Media Change We Can Believe In

[Commentary] The next president will have a full press plate awaiting him. Items needing urgent action include, but are not limited to: 1) combating the pernicious effects of decades of relentless media deregulation and consolidation; 2) correcting the vast preponderance of conservative opinions on the radio airwaves by somehow leveling the unbalanced distribution playing field; 3) ending the hate speech spewed regularly on the public airwaves by talk radio's leading shock jocks; 4) finding a way to encourage more localism and diversity - resulting in more choices and voices - on the public airwaves; 5) returning fairness, balanced discussion and coverage of important issues to those airwaves, while dealing with what the industry trade journal Broadcasting & Cable rightly termed "the manufactured crisis" of the rumored return of the Fairness Doctrine; 5) passing a federal shield law to protect journalists, their sources and the public's right to know; 6) rationalizing the current content crackdown and FCC obsession with supposedly "indecent" material; 7) freeing public broadcasting by ending Rovian political partisanship and content coercion within the Broadcasting Board of Governors and CPB, and hence PBS, NPR and other outlets; 8) finding a mechanism to deal with the declining economic health of newspapers - and along with them, investigative and public service-focused reporting — by recognizing and countering the ongoing crisis in journalism, and hence in democracy, occasioned by the "lost revenue model;" 9) embracing the fact that producing, identifying and sharing credible, trustworthy news and information is a public good — and treating it as such; and 10) helping to support independent media and journalism - economically and otherwise — as a necessary counterpart to more establishment forms.