[Newspoetry] Join the Campaign to Legalize Microradio (fwd)

[Paul Kotheimer]

	FYI	
	
	The FCC Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM): InRe Creation of a
Low Power Radio Service, Adopted January 28, 1999, is at
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Mass_Media/Notices/1999/fcc99006.txt.  It's 64
pages long with 7 pages of additional comments, so the advisory links
below are helpful.  


                                 FAIR-L
                    Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
               Media analysis, critiques and news reports

FAIR ACTION ALERT: Join the Campaign to Legalize Microradio

July 9, 1999

The Federal Communications Commission is currently seeking public comment
that would end the agency's long-standing ban on low-power (or "micro")
radio.

Microradio is currently an illegal form of radio broadcasting, which takes
advantage of unused radio spectrum to broadcast low-watt transmissions.
Microradio has the potential to be an ideal, low-cost form of community
media.

The FCC is seeking public comment until August 2 on a proposal to create new
regulations that would legalize this sort of broadcasting. Legalization
would protect microbroadcasters, while at the same time ensuring that
microradio signals do not conflict with other spectrum
users.

Support for increasing the public's access to the airwaves has come from
individuals and organizations from across the political spectrum. But a
campaign has formed to lobby against microradio, largely the work of the
National Association of Broadcasters, an
industry group.

That is precisely why public input on this matter is so valuable.

There are three different ways to contribute to this effort:

1) Sign on to a letter endorsed by Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich,
Howard Zinn and FAIR's Janine Jackson at:
http://artcon.rutgers.edu/mec.html

2) Read and endorse the formal comments on the FCC Proposal from the
National Lawyer's Guild's Committee on Democratic Communications:
http://www.nlgcdc.org/99-25.htm

3) Join the Microradio Empowerment Coalition:
http://www.nlgcdc.org/mec/index.html


The establishment of noncommercial, locally owned and operated media outlets
represents one way that activists can actually change the shape of the media
landscape.

For more information, please read a CounterSpin transcript featuring Peter
Franck from the National Lawyers Guild's Committee on Democratic
Communications and Barbara Olshansky from the Center for Constitutional
Rights:
http://www.fair.org/counterspin/micro-transcript.html



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