[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Letter to FCC and Congress Demanding Open Inquiry into Media Ownership Study

[Alfred Kagan]

>X-Sender: rwmcches at staff.uiuc.edu
>Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 22:10:36 -0500
>To: Al Kagan <akagan at uiuc.edu>
>From: Bob McChesney <rwmcches at uiuc.edu>
>Subject: Letter to FCC and Congress Demanding Open Inquiry into Media
>   Ownership Study
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>Please circulate widely!! We only have a few days to collect names.
>
>(Note--please add your name by emailing dana at democraticmedia.org)
>
>Dear Colleague,
>
>Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy and I have written 
>the following letter to be sent to members of the FCC and to the 
>members of the relevant committees that deal with the FCC and media 
>ownership in Congress. As you may know the FCC is presently formally 
>reviewing a handful of important media ownership rules, with the 
>possibility that it may relax or even eliminate them. By all 
>accounts the consequences of eliminating these ownership rules will 
>be a wave of media consolidation at the national and local levels. 
>For as much detail as you want on the issue, go to 
>www.democraticmedia.org or www.mediareform.net and follow the 
>necessary links.
>
>Those in favor of eliminating the ownership rules at the FCC are 
>pushing to establish a diversity index, a quantitative measure that 
>will set a standard to determine just how much concentrated 
>ownership is permissible and that can be applied across the board to 
>all markets. I attach an article to the end of this email that 
>explains the thinking behind the diversity index. A core problem 
>with the diversity index is that is has been done entirely in 
>secret, yet it is apparently going to be used as the justification 
>for a radical change in our rules regulating media ownership. 
>Considering that the FCC has no real research staff to speak of, 
>that even Congress, not to mention  the public, has been kept in the 
>dark on this diversity index, and that the leading scholars in the 
>field have not been consulted at all by the FCC, we think the FCC 
>needs to open up the process and subject it to the light of public 
>and scholarly examination, study and debate. If the FCC refuses, 
>Congress must make the FCC do so. The stakes are too high.
>
>If you agree, please sign the letter. To add you name to the list, 
>email dana at democraticmedia.org and please list your position and 
>university. This letter is intended to be signed by professors. And 
>please send this email on to individuals or lists of professors you 
>think might be interested in supporting open and honest media policy 
>making.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>
>Bob McChesney
>
>
>
>
>
>Dear Mr. Chairman:
>(we would send to other Commissioners and Chair/ranking of Commerce 
>Commiteees).
>
>
>The FCC will soon make a critical decision on media ownership policy 
>that could affect the future course of our democracy.  At stake, as 
>you know, are the rules and policies governing U.S. media ownership 
>of the nation's radio and television broadcasters, TV networks, and 
>newspapers.  You and your colleagues are well aware of the important 
>role these media outlets play in providing the public with a diverse 
>array of local and national information and analysis.
>
>According to reports, the Commission is developing a "diversity 
>index" that will serve as a form of universal measurement on media 
>ownership. Such a measure, we understand, will be used to analyze 
>individual media markets in order to determine whether 
>cross-ownership limits should be eliminated, modified, or 
>maintained.  Press reports also suggest that some of the specific 
>rules under review may be subject to new policies as well.
>
>We have grave doubts that any single measure can effectively analyze 
>the complexities of the media marketplace, in terms of its impact on 
>journalism, citizen access to information, and competition.  Such 
>quantitative-let alone qualitative-methodological measures 
>attempting to serve as wholistic approaches are likely to be very 
>imprecise. 
>
>As leading scholars in the field of social science and mass 
>communications, we urge you to release to the public any proposed 
>such measures in advance of their enactment.  There must be serious 
>scholarly and public debate about the efficacy of any proposed new 
>measure on media ownership.  Indeed, we look forward to examining 
>and commenting on any proposal, so that the scholarly community can 
>help make the most informed Commission decision possible on this 
>important issue.
>
>We are sure you, as we, believe that informed debate and discourse 
>on the analytical underpinnings of what the FCC may propose can only 
>further your goal of developing an approach to media policy 
>regulation that is supported by sound scholarship.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Robert W. McChesney, Professor, Institute of Communications 
>Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
>
>
>
>
>
>
>FCC's Powell defends index idea on media ownership
>Reuters, 04.08.03, 4:18 PM ET
>
>ADVERTISEMENT
>
>
>By Jeremy Pelofsky
>LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Federal Communications Commission Chairman 
>Michael Powell Tuesday defended the idea of a market index to 
>measure concentration in a media market as the agency formulates new 
>ownership regulations.
>Powell, a Republican, said he was leaning towards such a diversity 
>index to ensure multiple television, radio and newspapers voices in 
>a market as opposed to taking each case individually if and when 
>companies want to acquire new properties.
>FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin, a fellow Republican who has bucked 
>Powell before on telecommunications issues, Monday told Reuters he 
>preferred simple rules without complicated mathematical formulas 
>when measuring voices in a market.
>"It really isn't that complicated, the idea at least," Powell said 
>at the National Association of Broadcasters annual convention.
>"We are far from having decided whether to do something like that or 
>if we do do something like that what form it will actually take," he 
>said. "But I don't think that there should be a freak out about the 
>possibility of both using data and mathematical methods."
>The agency is overhauling decades-old rules that restrict the media 
>industry, including one that bans common ownership of newspapers and 
>either a radio or television station in a single market.
>Powell has said he saw no need for a complete ban on the newspaper 
>and broadcast ownership limit. Martin has advocated lifting the ban 
>and said that he worried about complicated mathematical formulas 
>leading to marketplace confusion.
>Tribune Co. , which owns newspapers and television stations, has 
>pushed to scrap that restriction but some newspaper owners and 
>consumer groups have lobbied the FCC to keep the rules to preserve 
>diversity of voices.
>Also up for review, in part because a federal appeals court 
>questioned the justification the FCC has given for keeping the 
>rules, are limits on a company owning multiple radio and television 
>stations in a single market.
>FCC CONFIDENT OF MEETING JUNE DEADLINE
>The head of the FCC's Media Bureau, Kenneth Ferree, said at a panel 
>discussion that the agency will make the self-imposed deadline of 
>June 2 to complete the new media ownership rules. "There will be no 
>delay," he confidently predicted.
>Ferree also said he would give the FCC commissioners scenarios for 
>what the record would support on either keeping or easing the cap 
>that prevents a company from owning television stations that reach 
>more than 35 percent of the national audience.
>Major broadcast networks NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., Viacom 
>Inc.'s CBS and News Corp.'s Fox have sought to lift that cap while 
>smaller broadcasters and the NAB have fought to keep the limit 
>intact.
>Separately, when asked about whether consolidation in the media 
>industry was leading to a degradation of the quality of programming, 
>Powell said that he believed it was because of programmers' fervor 
>to beat the competition.
>"I have a different view which I think it's actually the 
>hyper-competitiveness that is causing this," he said.
>Powell also warned radio stations that their day may be numbered if 
>they willfully and repeatedly violate the law and regulations that 
>limit the broadcast of indecent material, a not-so-veiled threat to 
>pull stations' licenses.
>FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, a critic of what he describes as the 
>declining quality of television and radio programming, urged the 
>agency to determine whether it was concentration or competition 
>before voting on new ownership limits.
>"I do not look forward to voting without even having asked the 
>questions and tried to amass a record on it, yet that's what we're 
>doing," he told reporters.
>Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service
>
>
>
>
>Robert W. McChesney
>Your Man in Urbana
>Institute of Communications Research
>University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
>www.robertmcchesney.com


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
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