It’s another record-breaking year for TV news, at least according to a recent survey from the Radio Television Digital News Association. Regrettably, the real story is a lot less exciting— and it raises a lot more questions.
OnThursday, the Federal Communications
Commission proposed rules that would further weaken media ownership
limits for local newspapers and broadcast stations. The
agency's proposal is strikingly
similar to one adopted in 2007 under former FCC Chairman Kevin
Martin. Those rules were met with overwhelming public opposition from
across the country, as well as from bipartisan leaders in Congress, and
were thrown out by a federal appeals court last summer.
At today’s FCC hearing on
the Information Needs of Communities, Free Press Policy Counsel Corie Wright made
the case for why we need a new era of broadcaster transparency. Through a few
simple changes, Wright argues, the FCC could make available vital information
about how the media serve local communities — and enable citizens, journalists
and public interest groups to hold media accountable.
The text of Corie Wright’s
speech, delivered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass
Communications at Arizona State University, follows below.
WASHINGTON – On Friday, a U.S. Court of Appeals rejected a request by the National Association of Broadcasters to stay the implementation of Federal Communications Commission rules requiring television stations to post their political files online. Free Press, an intervenor in the case along with the Benton Foundation, the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, the New America Foundation and the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, opposed the NAB’s request for a stay.
WASHINGTON -- On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected requests by members of the media industry to revisit the constitutionality of the Federal Communications Commission's media ownership rules. In December 2011, the National Association of Broadcasters, Media General and Tribune Co. filed petitions for certiorari of the Prometheus II case, a U.S. Court of Appeals decision holding that existing FCC media ownership limits were both reasonable and constitutional.
In compliance with new FCC rules, broadcasters are currently posting hundreds of political advertising contracts online daily in PDF form. Prior to the FCC adoption of the rules last April, the stations had to place copies only in their paper public inspection files. The only way to see them was to go to the stations.
It appears TV stations will need to begin posting documents for their public files to an FCC-hosted web interface beginning Aug. 2. With no lengthy explanation, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court on Friday rejected National Association of Broadcasters’ request for the new rules to be blocked pending judicial review.
The U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit denied the National Association of Broadcasters' petition for an emergency stay of the Aug. 2 deadline for TV stations to start posting their public files online, including political files for the top 200 network affiliates.
