Media Briefing for Friday, August 1, 2008

NonStop Radio, a 3-day symposium on progressive talk radio and its future, including some of its top talk show hosts, is being held starting today and continuing all this weekend in Madison, Wisconsin, reports Free Press.

In Wisconsin, a15-year-old girl is charged in Grant County with carrying through on a threat she made to another teen on the Web site MySpace. Prosecutors say Andrea Haskins allegedly shot a 17-year-old girl in the leg in Boscobel after arguing with her on MySpace, according to Associated Press.

The federal government may take laptops or other electronic or technical equipment at the border without any reason for suspicion, reports the Washington Post.

A bill sponsored by a Texas Republican congressman would force the FCC to act more openly, says MultiChannel News.

Cable operators are rejecting a proposal by Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin that would allow hundreds of local LPTV stations to demand cable carriage for the first time. At present LPTV stations do not have to be carried on cable systems, though in a few markets, some are, such as WVVH channel 50 Southampton, Long Island and WRDM channel 13 Hartford, Connecticut. MultiChannel News reports.

More than one hundred TV stations - 105 stations in 56 markets - are broadcasting local news in HD, says Television Broadcast.

One fifth of marketers are buying advertising for news coverage, hoping to engender news stories about their products, says Web Pro News.

A reporter at Providence/New Bedford ABC affiliate WLNE channel 6 is taking a stand against sensationalism in TV news coverage, says the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

A survey shows there is a gender and ethnic disparity on evening cable TV news channels, reports the Maynard Institute Web site.

The owners of the Newark Star Ledger are threatening to sell the paper unless there are wide cuts, says the Wall Street Journal. Managament says that 20% of the staff will have to be cut at the Newark Star Ledger and Trenton Times,reports the New York Times.

Newspapers and directories are struggling for surging local ads, says the Wall Street Journal.

A documentary on country and western singing icon Johnny Cash is being featured on Point Of View Tuesday evening at 10 on Thirteen/WNET, says Associated Press.

With PBS planning to cut back distribution of Mister Rogers Neighborhood from 5 days a week to once a week, a group opposing the cutback has established a Web site to organize, SaveMisterRogers.com, says the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Mister Rogers may be seen Monday through Friday afternoons at 1 on WEDW channel 49 Bridgeport, Connecticut Public TV.

Why does Pittsburgh PBS station WQED channel 13 keep running British sitcoms on Saturday nights, year after year? Because people watch them, says the station. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reports. (scroll down)

In an echo of the Arizona Project that investigated the murder of slain journalist Don Bolles in 1976, San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area news outlets, journalism schools and media groups have joined forces to complete the unfinished work of murdered Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey. The American Journalism Review reports.

China's industrial ambition has soared to high tech, says the New York Times.

"Trolls" use the Internet to harass and torment strangers. They are a growing Internet subculture with a fluid morality and a disdain for pretty much everyone else online. The New York Times magazine reports.

The Chinese authorities appear to have lifted some of the restrictions that blocked Web sites for journalists working at the Olympic Village although other politically sensitive sites, including those on Tibet, remained blocked, says the New York Times.

I.B.M. is declaring it plans to build a $360-million data center in North Carolina and another big one in Tokyo, both for delivering cloud computing services to corporate customers. This follows the announcement of a joint cloud research program from Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard and Intel on Tuesday. The I.B.M. statement says its North Carolina facility will afford its lucky customers "unparalleled access to massive Internet-scale computing capabilities while gaining the cost and environmental protection advantages of I.B.M.?s industry-leading energy efficiency data center design." The New York Times reports.

Motorola shows a profit, but phone sales still lag, says the New York Times.

Cablevision is beating expectations and outperforming its competitors, especially in telephone customers, reports the New York Times.

Now on the board of Yahoo, billionaire investor Carl Ichan will sit out the Yahoo annual board of directors meeting, says the New York Times.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang may get an earful at the annual Yahoo board of directors meeting, says the San Jose Mercury News.

Satellite TV in high-definition as good as a Blu-ray disc? Be skeptical, say those who study compression algorithms and bit rates. The New York Times reports.

There had been a settlement over sex scenes in Grand Theft Auto, but the settlement has how hits a snag, says the New York Times.

