[BC] Localism

[Harold Hallikainen]

>From Benton Communications Headlines (http://www.benton.org)


NEWS FROM THE FCC

LAWYER: FCC ORDERED MEDIA STUDY DESTROYED
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: John Dunbar]
Former FCC staffer Adam Candeub, now a law
professor at Michigan State University, says
senior managers at the Federal Communications
Commission ordered that "every last piece" of a
draft study that suggested greater concentration
of media ownership would hurt local TV news
coverage be destroyed. "The whole project was
just stopped, end of discussion,'' he said.
Candeub was a lawyer in the FCC's Media Bureau at
the time the report was written and communicated
frequently with its authors, he said. The report,
written in 2004, came to light during the Senate
confirmation hearing for FCC Chairman Kevin
Martin. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) received a copy
of the report ''indirectly from someone within
the FCC who believed the information should be
made public,'' according to Boxer spokeswoman
Natalie Ravitz. In a letter sent to Martin
Wednesday, Boxer said she was ''dismayed that
this report, which was done at taxpayer expense
more than two years ago, and which concluded that
localism is beneficial to the public, was shoved
in a drawer.'' The report, written by two
economists in the FCC's Media Bureau, analyzed a
database of 4,078 individual news stories
broadcast in 1998. The broadcasts were obtained
from Danilo Yanich, a professor and researcher at
the University of Delaware, and were originally
gathered by the Pew Foundation's Project for
Excellence in Journalism. The analysis showed
local ownership of television stations adds
almost five and one-half minutes of total news to
broadcasts and more than three minutes of
''on-location'' news. The conclusion is at odds
with FCC arguments made when it voted in 2003 to
increase the number of television stations a
company could own in a single market. It was part
of a broader decision liberalizing ownership
rules. The authors of the report, Keith Brown and
Peter Alexander, both declined to comment.
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2006/09/14/daily.5/
* Officials Ordered FCC Report Destroyed, Says Ex-Staffer
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6372324.html
* Probe Called for in FCC's Quashing of Local News Study
http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10757
* FCC Lawyer Says TV Study Was Hushed
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-fcc15sep15,1,6351522.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business
* In a USA Today Op Ed in 2003 on the FCC?s media
ownership proceeding, then-Chairman Powell
accused opponents of ?substituting personal
ideology for and opinion for the facts.?
According to the Associated Press, however, when
a study Powell ordered to prove deregulation did
not hurt local news coverage proved the opposite,
Powell ordered the study not merely suppressed,
but destroyed. ?It appears that it was Michael
Powell, not the public, who preferred to make
decisions based on ?personal ideology,?? said
Harold Feld, Senior Vice President, Media Access Project.
http://www.mediaaccess.org/press/Powell%20Statement.pdf
* MAP, Free Press, Consumers Union, Consumer
Federation of America letter to FCC Chairman Martin:
"We urge you to immediately seek an independent
investigation, through the Office of the
Inspector General, to determine the circumstances
under which the public was denied access to this
important, taxpayer-funded research, the parties
involved and the processes that may have allowed
any record of the report?s existence to be destroyed."
http://www.mediaaccess.org/filings/2006%20-%200914%20Ltr%20FCC%20-%20Local%20News%20Study.pdf
* Do Local Owners Deliver More Localism?
http://www.freepress.net/docs/fcclocalnews.pdf




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