Listen Up: Stopping Big Media at the FCC
Media Minutes, the weekly five-minute podcast produced by Free Press has a 30-minute special edition on Pacifica Radio’s weekly program, Sprouts Radio from the Grassroots.
The program, Stopping Big Media at the FCC, puts you in the middle of the raucous media ownership rally that was held in Washington on Halloween and then takes you inside the hearing room. Communications professor and co-founder of Free Press, Robert W. McChesney, places the rally in historical context.
In Stopping Big Media at the FCC, you’ll hear Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) talk about the need to leave a democratic system of media distribution for our children and grandchildren. Community organizer and hip-hop activist Rev. Lennox Yearwood fires up the crowd and warns the audience, “If they control our media, they control our message.”
University of Maryland student Christian Melendez takes us through how he became a media reform activist. Hip-hop activist Rosa Clemente describes turning on the radio one day to hear New York’s Hot 97 FM playing the racist “Tsunami Song.”
Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and Rev. James Coleman of the Missionary Baptist Ministers Conference of Washington connected the First Amendment and the struggle for civil rights. Cheryl Leanza of the United Church of Christ talked about what media consolidation means for social justice movements. And Carrie Biggs-Adams of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians union shares her view the rally, describing the Prometheus Radio Project cheerleaders and Code Pink’s colorful outfits and songs.
Inside the hearing, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin claims that the ownership proceedings have been transparent and open, and Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein forcefully disagree with him. And then we hear panelist after panelist hammer at Martin and the FCC about the detrimental effects of media consolidation on their local media.
Former NPR host Bob Edwards spoke on behalf of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists about how media consolidation has negatively impacted journalism. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, said media ownership is a civil rights issue. Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women testified to the numerous public interest benefits to increasing women’s and minority ownership and S. Derek Turner of Free Press used the commission’s own data to prove that cross-ownership is bad news for local news.
To listen to Stopping Big Media at the FCC, click here. (Audio 29:01)