Online advertising is showing a significant impact on brand awareness, says Media Post.com.

Mobile data revenues reached $49 billion worldwide in the first quarter of 2008, accounting for nearly one-fifth of all mobile services spending, Mobile music and TV have far to go. eMarketer reports.

Luke Russert, the son of late Meet The Press host Tim Russert, joins NBC News as a "correspondent at large" for the upcoming political conventions. He'll focus on "youth issues." Since March 2006, Luke has co-hosted the 60/20 Sports show with political pundit James Carville on XM Satellite Radio. Associated Press, DCRTV and the Buffalo News report.

CNN.com is the top gateway to news, says Lost Remote.

WNBC-TV channel 4 New York cut out early from New York governor David Paterson's speech in which the governor was describing the state's difficult fiscal situation, says the New York Daily News.

Internet industry whiz Jonathan Miller is in high demand, says the Los Angeles Times.

CBS is selling 50 mid sized market radio stations. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times report. All Access looks at which stations may be sold.

Public Radio International is selling its Boston-based Public Interactive division to National Public Radio, says All Access. (scroll down)

Nielsen has struck a deal to offer a demographic details for mobile, says Media Daily News.

Channel M is creating online content for Washington Mutual, says Media Daily News.

Dr. William F. Baker gave the following address at the American Academy in Berlin on the 28th:

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter."

These words were spoken about 2 centuries ago by Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States.

Jefferson also spoke other truths very relevant to our times:

Like...

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."

Governments almost never like a free press investigating their actions, and the press must remain vigilant. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of the press.

But there is a grave danger to today's press: an economic one. Classified ads traditionally accounted for about half of a newspaper's revenue, but in this new cyber age Craig's List has arisen, offering instant and free classified ads on the Web, where most young readers are anyway.

Also, young people are not reading hardcopy newspapers, and with the shift of audiences from the papers and magazines to the Web, advertising revenue is moving along with it.

Newspaper articles are free on most newspaper sites. The crux of the problem is that newspapers have not found a way to make money on the Web. To survive, they will have to do so.

The survival of newspapers is key to the survival of democracy - they have the resources and expertise to conduct major investigative reporting, on a regular and continuing basis.

In the world of 500 cable TV channels, broadcast network audiences have also shrunk, and their news operations have been cut sharply.

First Amendment freedom has been an evolving concept in the United States. As recently as World War One, anti-government speech was illegal and could result in imprisonment.

In the latter half of the 20th century this freedom broadened, thanks to the courts. In the case New York Times Company vs. Sullivan, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling which established the actual malice standard before press reports could be considered to be defamation and libel, and hence allowed free reporting of the civil rights campaigns in the southern United States. It was and is one of the key decisions supporting freedom of the press in the U.S.


Totalitarian governments of the left and right - be it Stalin's Russia or Hitler in Germany - have maintained total control over media.

The clich? is that the first casualty during war is the truth. But during the Second World War, the BBC reported Allied defeat after defeat, and did not sugar coat or doctor the reality. What this meant was that when the tide turned, and the Allies started registering victories, the BBC was believed - all around the world.

After Stalin secured control of Eastern Europe, and imposed the iron curtain, and then China went communist in 1949, meaning one third of the world's population was now under communist control, a red scare swept across America.

A demagogic senator named Joseph McCarthy was able to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Witch-hunts ensued and the careers and lives of thousands in media and the arts were destroyed. The medium that was able to stand up and help bring an end to this tyranny, this dark period in American history, was commercial television. Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly of CBS television news presented a half hour on the telecast See It Now, using clips of McCarthy to depict his ruthless strategy and loose tactics intimidating witnesses and ruining innocent people. Finally in 1954 McCarthy was censured by the Senate, and stopped.

The 1960s proved to be the most turbulent American decade since the Civil War. In the U.S. and in Europe and around the world, this was the decade of the counterculture, in which everything establishment was challenged. This decade witnessed the civil rights legislation ending Jim Crow and discrimination in America. Local newspapers in the old South - because of economics and local pressures - were previously unable to report the repression and trampling of rights of black citizens.

