Visit the story link to read the complete mediachannel article.
...Congress responding to pressure from commercial broadcasters and, sadly, also from National Public Radio cut back the program with legislation tucked into the budget bill, which is a questionable process itself in such an important free-speech issue. As a result, only 255 licenses, instead of 1,000, will be issued in the first 20 states where the process started, and most cities are exclude. As a Hungarian, resistance to these small, but beautiful radio stations is surprising and troubling. Noncommercial radio and television stations in the United States have served as models for Hungarian media regulation in our newfound democracy. After the fall of the Berlin wall, we were convinced that the voice of the civic society had to be heard on the media market. The American and European tradition of not for-profit radio stations was a source of inspiration for liberal lawmakers like myself. In spite of the much-vaunted stereotype of the "clearly commercial" American media system, we found the work of the U.S. public radio and television stations very attractive. They were not state-owned, and they were not commercial.
Visit the story link to read the complete editorial written by Robert McChesney for Newsday.
ALL YOU NEED to know about Michael Powell, whom President George W. Bush promoted this week to chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, can be sum- med up by the statements of close FCC watchers. "He's a listener, an advocate, an effective policymaker," said one. "Michael Powell has demonstrated a keen intellect and a firm grasp on public policy issues," said another. "It's rare that you have somebody in public office who is so favorably regarded by all constituencies and competing industries," added yet a third person.
Wow. This guy Michael Powell must be hot stuff, right? Wrong. The three quotes come from Gary Lytle, Eddie Fritts and Robert Sachs, the heads of the trade associations for the "Bell" telephone companies, commercial broadcasters and the cable television industry, respectively. These are the very industries Powell is commissioned to regulate in the public interest. They love Powell for a reason. He has a record of advancing their interests, not ours. And, as a result of Powell's tenure, their firms will grow much larger, much more powerful and much more profitable and operate in less competitive markets. It will be bad news for democracy.
MEDIA ADVISORY:
Award-Winning Reporter Resigns On-Air from Pacifica;
Calls for Campaign to Oust Network Leadership
In a dramatic on-air announcement, Juan Gonzalez, the co-host of the Pacifica Radio Network show "Democracy Now!," resigned this morning from the network. Citing harassment and muzzling of free speech, Gonzalez said that "the current management situation at Pacifica has become intolerable...the last straw being the Christmas Coup at this station, WBAI, last month"--a reference to the recent unexplained firings and bannings of top staff.
"I've come to the conclusion that the Pacifica board has been hijacked by a small clique that has more in common with modern-day corporate vultures than with working-class America," Gonzalez said.
Addressing his co-host at Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman, Gonzalez continued: "You are a wonderful and committed journalist and you have been subjected to slanderous personal accusations and constant undermining of your efforts. And the board of Pacifica has tolerated it and, I think, even encouraged this."
Gonzalez ended his on-air resignation by announcing a "national corporate campaign" to oust the Pacifica Foundation's embattled new board leadership, which he accused of "illegally chang[ing] the Foundation's bylaws." He said the campaign would call on listeners, instead of donating to Pacifica, to contribute money to groups challenging the board's legitimacy and working to democratize the network.
Visit the story link for the complete Time Magazine article about the current situation at the Pacifica Network.
Everything is numbers today. The weekend box office. The President's approval ratings. The quarterly profits. For 50 years, there was one place where numbers did not exist as a measure of success or as validation of purpose. Pacifica broadcasting can be tedious at times, with its tie-dyed version of truth and justice. But the voice is indignant, probing and unapologetic, and in the age of megamedia conglomerization, an alternative view is a necessity.
After first announcing tentative plans on January 28, 1999 for legalizing low power radio and allowing for a lengthy year long period of public comment, study and deliberation, FCC Chairman William Kennard floated a proposal on January 19, 2000 which provided new rules that envisioned the licensing of an estimated 1,000 new Low Power FM (LPFM) stations in the range of 10-100 watts. Yet, by the end of last year, after 1200 applications had already been filed in the 20 states initially eligible to participate in the LPFM sweepstakes, Congress caved in to lobbying pressure from both the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and National Public Radio (NPR), and gutted this already modest FCC proposal for a new LPFM radio service.
Editors note: If you do not support these proposed measures, visit the story link to read how you can get involved with this issue.
A proposed by-law revision, drafted by John Murdock, a partner in an anti-union Washington law firm and Mary Frances Berry's designated legal representative on the national Pacifica board, is now being circulated for possible adoption at the upcoming March board meeting in Houston. The revision would...
* Reduce to as few as five members the Pacifica Board of Directors (currently 19).
* Allow hired Pacifica executives to be members of the board.
* Allow key decisions to be made by as few as three board members.
* Permit the sale of Pacifica assets (i.e. stations like KPFA and WBAI, estimated to be worth at least $250 million to commercial broadcasters) by a vote of the executive committee only, as long as the sale did not include "all or substantially all of the assets or or property of the Foundation."
