[note-- see http://www.PetitionOnline.com/MORMedia on this as well; read, sign on, and fwd to all u know!]
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Hey folks...
Late Tuesday afternoon (Nov. 21st) I submitted the resolution below calling on our County Legislature to weigh in on the Federal Communications Commission's review of ownership regulations regarding television and radio stations and newspapers (deadline for public comment on this is December 21st-- possible thru FCC website directly)...
I knew Rhinebeck resident Andi Novick of Northeast Citizens for Responsible Media (Re-Media.org) would be hosting an extremely well-attended public hearing on this issue at the Wallace Center at the FDR site in Hyde Park with Rep. Maurice Hinchey and FCC Commissioner Michael Copps (and she did!); to their credit, fellow County Legislators Diane Nash and Bill McCabe were in attendance as well...
Would you like to help get our County Legislature to pass this resolution below?...
Contact them at countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us and countylegislature@co.dutchess.ny.us -- pass it on...
Joel Tyner
County Legislator
Clinton/Rhinebeck
joeltyner@earthlink.net
(845) 876-2488
p.s. Also let us know if you'd like to help us get off the ground a new publication-- "Common Sense for Dutchess County"!...(a bunch of folks who came to the house last weekend expressed an interest, but we could always use more help)...
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[note-- the vast majority of the text below is from http://www.Re-Media.org and http://www.StopBigMedia.com ...(also see http://www.FAIR.org )]
WHEREAS, Thomas Jefferson once stated, "The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents;there is no safe deposit for these but the people themselves, nor can they be safewith them without information; where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe," and
WHEREAS, much is at stake now in the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC's) review of ownership regulations regarding television and radio stations; the FCC's Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making on June 21st this year launched a process of reviewing media ownership regulations, with the intent of relaxing or abolishing several longstanding ownership rules, and
WHEREAS, currently a single company is prohibited from owning a broadcast television or radio station and a major daily newspaper in the same city, though there are currently about two dozen cross-owned newspaper-broadcast combinations, most are "grandfathered" combinations that existed before1975; the FCC has indicated it might completely eliminate the newspaper-television cross ownership ban in all but the smallest media markets; if this cross-ownership ban is removed, along with other FCC-proposed rule changes, a single company could potentially own the major daily newspaper, eight radio stations and three television stations, as well as the cable television system all within in the same town, and
WHEREAS, currently a single company can own up to two TV stations and six radio stations or one TV station and seven radio stations in a single community, as long as there are at least 20 independent outlets including TV, radio, newspapers, etc. in the market; the FCC has indicated it may weaken this ownership protection and in the largest markets completely eliminate any restrictions on radio/televisioncross-ownership, and
WHEREAS, currently companies are allowed to own two stations in only the biggest markets where there are eight or more stations, but only one of the two stations can be a top-four-ranked station; the FCC has indicated it may change the rule to allow a single company to own two TV stations in smaller markets (those areas with only 5 stations), and the FCC may allow a single owner to control three stations in the country's largest markets, and
WHEREAS, currently a single company can own up to eight stations in the biggestmarkets and up to five stations in smaller markets; it is possible that noncommercial stations will be included in the total count of a market's stations, making it easier for large media giants to acquire more stations in smaller markets, and
WHEREAS, if the media ownership rules are eliminated, the last vestiges of local media competition will be swept away, replacing varied viewpoints with "mediacompany towns"; if the changes are approved, one company could potentially own the major daily newspaper, eight radio stations and three television stations in thesame town; once the digital television transition is completed in 2009-- allowingstations to broadcast multiple signals-- one company could control 12 or even 18television channels in a single city, and therefore be it
RESOLVED, that the Dutchess County Legislature hereby requests that the FederalCommunications Commission not weaken media regulations, and that Congress pass Rep. Maurice Hinchey's Media Ownership Reform Act of 2006 (H.R.3302), which would reinstate cable/broadcast cross-ownership rules forbidding any company from owning and operating a broadcast station and a cable station in the same market, limiting the influence of that company on the various media outlets, and which would also restore the Fairness Doctrine, compelling broadcast news outlets to investigate issues thoroughly and present their findings in an unbiased way, and be it further
RESOLVED, that a copy of this resolution be sent to President George W. Bush, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator Chuck Schumer, Representative Maurice Hinchey, Representative Sue Kelly, & Representative John Sweeney.
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Excerpts below from http://www.StopBigMedia.com ...
The Federal Communications Commission is once again taking up the issue of media ownership and deciding how media ownership rules should be changed. As FCC Commissioner Michael Copps has warned: "They screwed it up once. Believe me, they're 100 percent capable of screwing it up again." That'swhy it's crucial for the public to weigh in now...
In 2003, the Federal Communications Commission attempted to loosen media ownership rules that would have unleashed a massive wave of corporate consolidation of radio, television and newspapers entities across the country.The courts sent these rules back to the FCC for a rewrite. Now, as the FCC embarks upon writing new rules, the stakes are even higher:
A handful of media companies dominate what you watch on television. As their influence spreads to other outlets, the diversity of what you see diminishes. Five media conglomerates — Viacom, Disney, Time Warner, News Corp. and NBC/GE — control the big four networks (70 percent of the primetime television market share), most cable channels, as well as vast holdings in radio, publishing, movie studios, music, Internet and other sectors. (To learn more, visit StopBigMedia.com's ownership charts)
Minority ownership — a crucial source of diverse and varied viewpoints -- is at a 10-year low, down 14% since 1997. Today, only 1.9% of television stations are minority-owned.
Over the next few years, television conglomerates will begin broadcasting digitally. This means that in the space it used to take to broadcast the local affiliate of ABC, NBC or CBS, these corporations will now be able to fit six or more stations — ABC-1, ABC-2, and so on. This opens up countless new revenue streams, and indeed, plans are already in the works to have infomercial-driven new channels pump up corporate profits.
The total worth of the publicly owned airwaves that U.S. broadcasters utilize has been valued at $367 billion -- more than the GDP of many nations — but the public has never been paid a dime in return. Now, these conglomerates claim they can't afford to be accountable to the public interest...
Since 1975, two-thirds of independent newspaper owners have disappeared, and one-third of independent television owners have vanished. Only 281 of the nation's 1,500 daily newspapers remain independently owned, and more than half of all U.S. markets are dominated by one paper.
Moreover, the number of radio station owners has plummeted by 34 percent since 1996, when ownership rules were gutted. That year, the largest radio owners controlled fewer than 65 stations; today, radio giant Clear Channel alone owns more than 1,200.
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