Minot, N.D., became a symbol of the dangers of media consolidation in 2002, when a nearby train derailment released toxic anhydrous ammonia into the air. Minot’s six Clear Channel-owned stations continued to air automated programming while a deadly gas cloud spread across town, killing one person and injuring a thousand.

Failed once by absentee-owned corporate media,  Minot is today facing another emergency--severe flooding.  But this time, the community is better informed, thanks largely to news coverage by a small, locally owned TV station, KXMC.

That coverage has been a lifeline to residents around the isolated community in the northern part of the state, according to a  feature in today’s New York Times. The article credits KXMC’s 15-person news staff for providing live, non-stop coverage of the flooding since evacuation warnings were issued a week ago. “When it has not been showing viewers their submerged homes, it has been broadcasting news conferences, explaining the intricacies of dike construction and sharing viewer photos from around the town of 41,000 and the outlying areas,” writes Times reporter Brian Stelter. “On Sunday morning, it inserted a bit of good news: a local couple's engagement.”

Competing local station KMOT, owned by larger Texas-based Hoak Media Corporation, is the traditional news leader in Minot’s market, which consists of the entirety of Western North Dakota. But according to the Times, residents are turning their attention to the locally-owned KXMC; its Facebook page currently has 34,000 followers to KMOT’s 3,500. That’s likely because KXMC is the only station that provides in-depth local news coverage of the northern part of the enormous western North Dakota market.

Locally-owned stations like KXMC are becoming increasingly rare in the United States. It’s precisely these small-town stations that communities often lose to covert consolidation, when a larger, often out-of-state media company strikes a deal to gain control of the smaller station, without technically transferring ownership. Once the deal is in place, it’s common for the controlling company to close the smaller station’s newsroom, lay off its news staff, and air the same news coverage on multiple stations in the market. KMOT’s Hoak Media has struck covert consolidation deals in the Eastern North Dakota market already, as well as in Colorado and Louisiana. For Minot and small towns across the country, covert consolidation can leave communities without vital local emergency news coverage.

Covert consolidation is threatening local news coverage across the country; more than 200 stations in nearly 80 media markets have already been affected. Last week, Free Press released an exclusive map documenting covert consolidation  and called on the FCC to enforce and strengthen ownership rules.

Minot serves as an example of why local ownership and independent news coverage is crucial, and how consolidated, absentee corporate ownership can be immeasurably harmful to a community.  Fortunately, it appears the lesson from that horrible night nearly a decade ago was learned, and Minot is reaping the benefits.

Hopefully, other communities, and the FCC, will learn it as well, before another crisis reinforces the lesson.

You can learn more about covert consolidation and our campaign to stop it at http://changethechannels.org.