Harold Feld, senior VP, Media Access Project, reports from the run-up to the media reform conference in Memphis in the following guest blog:

Commissioner Adelstein had warm words for the academic community willing to contribute to the FCC media ownership debate, but harsh words of criticism for how the FCC currently uses research to make its decisions.

At a keynote address at the academic "Pre-Conference" at the Memphis Convention Center co-sponsored by Free Press and the Social Sciences Research Center the day before the Free Press National Conference on Media Reform, Adelstein urged activists and academics to work together to bring the "inconvenient truth" about the impacts of consolidation to the FCC and Congress. He harshly criticized the current Commission for engaging in "faith based regulation," accusing the Commission of writing "advocacy pieces" rather than engaging in "fact based" research and analysis.

Adestein described a world in which, since the Reagan administration, the FCC has virtually eliminated industry reporting requirements and instead relies on "academic hired guns" and a vast "PR machine" to persuade policymakers. For their part, policymakers at the FCC have proven "complicit," accepting the corporate research and framing of the ownership debate without question.

To read the article, click here [1].