FCC Rules Must Protect and Promote Media Diversity

For Immediate Release

For More Information Contact:
Jeff Miller, CWA Communications,
202-434-1168, jmiller@cwa-union.org

FCC Rules Must Protect and Promote Media Diversity

The Communications Workers of America today filed comments in the latest FCC review regarding media ownership rules, urging the Commission to maintain remaining rules governing the diversity of local TV, radio and newspaper ownership.

"The Commission's broadcast media ownership rules are based on the First Amendment principle that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to public welfare," CWA states in its executive summary.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Prometheus vs. FCC effectively said those principles were violated in the Commission's 2002 review of media ownership. Specifically, the Court rejected rules that would have allowed one company to own as many as three TV stations as well as the monopoly newspaper and multiple radio stations in the same community.

CWA continues to believe that the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule provides the strongest protection against undue concentration in a local media market for news and information. However, should the Commission modify that rule, it must do so according to the methodology laid out by the Court in Prometheus to avoid excessive media concentration. If mergers are to be considered, the burden of proof must lie with the merging parties "to demonstrate that the combination is in the public interest; and with the requirement that the commonly owned media outlets maintain separate newsrooms and editorial staff," CWA states.

Media corporations are crying wolf when they claim that they must merge to survive, CWA said, noting that newspapers continue to earn profits in the range of 20 percent and local TV stations earn profits of 40 to 50 percent.

"This proceeding is of profound importance to American democracy," CWA's executive summary concludes. "It is imperative that the Commission adopt strong structural rules to protect and promote against further consolidation of the media into fewer hands, an outcome that would do serious harm to the free flow of ideas that is so essential to civic participation in our democracy."

The full report is available at:
http://files.cwa-union.org/National/CommunicationsPolicy/Comments/061023.pdf

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