But the news wire services - especially Associated Press and United Press International, had no such pressures and were free to expose what was taking place. This in turn notified the major TV networks and nation's major newspapers which then dispatched reporters and photographers to record and show the nation the unleashing of dogs and of fire hoses on citizens, and see a racist governor blocking the entrance to the halls of education, while proclaiming "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"

The Vietnam War brought another of the great showdowns of history to the United States - the press challenging false claims by the federal government. Television network news brought into the living room the horrors of the war - villages being burned down - an arrestee being shot and executed on the spot by a South Vietnamese police official - the hundreds of thousands in Washington protesting the war policy.

Those who supported the war blamed the media - the newspapers which obtained secret documents about the war and printed them - the TV networks showing in living color what was taking place in Vietnam. Some critics said the press brought about the defeat of the United States in the Vietnam War. The news organizations were not patriotic some claimed.

The great power of the media was demonstrated again in the 1970s in a different way, with the genocide in Cambodia carried out by the Khmer Rouge. Because television and print media had almost no access to Cambodia, this horror was virtually unknown to the American public and to the West. Only when the movie "The Killing Fields" was released did some come to know about 2 million of Cambodia's 6 million perishing in this reign of terror spanning 3 years.

The 1980s a new administration - headed by Ronald Reagan - came to Washington. A key tenet of Reagan was to deregulate the media - and take a hands off policy toward the concept of public service by broadcasters, and of trying to regulate concentration of control of media by a few corporations.

The Fairness Doctrine, which required that stations broadcast opposing viewpoints of controversial subjects, was eliminated, leading perhaps to the rise of strident political talk shows.

Broadcast stations more and more have become cash cows for corporate owners, rather than outlets serving the public interest, convenience and necessity, as required under the Communications Act of 1934. The largest of the radio conglomerates, Clear Channel, owns 1,200 of the most powerful FM and AM radio stations in the most important cities.

One station - in New Haven, Connecticut - a news and information AM station,- no longer has a single local news person on the air - news is recorded at a Syracuse, New York station hundreds of miles away, and all talk programs are nationally syndicated, so there is not a single local on-air person at the station, which once boasted local talk shows and a nine-person local news department.

On a national network level, the big three network news operations, ABC, CBS and NBC, have spent the last 3 decades closing down news bureaus around the nation and world. It was because NBC still had a news bureau in Berlin in 1989 that among American networks, NBC had a scoop on one of the biggest stories of the 20th century - the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Just last month, the New York Times reported that CBS, the home of the most celebrated news division in broadcasting, has been in discussions about a deal to outsource some of its news-gathering operations to CNN.

Today finds the news media in America and around the world very much at a crossroads. Coverage of the Iraq War ordered by George W. Bush is very much in question by journalistic critics today.

The press did not play the role of censor of the government, as Jefferson envisioned. Rather, it may have played the role of cheerleader, and has been accused of suppressing views opposing Bush and the war.

The story was told a year ago in the PBS special Buying The War anchored by Bill Moyers.

BILL MOYERS CUT: "FOUR YEARS AGO THIS SPRING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TOOK LEAVE OF REALITY AND PLUNGED OUR COUNTRY INTO A WAR SO POORLY PLANNED IT SOON TURNED INTO A DISASTER. THE STORY OF HOW HIGH OFFICIALS MISLED THE COUNTRY HAS BEEN TOLD. BUT THEY COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT ON THEIR OWN; THEY NEEDED A COMPLIANT PRESS, TO PASS ON THEIR PROPAGANDA AS NEWS AND CHEER THEM ON.

SINCE THEN THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE HAVE DIED, AND MANY ARE DYING TO THIS DAY. YET THE STORY OF HOW THE MEDIA BOUGHT WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WAS SELLING HAS NOT BEEN TOLD IN DEPTH ON TELEVISION. AS THE WAR RAGES INTO ITS FIFTH YEAR, WE LOOK BACK AT THOSE MONTHS LEADING UP TO THE INVASION, WHEN OUR PRESS LARGELY SURRENDERED ITS INDEPENDENCE AND SKEPTICISM TO JOIN WITH OUR GOVERNMENT IN MARCHING TO WAR."

Officials in the administration knew they could not say Iraq had a direct role in the 9/11 attacks, but in sentences would repeatedly refer to 9/11 and then to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, so that 70% of the American public believed Iraq was involved in the attacks.

