Are You the Media?

[Guest guest]

When major media is owned only by Big Bucks, you are

the one who gets screwed and with them owning the

means to control information you won't even know it

till it's over, or if ever. F.

 

 

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/07.21.04/monterey-0430.html

 

Are You the Media?

 

The FCC is holding one of only six national hearings

on media ownership in Monterey on July 21, and a

network of activists is converging on the coast to

protest the onslaught of consolidation. The question

is: What is 'local' media, anyway? Why does it matter?

And why doesn't the FCC care?

 

By Rachel Anne Goodman

 

'The gathering of more and more outlets under one

owner clearly can be an impediment to a free and

independent press.' --Walter Cronkite

 

I'm driving along Felton-Empire Road with my

8-year-old daughter, Micaela--whose favorite radio

station, for some reason alien to me, is 101.7 FM.,

" The Beach, your local station for the Monterey Bay! "

As I endure Avril Lavigne singing " Don't Tell Me, " I

posit that we've heard that song a lot recently,

actually every time we're in the car. " That's because

people really like it, Mom! " she replies. In other

words, they're giving people what they want. How can I

explain to her that Lavigne's promotion company paid a

Nashville radio station to play that song three times

an hour, thus buying it a place on the Billboard Top

10? That there are plenty of great singers who will

never get played on " The Beach " who live right here in

Santa Cruz? And that the voice she's hearing say the

word " local " is actually in Monterey; and if there was

a fire or other emergency here right now, we wouldn't

know about it from listening to this station?

 

We're fond in the Monterey Bay area of gloating about

the six noncommercial radio stations we receive.

(KKUP, KUSP, KSPB, KAZU, KZSC and KHDC). Not bad for

the nation's 121st biggest market. (The largest is New

York.) Nearly all of our " noncoms " have local

programming, from shows such as KZSC's Closet Free

Radio to the kaleidoscope of alternative music shows,

to KUSP's Talk of the Bay (which I host weekly).

 

But public radio doesn't always mean local radio.

KAZU-FM, which cut most local programs two years ago

and is now mostly automated, followed a trend toward

all-NPR formats that's swept public radio over the

past decade.

 

In the '80s, I worked at a station in Virginia where I

was told by the station manager to stop reading local

announcements " because they make us sound too

provincial. " Still, at least there were real live

humans at the microphones. That manager now runs the

all-automated, all-satellite classical giant KUSC in

Los Angeles, where the mic breaks are all

pre-recorded, and there are no live announcers at all.

 

It makes you wonder: What happens when the big one

hits? In Minot, N.D., a chemical spill sent 100 people

to the hospital, but none of the radio stations had

live announcers who could warn the public. Many

listeners called anyway, sure that the voices they

heard issued from living, breathing humans, and not an

automation machine running pre-recorded announcements.

 

And emergencies aren't the only issue. James Madison

wrote, " A popular government, without popular

information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a

prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or perhaps both. "

Put another way, unless you know the county is

considering locating its new dump near your house, you

might not get fired up about the county's supervisors

election.

 

A USC/Annenberg School study from 2002 showed that

only 44 percent of the 10,000 news broadcasts studied

contained any campaign coverage at all, and only 14

percent of the campaign stories that were aired

focused on local elections. The research also suggests

that larger station group owners air less local

campaign news than smaller and midsize station group

owners.

 

The Feds Are Coming

 

At this point, it is hardly news that the amount of

local broadcast news is shrinking across the country,

but it is news that the federal government is coming

to town to ask how you feel about it. When it comes to

the Monterey Conference Center on July 21, the Federal

Communications Commission (FCC) wants to know what it

can do to encourage--or perhaps force--broadcasters to

do more local programming. You know, short of breaking

up the media monopolies.

 

The FCC's visit comes just weeks after a major blow to

chairman Michael Powell's agenda. The son of Colin

Powell has presided over the commission during a

partisan era where media giants have been allowed to

grow bigger. Last year, the FCC lifted a 1975 ban on

owning both a newspaper and a television or radio

station in the same market. It also allowed one

broadcaster to control 45 percent of a market.

 

Together, these rules would have allowed one company

to own three TV stations, eight radio stations and the

monopoly newspaper in a single market. The vote was

split 3-2 in favor down party lines. Not so partisan

was the angry blizzard of mail from more than 3

million Americans incensed at the giveaway of their

airwaves. FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein called

the 2003 ruling " The most hated decision in history. "

Echoing that opinion, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of

Appeals in June shot down the FCC ownership rules,

citing " irrational assumptions and inconsistencies, "

and sent them back to the policy drawing board.

