Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps will be the first to tell you that his own agency needs to do more to improve the country’s media system. Last Monday, he told a room full of Pittsburgh residents that a key part of the remedy is citizen action.

“If we are to ever have media of the people, by the people and for the people, you need to take this fight on,” Copps told the crowd at a town hall-style dialogue sponsored by Free Press. “The stakes could not be higher ... If we are denied quality news and information, if we are denied in-depth investigative reporting and if we are denied a media environment wherein independent voices can speak and be heard, then we won’t be able to sustain an
informed electorate.”

The event, Owning Our Airwaves, convened federal policymakers and experienced Pittsburgh media makers and organizers to discuss the current state
of the media, especially the lack of opportunities and representation for people of color and women. Chris Ramirez of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists told the audience that rampant consolidation in the broadcast industry has negatively impacted journalists of color, with fewer job openings and less opportunity to move up in the business.

Deborah Acklin, president of WQED Multimedia, which owns the Pittsburgh PBS station, drove home the point that a media system beholden to ratings and profit margins has no motivation to act in the public interest.

Acklin began her career at WQED after becoming disillusioned with commercial broadcast journalism. “When I moved into management [at local station KDKA] I really started to see the danger of mixing media and the profit motive. My compensation was tied to how many eyeballs I could attract to the evening news. … In a meeting, a consultant told me, ‘You need to exploit your audience’s fears.’ They are still doing it to you today. People are being drugged by that. We prey on your fear, we get you to watch, we jack up the advertising rates. That’s the equation.”

Copps suggested an antidote to the dynamic Acklin described, pointing to the license-renewal process for broadcast stations. This process used to trigger a genuine review of how the station met its public interest obligations. These days, renewing a station’s license is as simple as dropping a postcard in the mail. Copps recommends requiring more information from stations wishing to lease the public airwaves for free.

“How about a policy,” Copps said, “that demands licensees renew every three years and we take a good, hard look at the licensees’ records and match them up with some guidelines to demonstrate they are providing your communities with real local news and information, that they are reflecting the diversity of all your media market’s citizens, that they are open to the expression of diverse viewpoints and that they are actually talking with people in their communities of service about the programs people would like to see and hear and the issues that are important to them?”

Without teeth, however, these reforms would fall short, Copps said. “If we find that a station is not serving its community of license in a significant way, then let’s take that license and give it to someone who will. With that kind of approach, I don’t think it would take very long for the word to go forth that the FCC is back in the business of enforcing the public interest.”

Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), who was instrumental in the passage of the Local Community Radio Act signed into law in January, sees another solution: increasing the availability of
community-oriented broadcasting. “We have a diverse ethnic community here in
our city, and I’d like to see more people of color and women running community
stations, producing local news and playing local music,” he said. “And I can’t
wait to hear more of our local musical talent on the air, played by DJs who
know and appreciate our local culture.”

The dialogue in Pittsburgh comes at a time when the FCC is reviewing its media-ownership rules. The agency faces massive industry pressure to pave the way for more consolidation. Meanwhile, the congressional Super Committee, charged with trimming the federal budget by $1.4 trillion, is considering cuts to public media. To learn more and share your own thoughts with media policymakers, continue to visit SavetheNews.org.

You can watch excerpts from the Pittsburgh town hall below:

WQED Multimedia
President Deborah Acklin:

FCC Commissioner
Michael Copps:

Rep. Mike Doyle:

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