* Allow directors (such as Murdock, a partner in the law firm of Epstein, Becker and Green, currently handling many legal matters for Pacifica) "to receive reasonable compensation for services...in a professional capacity."
* Reduce meeting notice time to as little as 24 hours, and meeting notice to consist of as little as a message on an answering machine.
* Allow the national Pacifica board to appoint 1/3 of local advisory boards, and ban membership on such boards of staff and volunteers.
* Ban elected local advisory board members (as at KPFA) from serving on the national board.
There are other centralizing, corporatizing measures as well, as may be seen in reading the proposed by-laws at http://www.savepacifica.net/bylaws_revise.html
WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 —President Bush today appointed Michael K. Powell, the oldest child of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, to be the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
Mr. Powell, 37, has served since autumn 1997 as one of the two Republican commissioners at the five-member agency, and since that term runs until July 2003, his selection as chairman does not require Senate confirmation.
He is expected to push the commission in a significantly different direction from that of recent years.
...(Powell) has agreed with major broadcasters in challenging efforts to create more than 1,000 new low-power FM radio stations for schools, churches and community groups.
National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) today announced a landmark, on-air and online strategic alliance that will expand the range of their programming. NPR and PBS have agreed to co-produce live Web events, cross-promote each other's programs extensively on-air and online, collaborate in e-commerce efforts and bring select NPR News content to the PBS.org Web site. PBS and NPR also have agreed to explore joint television productions. The announcement was made at the Television Critics Association Press Tour.
"We've learned from our joint licensee member stations how powerful the
TV-radio synergy can be, and we're thrilled to begin making parts of that synergy available for all of our stations," said Pat Mitchell, president and CEO of PBS.
Unpaid staffer Rachel Barr has been banned from WBAI. Rachel is also the fifth member of WBAI's popular morning show Wake-Up Call to be banned or fired since the take-over. As reported in Haiti Progres, interim General Manager Utrice Leid also attempted to fire Robert Knight recently from his morning-news spot on Wake-Up Call. Knight is an award-winning producer of WBAI's "Earth Watch" and, along with Valerie van Isler and Bernard White, a twenty-year veteran of the station. Should management be successful in firing Knight as morning news anchor, only Amy Goodman would remain from the Wake-Up Call team that was in place before the take-over. To date, 3 paid staffers have been fired, and 4 unpaid staffers banned.
Visit the story link for a very good summary of the struggle of Rice University students to retain control over their student radio station, KTRU.
KTRU appears to have won this battle, but it has lost the war. For better or worse, a station that was run by generation after generation of like-minded students and community members now has two new masters: the Rice student body and the university administration.
The chief regulator for the telecommunications and cable industries William Kennard said on Thursday he has presided over his last open meeting of the Federal Communications Commission and would soon resign.
The chairman, at times misty-eyed and to a standing ovation, thanked his fellow commissioners, staff and friends at the agency who praised his efforts to help those who needed it most.
``I will always cherish the memories I've had from my tenure here at the agency,'' said Kennard, one of three Democrats on the panel. ``The strength of this organization is in its people.''
FCC chairman William Kennard confirmed Monday that he will announce his resignation after the FCC approves the merger of America Online and Time Warner, likely this week.
You don't need an MBA to figure out that a company is about to implode when the heir apparent as chief executive says "mere reform" is insufficient to solve the company's problems.
That's the position Federal Communications Commission member Michael Powell took on his agency last month. Powell, expected to be FCC chairman in the Bush administration, said the Internet Age has seen "a great exodus from legacy business models, technical infrastructures and graying federal regulations," leaving the FCC locked in regulatory constructs that no longer apply.
Powell will find plenty of representatives and senators eager to work with him on FCC restructuring in the new Congress sworn in Wednesday. The last Congress saw numerous bills introduced that would have done everything from curtail the length of merger reviews to mandate staff reductions, but they met the fierce resistance of FCC Chairman William Kennard and President Clinton. Those obstacles are now gone.
"The FCC repeatedly oversteps its statutory authority," said Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., who will be the House Commerce Committee chairman in this Congress, replacing the retired Tom Bliley, R-Va.
Last month Tauzin told a Washington policy conference that he intends to work with the General Accounting Office to determine how the FCC could be restructured and streamlined to "reflect the digital age." Legislation will result from that analysis, he promised.
They're going to the barricades at WBAI, the voice of the left on New York's radio dial for more than 40 years.
Listeners are up in arms and the staff is in turmoil after the FM station's owners fired the longtime general manager and two other employees and changed the locks to keep the purged from coming back.
Amy Goodman, the award-winning host of the public affairs program ``Democracy Now!'', signed off Wednesday by saying: ``From the embattled studios of WBAI, from the studios of the fired and the banned ...''
The struggle between WBAI and its parent, the Pacifica network of independent radio stations, appears to be replay of what went on in Berkeley, Calif., where a round of firings at sister station KPFA touched off bitter protests in 1999 that spilled onto the air and the streets. (see story link for more)