 

" It was probably the most important court decision in

the history of the media democracy movement. " says

Adelstein, " It stopped in its tracks the more extreme

rollback of ownership regulations. It gives us a

chance to go back and enter what people are saying in

our decision. And I'm sure we'll hear a lot of wisdom

out in Monterey. The law is that we're supposed to

serve the public. "

 

But before you unfurl your " mission accomplished "

banner, consider that even the old rules were not

particularly popular among those concerned about local

media ownership.

 

" It only means that we have set our media system back

to the old status quo--which was already bad, " says

media critic and author Robert McChesney.

 

But Jeff Perlstein of San Francisco's Media Alliance

says this is a historic opportunity.

 

" There's a renewed hope that there is some openness to

change, " says Perlstein. " The long-term work is to

break up some of these monopolies and foster more

local ownership. "

 

One problem, however, might be that the FCC doesn't

think there's a problem.

 

" Never in the U.S. has the media been less

consolidated, " says Jon Cody, Powell's legal adviser.

" What you've seen is not only a 100 percent increase

in the number of media outlets in each community, but

there has been a corresponding increase in independent

owners. "

 

Is he counting cable, Internet and low-power FM?

Because, in fact, the broadcast media is controlled by

the smallest number of megacorporations in history.

Ben Bagdikian's book The New Media Monopoly (which has

to be updated and republished every year) lists five;

AOL/Time Warner, Walt Disney Co./ABC, Viacom, News

Corp., and Bertelsmann, which control 80 percent of

prime time programming.

 

 

Policing the Police: Jeff Perlstein of San Francisco's

Media Alliance has been heavily involved in the effort

to organize media activists around the FCC's Monterey

hearing. He says he has hope that the FCC can be

persuaded to begin going after monopolies and

fostering local ownership.

 

Pump Up the Volume

 

Who would have thought the latest anti-corporate

battleground would be Monterey? While not expected to

equal Seattle's WTO protests in numbers or volume,

activists all over the West are preparing to make some

noise here. To them, media consolidation is the

broadcast equivalent of mono-crop agriculture; it

limits presentation of diverse local viewpoints, and

it stifles debate critical of the corporate agenda.

 

This is one of only six hearings being held across the

country that are organized by the FCC localism task

force, whose stated goal is to find out how

broadcasters are serving local communities.

 

" They need to do a better job, " says Perlstein. " That

means more local news, local public affairs, town hall

forums, and we believe that depends on local

ownership. "

 

The Media Alliance is working to ensure that the

public actually gets heard at the hearings.

 

" We're working with folks in Salinas, from Radio

Bilingue, Barrios Unidos, Radio Campesino, labor

unions, various peace coalitions, the NAACP, and a

broad cross-section of people from all over, " says

Perlstein. " I heard last night that some people are

even coming from Portland. "

 

The Newspaper Guild/Communications Workers of America

is planning a rally and march in front of the

hearings. Staff representative Linda Cearley says she

wants to tell the FCC that diversity of ownership is

necessary to preserve coverage of women's, minority

and labor issues.

 

" The fewer owners there are, the more power they have

to choose what we hear about, " says Cearley. " The only

time you hear about labor issues is when there's a

strike. "

 

 

Man of 1,000 Dances: KUSP music director Rob Mullen

(pictured here and on the cover) also hosts a music

show on Friday nights. Many NPR-affiliated stations

have increasingly been dropping such locally

programmed music shows in favor of nationally

syndicated content.

 

Localism, Central Coast Style

 

What does " localism " in broadcasting mean? Local

owner? Local host? Local guests? Local issues?

 

" Localism means providing opportunities for local

self-expression, " FCC commissioner Adelstein says, " It

means reaching out, developing and promoting local

performing artists, musicians and other talent. It

means dedicating the resources to discover and address

the unique needs of every segment of the community. "

 

Californians have always had a somewhat ambiguous

relationship to the concept of " local. "

 

" What is a local, really, and what is of concern to

everyone? " asks David Anton-Savage, manager of the Rio

Theatre and host of the Unfiltered Camels show on

KZSC. " Water issues, surely. But in terms of what's of

cultural interest to locals, so many things seem to

effect us nationally and internationally. "

 

In 1994, KUSP cut its nightly local newscast, citing

the cost, and has no immediate plans to bring it back.

Still, KUSP's schedule is 70 percent local, bucking

what seems to be a trend among National Public Radio

affiliates. Terry Green, the station's new general

manager, says, " Pending the creation of the new

strategic plan, the KUSP board of directors didn't

want to change that. Still, whatever we do should

reflect listeners' preferences. "

 

Bonnie Jean Primbsch, KUSP's public affairs director,

says the heart of KUSP has always been the community.

 

" We've been strongly identified from the beginning as

a place where the community meets, " she says.

 

But a challenge for larger stations like KUSP comes

when " local " means the whole region from Los Gatos to

Paso Robles. It's an issue Primbsch has to tangle with

every day.

