Archives: Media Ownership

Seattle Times Editorial - June 21, 2006 

Try listening this time around

The Federal Communications Commission is about to try again to modify its restrictions on media ownership. The agency needs to do a much better job this time of listening to the American people.

The first time around, when Michael Powell was chairman, the FCC pushed through a drastic loosening of the rules. In 2003, it announced an easing of restrictions on companies owning a daily newspaper and a television station, or two television stations, in the same market. The agency also announced that the top limit of one company's total TV reach would rise from 35 percent of households nationwide to 45 percent.

We thought these changes were wrong. America's democracy demands diversity of opinion. So does America's geography. To us, the issue is not theoretical: It involves The Seattle Times Company, which has ownership responsibilities in Washington and Maine. We want to remain independent, and we want other companies like ours Fisher Communications, for example to do the same.

On this issue we believe the public is on our side. We recall the roar of disapproval that met the FCC's order of three years ago.

At that time, Chairman Powell and the two other Republican commissioners refused to have regional public hearings. The two Democratic commissioners, Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, had them on their own, and packed an auditorium in Portland, Ore. The groundswell they raised helped convince the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rule that the FCC had not done the job right and had to do it over.

This time, the full FCC ought to have hearings across the country. Let them come here, and this community will give them an earful.

We also hope the new chairman, Kevin Martin, will be more reasonable than Powell was. Also, the new Republican member, Robert McDowell, lobbied for the upstart telephone companies against the monopoly power of the regional Bells.

The social value of the companies McDowell represented in the telephone industry was that they increased competition. It is not so different in the news industry. We need to have as many players as can be economically supported.

If the FCC commissioners will stop listening to the likes of Media General Corp. and start listening to the American people, that is what they will say.