Additional Democratic U.S. representatives opposed media ownership deregulation, as a FCC Media Bureau...
Additional Democratic U.S. representatives opposed media ownership deregulation, as a FCC Media Bureau draft order would allow (CD Dec 14 p19). Five Commerce Committee members said they're “deeply concerned with the direction you are proposing to take to address the…
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changing media landscape.” Internet news doesn’t “mitigate” the agency’s congressional “mandate” to promote broadcast diversity and localism, lawmakers wrote FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Thursday. Justifying deregulation based on the growth of online news “ignores the millions of Americans who are not yet online,” wrote Reps. Donna Christensen of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Michael Doyle of Pennsylvania, Anna Eshoo of California, Bobby Rush of Illinois and Edolphus Towns of New York (http://xrl.us/bn6ies). They asked Genachowski not to adopt new rules before following the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ remand to “fully assess” consolidation’s impact on ownership diversity and localism. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and several colleagues want the FCC to “save viable stations” to bolster diversity, they wrote in a Thursday letter that’s in docket 09-182. “Despite the Commission’s congressional mandates, minority ownership is freefalling to almost non-existent levels,” the letter said (http://xrl.us/bn6ieq). It cited figures from the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters showing the number of black-owned radio stations fell 10 percent between 1995 and 2012, while the number of such TV outlets fell 65 percent (CD Dec 13 p24). A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment on the congressional correspondence.