The broadcast networks, the cable news networks, the major newspapers and groups all marched in lockstep and virtually no dissent was reported, in the period leading up to the war. The so-called "Patriot police" would call or show up at any offending news operation.

The patriot or patriotism police referred to in-house censors within the networks or media companies concerned that their network be sufficiently pro-administration, and that it not be exposed to charges of being unpatriotic by a presentation or a spokesperson opposed to the pro-Iraq war policy. The patriotism police might even include an advertiser sponsoring a program on the network. They were described in the Bill Moyers show on the Iraq War and the media.

When 100,000 anti-war demonstrators protested in Washington in October 2002, the Washington Post covered it by putting a picture on the front of the metro section, with no story on page one. Howard Kurtz, media reporter for the Post, says there were about 140 front-page stories in the Post making the Bush administration's case for war, between August 2002 and March 2003 when the invasion began.

Bill Moyers said that when Democrats did go against the grain, they were denounced by the partisan press and largely ignored by the mainstream press. War opponent Senator Ted Kennedy was given just 36 words in the Washington Post.

Phil Donahue, who had the one show on MSNBC featuring war opponents, was told he must have two pro-administration guests for every single dissenter to the administration. Donahue was cancelled 22 days short of the invasion of Iraq and an internal NBC memo said "Donahue presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."

Dan Rather, formerly of CBS, describes the atmosphere of intimidation:

DAN RATHER CUT: "FEAR IS IN EVERY NEWSROOM IN THE COUNTRY. AND FEAR OF WHAT? WELL IT'S THE FEAR - IT'S A COMBINATION OF: IF YOU DON'T GO ALONG TO GET ALONG, YOU'RE GOING TO GET THE REPUTATION OF BEING A TROUBLEMAKER. THERE'S ALSO THE FEAR THAT, YOU KNOW, PARTICULARLY IN NETWORKS, THEY'VE BECOME HUGE, INTERNATIONAL CONGLOMERATES. THEY HAVE BIG NEEDS, LEGISLATIVE NEEDS, REPERTORY NEEDS IN WASHINGTON. NOBODY HAS TO SEND YOU A MEMO TO TELL YOU THAT'S THE CASE. YOU KNOW, AND THAT PUTS A SEED IN YOUR MIND OF WELL, IF YOU STICK YOUR NECK OUT, IF YOU TAKE THE RISK OF GOING AGAINST THE GRAIN WITH YOUR REPORTING, IS ANYBODY GOING TO BACK YOU UP?"

The Knight Ridder newspaper chain was the only major mainstream American news organization to question the run-up to the war at the time, but its influence was minimal, since the stories were not printed in New York or Washington. John Walcott of Knight Ridder speaks:

JOHN WALCOTT CUT: 'YOU KNOW, WE'RE SENDING YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN, AND NOWADAYS NOT SO YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN, TO RISK THEIR LIVES. AND EVERYONE WANTS TO BE BEHIND THEM. THE QUESTION FOR US IN JOURNALISM IS, ARE WE REALLY BEHIND THEM WHEN WE FAIL TO DO OUR JOBS? IS THAT REALLY THE KIND OF SUPPORT THAT THEY DESERVE? OR ARE WE REALLY, IN THE LONG RUN, SERVING THEM BETTER BY ASKING THESE HARD QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT WE'VE ASKED THEM TO DO?"

There are no simple answers - there is no book with the answers to difficult journalistic questions, what to do in each situation. It's not just a question of caving in to fear - it's also the hollowing out of newsrooms across the U.S. Reporting is expensive, and there are no longer the resources to maintain large staffs of reporters.

Some questions now confronting journalism in the United States and around the world include:

How can newspapers become profitable on the Internet? Stories are free, but if they charge for the stories, almost nobody will read their sites.

Why are print newspapers continuing to flourish in Canada and in Europe and Asia while they are declining dramatically in the U.S.?

The press is the government's censor, but should there be exceptions in time of war? The New York Times knew all the details of the D-Day landing in June 1944, but did not publish them ahead-of-time, so the other side would not be tipped off, and there would be a disaster for the landing Allied troops.

