friendly than CNBC.” Fox News chairman Roger Ailes went one further saying: “Many times I’ve seen things on CNBC where they are not as friendly to corporations and profits as they should be.”
Imagine what this means for any Fox Business Network journalist who decides to investigate a Murdoch crony. Columbia Journalism Review’s Dean Starkman gives us a chilling catalog of the types of investigative business journalism you’d never see under Murdoch’s watch. When business news becomes a PR factory — flogging favors for Fortune 500 allies — we all suffer the consequences.
Put Down Your Shoe
The bottom line is our democracy will not survive for long on a steady diet of this sort of junk journalism.
That the FCC is about to remove barriers to Murdoch’s owning more outlets should sound alarm bells for anyone who believes, like James Madison, that a citizenry deprived of accurate information, will result in a government that “is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both.”
So the next time you’re tempted to hurl your shoe at the TV, reach for your computer instead and join the growing campaign to stop media consolidation and transform our democracy.
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Sunday, October 7th, 2007 by Craig Aaron
On Friday, the FCC’s Inspector General released a report on two studies reportedly deep-sixed by the agency because they didn’t support former Chairman Michael Powell’s views on media consolidation.
The IG’s conclusion: Move along, nothing to see here.
Not so fast.
History of the Hidden Research
The first secret study surfaced after a whistleblower contacted California Sen. Barbara Boxer — who grilled FCC Chairman Kevin Martin about the missing report at his September 2006 reconfirmation hearing. (You can watch him squirm here.)
That spiked study showed that locally owned stations do more local news. Since the conclusions contradicted Powell’s pro-consolidation agenda, they were shelved.
As Adam Candeub, who worked as a lawyer in the FCC’s Media Bureau, explained to the Associated Press:
Senior managers at the agency ordered that “every last piece” of the report be destroyed. “The whole project was just stopped — end of discussion.”
Soon a second secret study turned up. This one tackled the negative impacts of radio consolidation, showing that the 1996 Telecom Act had diminished the number of radio station owners — even as the actual number of commercial stations increased.
Under pressure from Congress and consumer groups, Martin made the studies public and promised an investigation.
Reading Between the Lines
In her report, IG Carla Conover stretches to exonerate top FCC officials. But the conclusions of the “largest investigation ever conducted” by the agency don’t quite match up with the facts.
For starters, the IG never interviewed Adam Candeub. He refused to cooperate with the investigation, saying he feared a cover-up. Nor did investigators speak with the co-author of the local TV news study who conducted the bulk of its econometric analysis; he also declined to participate
Though incomplete, the IG report makes clear that the study’s authors were forced jump through an unusual series of hoops. Their study apparently faced an unprecedented level of scrutiny and was repeatedly sent back for revisions.
While the IG impugns the quality of the study, neither the conduct of the research nor its conclusions have been challenged since it was made public. In fact, a number of studies recently commissioned by Chairman Martin utilize a similar methodology.
The IG implies that the idea the study had been suppressed came from disgruntled ex-employees or perhaps a misunderstanding between economists and lawyers at the agency. It seems perfectly reasonable to her that FCC higher-ups were more upset about the possible misuse of proprietary data than the fact that the local TV news study completely undercut their boss’s claims about media consolidation.
Sure seems more likely, as the study’s authors suspect, that it got lost because it wasn’t in line with the views of the “front office.”
Radio Study ‘Stirs the Pot’
Despite the rosy spin from the IG, the evidence is even stronger that the radio report was suppressed.
That study was the fourth in a series of reports on the impact of the 1996 Telecommunications Act on radio ownership. Despite the overwhelming evidence of consolidation’s negative impact on local radio — and the fact that study followed the same methodology as its predecessors — then FCC Media Bureau Chief Ken Ferree (a.k.a. “the enforcer”) decided it wasn’t a good time to revisit bad news.
In a damning e-mail uncovered but apparently not appreciated by the IG, Ferree wrote:
[I'm] not inclined to release this one unless the story can be told in a much more positive way. This is not the time to be stirring the “radio consolidation pot.”
According to the IG report, Ferree then instructed his staff to tell anybody who asked about the study that the bureau “did not have time and resources” to produce annual reports. That is, he told them to lie.
But the IG didn’t find Ferree’s actions to be improper, although she did admit that “reasonable minds could differ.”
You know how it is. I say tomato, you say “valid agency management issues consistent with expressed and observed directions of the Media Bureau Chief on similar matters.”
What’s that Smell?
According to Saturday’s Los Angeles Times, Senator Boxer is skeptical of the IG’s report and may pursue a congressional investigation. Could it be that the “independent” FCC IG is appointed and managed by the Chairman himself? FCC Commissioner Michael Copps also expressed the “nagging feeling remains that we don’t yet have the entire story.”
Do you smell that, too? Something’s still rotten at the FCC.
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