It is a Movement
By Steve Macek & Mitchell Szczepanczyk, Zmag.org
“The
media business,” they used to say, “was a license to print money,” wrote
the TV trade journal Broadcasting and Cable in 2001. As media mogul
Barry Diller put it: “The only way you can lose money in broadcasting
is if somebody steals it from you.”
Why?
Broadcast licenses for television grant exclusive control over the
airwaves to their holders. The original rationale for this was that the
scarcity of broadcast spectrum required that access to it be strictly
regulated. A government-appointed referee, the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC), awarded licenses to those parties deemed most able to
serve “the public interest, convenience and necessity.” If they didn’t
fulfill their duties, the FCC could revoke a license and award it to
another party that might better serve the public.
But the
FCC’s practice in this regard has been dismal to say the least. Though
licensed broadcasters have been required to operate in the public
interest since the early days of radio, for decades the
industry-friendly FCC did little or nothing to penalize stations for
ignoring their public service obligations. Indeed, not once since the
FCC’s founding in 1934 has the Commission revoked a single license of
its own accord.
The
upsurge of media activism nationwide in recent years has brought with
it increased efforts to bring a measure of accountability to broadcast
licenses and the media conglomerates that hold them.
Click here to read the full article.
Note:
You can add the petition filed by IBLTV against the license of Sinclair
owned KGAN Channel 2 to the list of activities included in the article.
In other news:
Lobbyist,
lawyer Robert M. McDowell has been nominated to fill the vacant FCC
commission seat. AP story here, Rueters story here.
Robert
Kennedy argues that the current state of the Media is partially to
blame for inability to adequately address environmental issues. His
argument was summarized as “mainstream media, unfettered by obligations
to serve the public interest, have created a nation of distracted
voters, too ignorant or indifferent to act in their own best
interests.” He described Americans as “the best entertained, least
informed people on the face of the earth.” Click here for the
story.
The
Houston Chronicle profiles Paula Kerger, whose three-year reign as
president of PBS begins in March, and Patricia Harrison, who became CPB
chairwoman last June here.
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