Reply #28: IMPORTANT... PLEASE Document the lack of coverage - re: FCC [View All]

consolidation issue. I just read yesterday on Salon (premium) about the hearings that Powell Jr is holding around the nation to talk about media and "localism" - they were trying to prevent the local meeting from talking about media consolidation - but attendees kept pointing out that the two go hand in hand. That consolidation promotes ownership (and thus decision making) further and further away from local communities and that this can have a deletorious effect on local coverage.

Here is an example of local coverage NOT covering an emerging local disaster - such that people are NOT being warned. THis has an incredibly HUGE impact on public safety.

We need to document actual coverage.

Then we need to create a message to send to congressfolks who are supporting overturning the FCC consolidation rules - pushing the angle of the importance of LOCALISM and local coverage and that it is not just a feel-good local coverage issue it is about PUBLIC SAFETY among other things.

Own globally, act locally?
The FCC's Michael Powell says a shortage of local and community affairs programming has nothing to do with media conglomeration. But at a North Carolina hearing, he heard from his critics.

By Eric Boehlert
Oct. 24, 2003

Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell held a public hearing in Charlotte, N.C., Wednesday night to address how media companies serve their local communities. But during a marathon open-mike session, many in the standing-room-only crowd were ready to talk about thornier issues, like the controversial media ownership rules the commission passed this summer, and outlandish behavior by local Clear Channel DJs. The message from Powell's FCC was that such topics were irrelevant. But critics had their say anyway.

It was Powell's first public outing since the FCC passed new media-ownership rules, on a party-line vote, in June. The move would allow large companies to buy more television stations and to own a newspaper and a broadcast outlet in the same city. The topic has mushroomed into a political firestorm, with the FCC facing unexpectedly stiff resistance to the rule changes from both ends of the political spectrum.

During the ownership debate, Powell suggested that a lot of the complaints he was hearing about the media -- that there's too much sex and violence on TV, and not enough community affairs programming on the airwaves -- stemmed from how individual stations were being run locally, not by who owned them nationally. So in August he appointed a task force to study the issue of localism, hold public hearings, and report back in one year. The FCC hearing in Charlotte was the first of six to be held across the country, in an effort to evaluate how well radio and television are serving the public interest. Broadcasters are obligated to serve the public good in order to get their licenses renewed.

Critics of the new FCC rules insist the issues of localism and ownership are inseparable. They argue that if radio and television stations are locally or regionally owned, participation in the community will be much more dynamic than if the owners are thousands of miles away overseeing a constellation of properties.

more (requires premium subscription - or taking a one day "free pass")
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/10/24/fcc/index.html