What about television news, which has become in many ways the most powerful medium. Today, instead of reporters in capitals all around the world, there are pundits on the air offering their opinions of what might happen. How can these bureaus of reporters be reopened? Bureaus are expensive - especially foreign ones.

At one time newspapers such as the Boston Globe and Baltimore Sun maintained foreign bureaus, but they have all been closed. Only the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post maintain small bureaus overseas.

What about concentration of control of broadcast and print media in the U.S., where there are fewer owners?

Can consolidation be reversed? It was way back in 1943 when NBC was ordered to divest its second network, the Blue Network, which became ABC.

How can newspapers make up for Craig's List and their lost classified ad revenue, which traditionally brought in half of the papers' revenue?

When journalists do exhibit courage, it is often not rewarded by bosses at the time. When CBS broadcast the See It Now episode on Senator McCarthy, a top CBS executive told Fred Friendly the next day, "You may have cost us our broadcast licenses." But of course today Friendly and Edward R.Murrow are revered for their courage.

A year ago, it was reported that during the previous decade, eleven hundred journalists had been killed worldwide, doing their jobs.

What about the Internet? It continues to siphon viewers from TV, listeners from broadcast radio, and readers from newspapers and magazines. Along with them is a huge chunk of advertising. Can a way be found to direct some of this revenue to support major professional news organizations, as in decades past?

Can Americans still count on the press to keep their leaders from abusing power? Has the ostensibly independent press become little more than a mouthpiece for government, completely abandoning its role as "censor" of government power?

Up to the present most news organizations operate as for-profit businesses. Can this continue? Should there be a new model?

US MEDIA 2008

U.S. Households 112,800,000
Cable Households 48,130,200 (87% of total)
Satellite TV Households 29,553,600 (26% of total)
Total Broadcast advertising (2007) $22.43 billion (+2% from 2006)
Total Cable TV advertising (2007) $17.84 billion (+26% from 2006)
Spot Network TV advertising (2007) $15.59 billion (-10.2% from 2006)
Syndication (2007) $4.17 billion (-1.5%)

All media advertising (2007) $148.99 billion (+.2%)
Internet display advertising (2007) $11.31 billion
Consumer magazines (2007) $24.43 billion (+7%)
Outdoor ad revenues (2007) $4.02 billion (+4.9%)
Newspapers ad revenues in 2007, down 5.6% from 2006
Radio ad revenues in 2007, down 2.5% from 2006

Total ad revenue on the Internet totaled $21.2 billion in 2007


Time spent with Internet per week per person, 32.7 hours
Time spent with TV per week per person, 16.4 hours
Time spent per day by children watching TV (per child) 3 to 4 hours
Time spent listening to radio per person, 3 hours and 3 minutes per weekday

Read a newspaper total: 43% in 2006, 50% in 1996 (-7%)
Read a newspaper yesterday 18 to 29 year olds: 29% in 2006, 29% in 1996
Read a newspaper yesterday 30 to 49 year olds: 40% in 2006, 49% in 1996 (-9%)
Read a newspaper yesterday 50 to 64 year olds: 50% in 2006, 58% in 1996 (-8%)
Read a newspaper yesterday 65 and older: 58% in 2006, 70% in 1996 (-12%)

Numbers of stations/newspapers:
4,776 AM stations (all licensed to be commercial)
6,309 Commercial FM stations
2,892 Non-commercial FM stations
831 Low Power FM stations (all non-commercial)
TOTAL Radio stations: 14,808


1,180 Commercial TV stations
363 Non-commercial TV stations
2,173 Low Power commercial TV stations


1,452 Daily newspapers
6,704 Weekly newspapers

SOURCES: International Data Corp., Radio Advertising Bureau, TV Week, PEW
Center, FCC, Editor & Publisher, Journalism.org, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Dr. William F. Baker gave the following address at the Baden-Wurttenberg Seminar in Tubingen, Germany.

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter."

These words were spoken about 2 centuries ago by Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States.

Jefferson also spoke other truths very relevant to our times:

Like...

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."

Governments almost never like a free press investigating their actions, and the press must remain vigilant. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of the press.

But there is a grave danger to today's press: an economic one. Classified ads traditionally accounted for about half of a newspaper's revenue, but in this new cyber age Craig's List has arisen, offering instant and free classified ads on the Web, where most young readers are anyway.

