Asheville Citizen-Times, June 27, 2006
By Dale Neal

Asheville residents will get a say in the debate over media consolidation.

Federal Communications Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps will be in town Wednesday for the "Town Meeting on the Future of the Media," sponsored by Free Press, a nonpartisan media reform group. The meeting is separate from six public hearings the FCC has said it plans to hold. Comments at the Asheville hearing will be entered into the public record and given to the FCC and North Carolina officials.

With its decision last week to review media ownership rules, the commission reopened the hotly disputed issue of limits on the number of radio and television stations owned by a single corporation and cross-ownership between newspapers and broadcasters.

Media companies are eager for deregulation in an uncertain time of mergers and convergence of print and broadcast media inside individual companies. Media reform advocates such as Free Press worry that loosing ownership rules could affect the variety of news and information in individual communities.

Wally Bowen, founder of Mountain Area Information Network and an Asheville media advocate, expects a large crowd may attend to voice their opinions on the hot topic. "We're expecting possibly 500 people. The commissioners have said they will stay as long as people want to speak." Bowen said participants would have about two minutes for their remarks.

While Adelstein and Copps, both Democrats, have opposed the Republican majority's proposed changes, Bowen said the media ownership issue cuts across partisan lines "from Jesse Helms to Jesse Jackson."

Edna Campos, a local Hispanic community advocate, worries that growing media consolidation will leave out rural residents, the disabled or those who don't speak fluent English. "A single voice is not the necessarily the only voice," she said. "A single language is not necessarily the best language."

There will be simultaneous translation into Spanish throughout Wednesday's hearing, according to Craig Aaron of Free Press.

A review of media ownership rules is required every four years by federal law. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals suspended all the changes the commission made in 2003 and sent most of them back for re-evaluation on grounds that the FCC compiled an insufficient record to justify them.

"We'll make sure to gather a fuller record," FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin said. "We're going to do more studies and more hearings than have been done before. ... We're going to have a longer comment period, so we're going to try to seek greater public input."

While supporting a review of the rules, Adelstein and Copps recorded partial dissents. They said the review designed by the Republican majority didn't envision enough public hearings, in-depth studies of issues like local coverage and minority ownership, or a firm commitment to let the public see and comment on specific rule changes before they are adopted.

Martin has supported eliminating the three-decade-old flat ban on cross-ownership and in April called on newspaper publishers to help justify repeal. He noted Wednesday that the 3rd Circuit did conclude the FCC was right to remove that blanket prohibition on newspapers owning broadcast outlets in the cities they serve, even though it suspended that revision along with the other 2003 changes.

But Martin wouldn't predict "what rules, if any, we're going to make changes to."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.