I am a recovering journalist. 

I went to school for it, got a master’s degree in it, won awards for it and taught it at two universities. So you could say I’ve spent a lot of time in the business of informing my fellow citizens about the goings-on in their world.

But I don’t do it anymore. Not because I don’t believe that informing the public is an important service—it absolutely is.  I left the profession because I was no longer convinced that we were providing any such thing.

That viewpoint is shared by the investigators behind the Federal Communications Commission’s “The Information Needs of Communities” report, released last week. We agree that media, especially local TV news, play a critical role in keeping a community informed and engaged in their self-governance, and in holding public officials accountable for their actions in office.

But we also agree that, too often, local TV news fails to fulfill that role.

It seems that the FCC should take a firmer hand in holding broadcasters to the public-good obligations of their licenses.  Consider this, from page 293 of the report:

"The FCC invites community groups to challenge licenses—and then rejects nearly 100 percent of those challenges. The FCC says that stations have an obligation to serve their communities but then offers no definition of what that means.”

The FCC clearly sees that, with precious little threat of losing their licenses and vague, undefined standards of what it means to serve the community, broadcasters pretty much do as they please. And “as they please” means they are driven to do whatever it takes to pad their profits, public interest and journalistic ethics be damned.  Page 114 of the report:

"We found instances in which local stations appeared to sell their news time, and reputation, to advertisers—in some cases literally allowing sponsors to buy their way into news segments. Too many local TV station executives and managers have responded to financial pressures from owners by allowing advertisers to dictate—and in some cases to create—content, undermining long-standing journalistic standards."

The report also notes the absence of original local news on hundreds of local stations. This includes the practice of what we at Free Press call “covert consolidation,” rebroadcasting news from other local stations and passing it off as original reporting. Despite technological advances that make the cost of reporting and broadcasting news much cheaper, and the explosion of political advertising in 2010, which poured billions (with a B) of dollars into local TV stations’ coffers, the report concludes that rather than “increase the pool of reporters who could cover their communities and more effectively monitor institutions and government agencies, many stations have opted to let those dollars simply flow to the bottom line."

There is no question that the FCC sees this phenomenon as an important social problem. The agency’s own report states: "In the olden days (a few years ago), it might be said that when a local TV station did little to serve its community, it was a victimless crime. That is less true now. Contrary to the view of many old-time print journalists, we believe that local TV news can be great, often is great—and, in these times, needs to be great." (Emphasis added.)

And amen to that.

Their assessment also underscores the disappointing aspects of the report. Rather than recommit itself to uphold and enforce the standards of public service that broadcasters commit to providing in exchange for their free use of the public’s airwaves, the FCC punts.

Where it could have required greater disclosure from broadcasters regarding their efforts to meet their public interest commitment, the report recommends doing away with the enhanced disclosure agreed upon on a bipartisan basis by the last FCC. The report further downplays the crucial role of disclosure when it characterizes as “make-work paperwork” that “threat[ens] several potentially burdensome rules” attempts to collect data about a station’s community-specific content. And where it could have given real teeth to the review process that allows citizens to challenge the licenses of broadcasters that fail in their duty to the public, the report is silent.

These failings are disappointing, but they are also a call to arms of sorts. The FCC recognizes the role of media in effectively watch-dogging government and that in recent year the government has been ineffective watch-dogs of broadcasters. The report suggests that neither of these breaches of trust can be ignored without harm to our society.

So let’s take our cue from the FCC. If, as the Commission’s report concludes, local television broadcasters have abdicated their mandate to serve their communities, let’s not abandon our duty to demand the FCC fulfill its responsibility to guarding the public airwaves and ensuring they are used for the public good.