Also, young people are not reading hardcopy newspapers, and with the shift of audiences from the papers and magazines to the Web, advertising revenue is moving along with it.

Newspaper articles are free on most newspaper sites. The crux of the problem is that newspapers have not found a way to make money on the Web. To survive, they will have to do so.

The survival of newspapers is key to the survival of democracy - they have the resources and expertise to conduct major investigative reporting, on a regular and continuing basis.

In the world of 500 cable TV channels, broadcast network audiences have also shrunk, and their news operations have been cut sharply.

First Amendment freedom has been an evolving concept in the United States. As recently as World War One, anti-government speech was illegal and could result in imprisonment.

In the latter half of the 20th century this freedom broadened, thanks to the courts. In the case New York Times Company vs. Sullivan, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling which established the actual malice standard before press reports could be considered to be defamation and libel, and hence allowed free reporting of the civil rights campaigns in the southern United States. It was and is one of the key decisions supporting freedom of the press in the U.S.


Totalitarian governments of the left and right - be it Stalin's Russia or Hitler in Germany - have maintained total control over media.

The clich? is that the first casualty during war is the truth. But during the Second World War, the BBC reported Allied defeat after defeat, and did not sugar coat or doctor the reality. What this meant was that when the tide turned, and the Allies started registering victories, the BBC was believed - all around the world.

After Stalin secured control of Eastern Europe, and imposed the iron curtain, and then China went communist in 1949, meaning one third of the world's population was now under communist control, a red scare swept across America.

A demagogic senator named Joseph McCarthy was able to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Witch-hunts ensued and the careers and lives of thousands in media and the arts were destroyed. The medium that was able to stand up and help bring an end to this tyranny, this dark period in American history, was commercial television. Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly of CBS television news presented a half hour on the telecast See It Now, using clips of McCarthy to depict his ruthless strategy and loose tactics intimidating witnesses and ruining innocent people. Finally in 1954 McCarthy was censured by the Senate, and stopped.

The 1960s proved to be the most turbulent American decade since the Civil War. In the U.S. and in Europe and around the world, this was the decade of the counterculture, in which everything establishment was challenged. This decade witnessed the civil rights legislation ending Jim Crow and discrimination in America. Local newspapers in the old South - because of economics and local pressures - were previously unable to report the repression and trampling of rights of black citizens.

But the news wire services - especially Associated Press and United Press International, had no such pressures and were free to expose what was taking place. This in turn notified the major TV networks and nation's major newspapers which then dispatched reporters and photographers to record and show the nation the unleashing of dogs and of fire hoses on citizens, and see a racist governor blocking the entrance to the halls of education, while proclaiming "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"

The Vietnam War brought another of the great showdowns of history to the United States - the press challenging false claims by the federal government. Television network news brought into the living room the horrors of the war - villages being burned down - an arrestee being shot and executed on the spot by a South Vietnamese police official - the hundreds of thousands in Washington protesting the war policy.

Those who supported the war blamed the media - the newspapers which obtained secret documents about the war and printed them - the TV networks showing in living color what was taking place in Vietnam. Some critics said the press brought about the defeat of the United States in the Vietnam War. The news organizations were not patriotic some claimed.

The great power of the media was demonstrated again in the 1970s in a different way, with the genocide in Cambodia carried out by the Khmer Rouge. Because television and print media had almost no access to Cambodia, this horror was virtually unknown to the American public and to the West. Only when the movie "The Killing Fields" was released did some come to know about 2 million of Cambodia's 6 million perishing in this reign of terror spanning 3 years.

The 1980s a new administration - headed by Ronald Reagan - came to Washington. A key tenet of Reagan was to deregulate the media - and take a hands off policy toward the concept of public service by broadcasters, and of trying to regulate concentration of control of media by a few corporations.

The Fairness Doctrine, which required that stations broadcast opposing viewpoints of controversial subjects, was eliminated, leading perhaps to the rise of strident political talk shows.

Broadcast stations more and more have become cash cows for corporate owners, rather than outlets serving the public interest, convenience and necessity, as required under the Communications Act of 1934. The largest of the radio conglomerates, Clear Channel, owns 1,200 of the most powerful FM and AM radio stations in the most important cities.

