Last month, the Media Management Center at Northwestern University published an in-depth study of Chicago's local TV news experience. While designed to help station managers increase viewership, the report also offers some important insight on how well the big five TV stations are serving the public. Click here to read the study With the Sept. 20 FCC public hearing on media ownership swiftly approaching, the findings in this report are an important reminder of the ways big media leaves local communities under-served and underrepresented on the news. A few of the findings include:

• "Less than half of every local news program is devoted to news stories (about 45%). Sports and weather take up between 9-10% of the time each, on average, and commercials take up almost 30% of the time.”
• “More than one-third of all news stories are about crimes, fires and accidents, while politics accounts for 15%. Health, science and environment stories comprise 11% of all stories, and weather stories 10%.”
• “While stories are geographically local, most news stories have no direct effect on the lives of people in the viewing area.”
• “For every non-white person who is heard in a story, there are three white people.”
• “People who are white, male and official dominate news about politics.”

This is just a small sampling of the findings from this report. To read more about how Big Media in Chicago has pushed local communities out of the picture be sure to visit http://www.stopbigmedia.com/=chicago_tv_study. The FCC is currently reviewing its media ownership laws and the Sept. 20 FCC public hearing in Chicago is a unique opportunity for the public to have input into the policymaking process. For more information on the hearing, visit www.StopBigMedia.com/=Chicago.