 

" If you just talk about the fight for ownership of

water in Felton, you may serve the Felton listeners

perfectly, but bore Hollister listeners to tears, " she

says. " And you'll have missed the boat, too. Because

what's interesting about that story is not the legal

wrangle of the week, but the fact that the company

that owns Felton's water also owns water in

communities all over the world--including other places

in our listening area like Monterey. So there's an

opportunity for all our listeners to think in a new

way about something they may have taken for granted;

there's a sense that this could be you, and if it

were, what would you do about it? "

 

Ideally, media can provide the kind of bird's-eye view

on the cultural and civic life of our region that no

individual can achieve. It truly is our electronic

commons, and unlike the Internet or cable, there's no

admission fee.

 

You wouldn't think KSCO-AM (1080) and KUSP-FM (88.9)

had much in common. On the former, you're likely to

find Red Hot Gun Talk and conservatives like Michael

" Savage " Weiner railing about tax-and-spend liberals

and getting the government off our backs. On the

latter, it's NPR's Anne Garrels reporting from Baghdad

or John Sandidge talking about medical marijuana, and

getting the government off our backs.

 

But both are stations trying to balance national and

local programming, and both want to stay locally

owned. KSCO owner Michael Zwerling says he's a staunch

supporter of local radio. KSCO has the only local

radio morning newscast, and regularly peppers news in

between its talk shows.

 

However, like NPR on KUSP, it's the syndicated shows

that bring in listeners, ratings and revenues.

 

" Rush [Limbaugh] brought us our original audience.

These big ratings franchises attract people to the

station. " Says Zwerling. " If we're doing something

that's worthwhile that you can't get anywhere else,

that's our local programming. We're not going to

survive unless we serve the public. I wanted to be a

real community radio station. "

 

KUSP's Primbsch seconds that. " Our obligation to

present local programming is such that if we stopped

doing it, we wouldn't be KUSP anymore. "

 

 

Whose News?: Bonnie Jean Primbsch, KUSP's public

affairs director, says her station is committed to

local programming, but that the question of what

'local' means can get tricky when an outlet's coverage

area spreads over hundreds of miles.

 

Target: Clear Channel

 

To consolidation critics, Clear Channel has become the

poster child for all that is wrong about media

mergers. The company, through its vertical integration

practice of buying up stadiums, record labels, concert

production companies, billboards and the like, has

achieved a godlike ability to anoint the next big pop

star.

 

It's been embroiled in political controversy, too.

After 9/11, Clear Channel stations circulated the

famous list of " questionable songs " to its radio

stations, including 120 seditious titles, such as

Peter, Paul and Mary's " Leaving on a Jet Plane " and

Oingo Boingo's " Dead Man's Party, " that were likely to

generate controversy, and critics called it

censorship. (The company blamed the circulation of the

list on an overzealous program manager, but The New

York Times reported that an early version of it did

originate in Clear Channel's corporate offices.)

 

The latest political flap involves Clear Channel

denying billboard space across the street from the

upcoming Republican Convention to a group with an

antiwar message, because of controversy over a

stylized bomb image on the ad. (Clear Channel reached

a compromise with the group, Project Billboard, last

week, after the nonprofit had threatened to sue. Under

the terms of the compromise, the bomb image will not

be displayed.)

 

From Clear Channel's website: " We believe we have an

obligation for the well-being of the communities in

which we live. We further believe the future success

of our communities and the industries where we do

business is dependent upon the responsibility we feel,

the high standards we set and the positive impact our

actions have. "

 

In six years, Clear Channel, based in San Antonio,

Texas, has grown from owning 44 radio stations

nationwide to 1,239. So how deep is our market being,

as it were, penetrated? Clear Channel owns six radio

stations in our area, with a 29 percent share of the

market.

 

In the TV arena, this area has three 11pm local

newscasts competing for viewers. KSBW, KION and KCBA

collectively have 70 percent of the viewers in our

area.

 

Clear Channel owns KION-TV Channel 46 and " co-manages "

KCBA-TV Channel 35, the Fox affiliate. Together, the

two stations comprise 30 percent of the local

television market. Both stations share a building, a

program director and news director, and the evening

news sets are in the same room, with different anchors

and visuals, but the same cameras and equipment.

 

KSBW dominates with 40 percent of the market. The

Salinas-based NBC affiliate is owned by the

Hearst/Argyle Corporation, which owns 28 other

television stations around the country, in addition to

the San Francisco Chronicle.

 

KSBW-TV station manager Joseph Heston says he's proud

of his station's brand of localism.

 

" I'm honored the FCC is coming all the way to this

market to see how well we're doing. We're doing way

beyond what you'd find in most markets this size. "

 

Heston says the deep pockets of the Hearst/Argyle

group enable KSBW to have three live " receive " sites

for gathering news from south San Jose to King City,

and from Santa Cruz to Big Sur.

