FCC’s Secret Studies: Reading Between the Lines

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.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.