Seattle Media Ownership Hearing recap

SEATTLE CROWD BLASTS FCC ON BIG MEDIA
[SOURCE: Seattle Times, AUTHOR: Eric Pryne and Stuart Eskenazi]
Don't let big media get bigger. That was the overwhelming message an overflow crowd delivered to the Federal Communications Commission Friday night at a hearing on media ownership at Seattle's Town Hall. Four FCC commissioners heard it from Gov. Christine Gregoire and Attorney General Rob McKenna, and from young media-reform activists costumed as "media-consolidation zombies" -- a dig at what many perceive as the FCC's willingness to do industry's bidding. More than 200 people signed up to testify, almost all of them opposed to the proposed rules. They included directors of several cable-access channels in smaller markets, such as South King County, Olympia and Salem, Ore., where local news and issues rarely get mentioned on TV news channels based in Seattle, Portland or Eugene. The general managers of Seattle's KING-TV and KCPQ-TV were among the handful of witnesses who did not call for preserving the current media-ownership rules. Their respective owners, Dallas-based Belo and Chicago-based Tribune, already own newspaper-TV combinations in other cities that predate the FCC ban. Seattle Times Publisher Frank Blethen, an outspoken foe of more consolidation, urged the commission to not only maintain existing restrictions, but adopt new ones -- including a ban on cross-ownership of national print and broadcast outlets to supplement the existing prohibition on local cross-ownership. Concentrated absentee media ownership has resulted in "a disinvestment in journalism, causing serious erosion in America's public-policy literacy and civic engagement," Blethen said.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004005773_fcc1...

* FCC urged to oppose media consolidation
Support more voices in Seattle media, avoid business consolidation and please give people more time before holding a hearing to review media ownership rules. About 750 people packed Town Hall on Friday to deliver those messages to members of the FCC.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/339144_fcc10.html

* People understand threat of big media; so should FCC chairman
[Commentary] Open letter to FCC Chairman Martin: "Can you possibly think that allowing cross-ownership and further media consolidation will be good for newsrooms, journalists and communities? That ever bigger media will put public service above profits? The massive disinvestment that has been taking place in American journalism in recent years has been done to maintain relatively high profit margins. It has damaged the ability of the press to do its job."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004007156_fancher11.htm...

* Washington Governor Christine Gregoire's testimony
"I fervently believe the airwaves are public property. Owners who use them have a strong obligation to the rest of us to maintain that use in the public interest."
http://www.lasarletter.net/drupal/node/506

* Cantwell Threatens Congressional Action If FCC Rules Encourage Media Consolidation
“While increased media consolidation might be good for Wall Street, it is certainly bad for Main Street. We'll have to see what the FCC comes up with, but if Congress has to act to stop media consolidation, we will. Our democracy is strengthened when diverse voices have access to the airwaves, print, television and the Internet. The FCC is trying to jam this through, to hurry and make a rulemaking, in the hopes that they can get away with saying that more big companies can own significant portions of media. I think Seattle will tell them that we need to have a variety of voices. We’re going to make sure in the United States Senate that if we have to pass legislation stopping the FCC, that we will do that. No one should be allowed to corner the marketplace for ideas.”
http://cantwell.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=287128

* Hundreds Oppose FCC 'Media Consolidation' Move at Seattle Meeting (Associated Press)
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_con...

* FCC Democrats Rally Consolidation Foes in Seattle
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6499830.html

* Seattle Opens Can 'o Whoop Ass on FCC Chairman
[Commentary] All eyes are now on Kevin Martin. If he moves for a vote this December, the outcome will be determined by the size and volume of public opposition. It will hinge on whether enough Americans say, in the words of the Howard Beale in the legendary 1976 film Network, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-silver/seattle-opens-can-o-whoo_b_720...

* Big Turnout Against Big Media in Seattle (Free Press)
http://www.freepress.net/press/release.php?id=300

Statements by FCC Commissioners

* Copps: "Why in the world – when we see those harms everywhere around us: closed or downsized newsrooms; homogenized, nationalized entertainment; people of color denied the chance to own and operate stations; women denied the same way; musicians – really good musicians – kept off the air by corporatized, nationalized Big Media; the dumbing down of civic dialogue on which the future of our democracy depends; the list goes on and on and on – the list of problems we have not tackled in anything approaching a comprehensive manner goes similarly on and on – so why the rush to change important ownership rules before we tackle these other problems that have been so long pending at the FCC? Did you ever notice that the FCC is always ready to run the fast break for Big Media, but it’s the four-corner stall when it comes to serving the public interest? Well, it’s fast break time again. It’s time, we’ll be told in the next week or two, to let Big Media get bigger still – probably by promoting more cross-ownership deals between TV stations and newspapers."
http://www.fcc.gov/seattle-copps.pdf

* Adelstein: "If the majority of the FCC opposes the majority of America in the name of the 'public interest,' you will see a willful act of arrogance. You will see a handful of unelected bureaucrats telling you 'we know what's in your interest better than you know for yourselves.' That will face a harsh judgment by your elected representatives on both sides of the aisle in Congress, with Washington State leading the way."
http://www.fcc.gov/seattle-adelstein.pdf

* Tate: "America no longer relies solely on the local paper, or even the local television or radio station, for weather, sports, community events, and emergency alerts. Instead, local news is available online, whether written, audio or video, as well as in print and over the air, and even on our mobile devices. In addition, it is clear that the news-gathering habits of the younger generation are vastly different than those of my generation. Having grown up on the internet, this “I-generation” relies on global, digital, personalized, mobile information sources, whenever and wherever they may be. We must take these changes into account when fashioning media ownership rules which will take us into the next decade, where an even more tech-savvy generation awaits."
http://www.fcc.gov/seattle-tate.pdf