 

" We would not be able to have that kind of support if

we were owned by Mel and Bob's down the street, " says

Heston.

 

KSBW airs 24.5 hours of local news and information a

week, and has the only morning and noon newscasts in

the region. " We believe that you can do well by doing

good. If you look at not just Hearst stations, but

leading stations across the country, those that

provide local support and local news and local

information, are the stations that are most successful

in their market. "

 

Michael Powell's legal assistant Cody says his

research bears that out.

 

" The bigger the corporate entity that owns that local

station, the more it produces better and higher

quality local news, " he says. " Television stations

owned by newspapers produced 50 percent more local

news, and had won 200 to 300 percent more journalism

awards. "

 

But the FCC also found that 35 percent of television

stations in a given market had no local news coverage

at all.

 

To discuss the benefits to the public of the free

market, first you have to have one. Even Michael

Zwerling, owner KSCO, a station with a decidedly

free-market point of view, says the government ought

to reign in the media monopolies.

 

" I'm a free market kind of guy, " Zwerling says, " but I

think there should be limits on numbers of ownership.

The current FCC rule that permits the majority of a

radio market to be controlled by one owner basically

thumbs its nose at the antitrust laws. "

 

License, Please

 

" We have first amendment issues, " says KSBW's Heston

of FCC regulation. " We don't want to be told how many

hours of news we have to do. The FCC is certainly

capable of finding a bad operator based on the

procedure that's in place now. At license renewal

time, if broadcasters aren't doing enough, they don't

get renewed, " Would that it were true.

 

Though broadcast licenses are bought and sold for

hundreds of millions of dollars, the Federal

Communications Act says broadcasters are temporary

trustees of the public's airwaves. Licenses, given by

the FCC for eight years, are supposed to be renewed

only if the broadcaster can prove " whether the public

interest, convenience, and necessity will be served. "

 

But the amount of " proving " that stations must do has

shrunk to a few pages in a public file, and most

renewals are handled with a four-page checklist that

never mentions programming, local or otherwise. " The

public interest " was once protected by a plethora of

" behavioral " regulations including the " Fairness

Doctrine " governing political balance, children's

programming hours and minority ownership rules. But,

during the Reagan era, most of these got tossed out in

favor of the free market. There has never been a rule

dictating how much local programming a station must

air, and that's one area the FCC is exploring.

 

FCC regulations don't say how much local programming

or what kind a broadcaster must air, only that " every

three months, a list of programs that have provided

the stations' most significant treatment of community

issues during the preceding three month period must be

kept. " And yet, there is no mention of this list at

license renewal time. Only when the FCC comes by to

randomly inspect a station does it ever see the public

file. The public, however, can walk in any time and

ask to see it, and stations must let them by law.

 

FCC commissioner Adelstein says there aren't any teeth

in the renewal process, and haven't been for years,

even when the renewal cycle was every three years. And

he wants to see that change.

 

" Let them prove it, and demonstrate how they're

serving the public, " he says. " I think we need to beef

up our public interest obligation in the digital age.

Should all those five new [TV] channels be commercial

or should they be required to do some local content? "

 

" People are looking for a very public, participatory

process for license renewal, " says Perlstein, " They're

not going to go home after this hearing and be quiet. "

 

All radio station licenses are scheduled to expire

between now and 2006, and all television station

licenses are scheduled to expire between 2004 and

2007. The public could, during this window of

opportunity, contest the license renewals of stations

they felt were doing a bad job, though " petitions to

deny, " as they are called, seldom get granted by the

commission.

 

This week's hearing on localism might be a charade--or

a sign that the FCC is feeling the heat of public

pressure for media reform. If regime change comes to

Washington, Michael Powell may be joining his father

Colin on the golf course come November, and a very

different FCC could be appointed, one which protects

the public from media giants, and not the other way

around.

 

But don't expect to see Powell Jr. in Monterey. He has

cancelled his visit, just as he did for the hearing in

North Dakota. Commissioners Adelstein, Abernathy and

Copps will be there. The hearing will take place from

6 to 10pm at the Monterey Conference Center on July 21

in the Steinbeck Forum, Third Floor, at 1 Portola

Plaza. Speaking spots are by lottery. A live audiocast

of the hearing will be available at the commission's

website at www.fcc.gov, where people also can register

their opinions online. KSCO-AM (1080), KAZU-FM (90.3)

and KPFA-FM (94.7) plan to broadcast the hearings

live, and KUSP-FM (88.9) will air an edited version

later in the week.

 

Rachel Anne Goodman is a writer and radio producer

living in Bonny Doon. She hosts 'Talk of the Bay' on

KUSP, and is currently producing a documentary about

the housing crisis in California called 'The Boomtown

Chronicles.' She won a Peabody award for her work on

the NPR show, 'The DNA Files.'

 

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