The bitter end?

THE BITTER END?
[SOURCE: Missoula Independent, AUTHOR: Paul Peters]
A look at radio station KGEZ and its owner, John Stokes. The station is up for sale. The asking price is $4 million. For that, the purchaser gets the property on which the station currently sits. The “FCC licensed station comes with it at no charge,” according to an ad. That last sentence is interesting, considering that Stokes’ Federal Communications Commission license is being jointly contested by Kalispell resident Kate Hunt and the Montana Human Rights Network. When a radio station renews its license with the FCC, which records show Stokes did in 2004, citizens can offer petitions for denial of the license. Kate Hunt did just that. At that time, the FCC renewed Stokes’ license despite the objections. But in March 2007, Gloria Tristani, a Washington, D.C. attorney who served as an FCC commissioner from 1997 to 2001, petitioned the FCC to reconsider the case against Stokes. Tristani and her firm, Spiegel & McDiarmid, are handling the case pro bono. Under the Federal Communications Act of 1934, radio stations are required to serve the public interest. In order for stations to prove they fulfill this obligation, the FCC requires them to maintain quarterly “issues/programs” lists, which document how the station has served the public interest by covering community issues. Stations are required to make the lists available to the public. In May of 2007, Tristani enlisted Hunt to acquire KGEZ’s issues/programs list. Hunt says Tristani’s co-counsel, attorney David Honig, told her, “Now be prepared…they can charge you 24 cents a copy, and these can be big, big, big files.” Instead, Hunt found four sheets of paper. According to Tristani and Honig, Stokes doesn't have much evidence KGEZ has been serving the public interest. “And to the contrary,” Tristani says, “it may be disserving the public.”
http://www.missoulanews.com/index.cfm?do=article.details&id=D748E58C-DE7...