Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Editorial: FCC needs all the facts
Quashed studies should be completed before ownership rules are revised.
From the RoundTable blog
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As the Federal Communications Commission re-examines rules limiting ownership of radio and television stations, the agency should make decisions based on all the available facts.
Instead, at least two studies that might alter any decision to relax those rules were quashed.
That's unacceptable, but hardly surprising coming from the Bush administration, which has turned the suppression of inconvenient facts into an art form.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., produced two draft reports from the FCC, dated 2003 and 2004, that had never been finished.
The first examined the declining number of radio station owners, while the second suggested that locally owned television stations spend more time covering local issues than stations owned by distant corporations.
Current rules prohibit a company from owning both a newspaper and a television station in the same market and limit how many radio stations a single company can own.
Both restrictions are opposed by big media companies like Clear Channel Communications Inc.
Changing technology and the convergence of many kinds of media outlets on the Internet should prompt an update of these ownership rules.
But such revisions shouldn't occur without complete information about the effects of things like the concentration of television and radio station ownership in fewer hands. If, indeed, corporate ownership of television stations leads to a de-emphasis on local news, the FCC should take that into account.
Current FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has ordered a probe into why the draft reports were quashed.
Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell denied a former FCC lawyer's allegation that top officials ordered copies of the reports destroyed.
Whatever Martin's probe uncovers, the FCC should ensure that these studies are completed and any other relevant data is gathered before ownership rules are revised.
