Today the New York Times has a story titled Plan Would Ease Limits on Media Owners. It highlights that Chairman Martin plans to bring a further consolidation plan to a vote by the end of the year. As I said here, this is to avoid election season. And though the dates are not officially set yet, I've been hearing that the last of the Localism hearings will be on Oct 31 in Washington DC and the last of the Consolidation hearings will be on Nov 2 in Seattle. These dates are tentative until we get official word from the FCC.
These new rules would allow one company in a market like Portland, OR. to own the daily newspaper, 3 television stations, 8 radio stations, the cable provider and the largest internet provider. You think we've got "Fair and Balanced" now?! Action and explanation below.
If you're near DC or Seattle, plan to be at the hearings. We need a MASSIVE turnout. Something akin to the WTO protest in Seattle would be a goal. If you cannot be at the hearings, you can send emails to the FCC Commissioners and your congress critters asking them to vote against the consolidation.
If you read the NYT article cited above, the Democratic Commissioners are giving us the ammo. These are the arguments we should use in our correspondence to fight this. Of course any personal stories are also helpful. If you live in a state that one of the Commissioners live in, make that known. It is hot helpful to state what groups you belong to or your political party. Since we're trying to sway Republicans, it's actually harmful to do so. The point is, that you're a regular citizen who's concerned about the lack of news on the news or when you tried to get news coverage of a community event, it got bubkis because there are only 2 conglomerates owning everything.
I also wouldn't worry at all about Commissoner Adlestein. He's as solid as Copps against this. He's just giving reasons that we could echo of why we shouldn't consolidate the media. I am convinced that neither he nor Copps would send us up the river here, but the Republicans will march in lockstep. Commissioner Martin is more savvy than Powell was and may back off if there is enough public pressure. Now we just need to create that pressure.
Lets do it!