FCC Hearing on Media Ownership in Seattle TOMORROW

FIRST OFF-there is a hearing tomorrow in seattle and i strongly suggest that everyone should go if you care about the quality of the media you receive and what giant corporation you're getting it from. details of the hearing are below, but plz read all of this.

Public Hearing on Media Ownership
4pm-11pm, Nov. 9 2007
Town Hall Seattle, Great Hall
1119 Eighth Avenue
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FCC commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps are coming to Seattle to solicit public opinionson deregulating media ownership.

The Federal Communications Commission, led by Republican chairperson Kevin Martin, is considering lifting a ban which restricts a single company from owning both the major newspaper and major broadcasting system in a single market, expanding the limit on the number of radio stations and TV stations a single company can own in a market, and raising the number of local television stations one company can own.

Martin decided on a list of six cities where the FCC would hold public forums to get feedback on scaling back these regulations; Seattle isn’t one of them.

In response, local non-profit group Reclaim the Media invited the five FCC directors to come out for an informal public hearing. Only Adelstein and Copps agreed to attend.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has announced plans to hold the final public hearing on media ownership on Friday, Nov. 9 at Seattle's Town Hall, giving the Northwest an unbelievable five business days to prepare for the hearing. The rushed hearing is part of Martin's plan to fast-track changes to the rules by mid-December. The hearing will be the only chance for Northwest residents to weigh in on proposals that would allow giant media companies to grow even more concentrated.

Public Hearing on Media Ownership
4pm-11pm, Nov. 9 2007
Town Hall Seattle, Great Hall
1119 Eighth Avenue

Media consolidation has direct effects on local programming, competition between media outlets that encourages quality coverage, and the success of minorities and women who own broadcasting companies.

Reclaim the Media co-director Karen Toering asks, “Why are they opening up new rules on media ownership and consolidation” when consolidation sets back women and minority owners?

Toering cites an October study by the national media reform group Free Press that states, “Pro-consolidation policies enacted by the FCC in the late 1990s have indirectly or directly contributed to the loss of 40 percent of the [broadcast TV] stations that were minority-owned in 1998.”

The same study says African Americans and Latinos, who make up 27 percent of the American public, own only 2 percent of all broadcast TV stations. And women, who make up 51 percent of the population, own less than 5 percent of all TV stations.

Allowing giant companies to own more media stands to benefit only a handful of corporations like Disney, Viacom, NBC/GE, News Corp., Time Warner, and Clear Channel, says Toering.

“Further consolidation or merging of these industries means fewer voices and fewer ideas.”


FOR MORE INFO:
reclaimthemedia.org (seattle based)
mediamatters.org
www.realchangenews.org/2006/2006_11_22/whoownsthemedia.html
freepress.net



sources-reclaimthemedia.org and www.realchangenews.org/2006/2006_11_22/whoownsthemedia.html
(i basically copy/pasted a bunch of stuff from these two places)