One station - in New Haven, Connecticut - a news and information AM station,- no longer has a single local news person on the air - news is recorded at a Syracuse, New York station hundreds of miles away, and all talk programs are nationally syndicated, so there is not a single local on-air person at the station, which once boasted local talk shows and a nine-person local news department.

On a national network level, the big three network news operations, ABC, CBS and NBC, have spent the last 3 decades closing down news bureaus around the nation and world. It was because NBC still had a news bureau in Berlin in 1989 that among American networks, NBC had a scoop on one of the biggest stories of the 20th century - the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Just last month, the New York Times reported that CBS, the home of the most celebrated news division in broadcasting, has been in discussions about a deal to outsource some of its news-gathering operations to CNN.

Today finds the news media in America and around the world very much at a crossroads. Coverage of the Iraq War ordered by George W. Bush is very much in question by journalistic critics today.

The press did not play the role of censor of the government, as Jefferson envisioned. Rather, it may have played the role of cheerleader, and has been accused of suppressing views opposing Bush and the war.

The story was told a year ago in the PBS special Buying The War anchored by Bill Moyers.

BILL MOYERS CUT: "FOUR YEARS AGO THIS SPRING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TOOK LEAVE OF REALITY AND PLUNGED OUR COUNTRY INTO A WAR SO POORLY PLANNED IT SOON TURNED INTO A DISASTER. THE STORY OF HOW HIGH OFFICIALS MISLED THE COUNTRY HAS BEEN TOLD. BUT THEY COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT ON THEIR OWN; THEY NEEDED A COMPLIANT PRESS, TO PASS ON THEIR PROPAGANDA AS NEWS AND CHEER THEM ON.

SINCE THEN THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE HAVE DIED, AND MANY ARE DYING TO THIS DAY. YET THE STORY OF HOW THE MEDIA BOUGHT WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WAS SELLING HAS NOT BEEN TOLD IN DEPTH ON TELEVISION. AS THE WAR RAGES INTO ITS FIFTH YEAR, WE LOOK BACK AT THOSE MONTHS LEADING UP TO THE INVASION, WHEN OUR PRESS LARGELY SURRENDERED ITS INDEPENDENCE AND SKEPTICISM TO JOIN WITH OUR GOVERNMENT IN MARCHING TO WAR."

Officials in the administration knew they could not say Iraq had a direct role in the 9/11 attacks, but in sentences would repeatedly refer to 9/11 and then to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, so that 70% of the American public believed Iraq was involved in the attacks.

The broadcast networks, the cable news networks, the major newspapers and groups all marched in lockstep and virtually no dissent was reported, in the period leading up to the war. The so-called "Patriot police" would call or show up at any offending news operation.

The patriot or patriotism police referred to in-house censors within the networks or media companies concerned that their network be sufficiently pro-administration, and that it not be exposed to charges of being unpatriotic by a presentation or a spokesperson opposed to the pro-Iraq war policy. The patriotism police might even include an advertiser sponsoring a program on the network. They were described in the Bill Moyers show on the Iraq War and the media.

When 100,000 anti-war demonstrators protested in Washington in October 2002, the Washington Post covered it by putting a picture on the front of the metro section, with no story on page one. Howard Kurtz, media reporter for the Post, says there were about 140 front-page stories in the Post making the Bush administration's case for war, between August 2002 and March 2003 when the invasion began.

Bill Moyers said that when Democrats did go against the grain, they were denounced by the partisan press and largely ignored by the mainstream press. War opponent Senator Ted Kennedy was given just 36 words in the Washington Post.

Phil Donahue, who had the one show on MSNBC featuring war opponents, was told he must have two pro-administration guests for every single dissenter to the administration. Donahue was cancelled 22 days short of the invasion of Iraq and an internal NBC memo said "Donahue presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."

Dan Rather, formerly of CBS, describes the atmosphere of intimidation:

DAN RATHER CUT: "FEAR IS IN EVERY NEWSROOM IN THE COUNTRY. AND FEAR OF WHAT? WELL IT'S THE FEAR - IT'S A COMBINATION OF: IF YOU DON'T GO ALONG TO GET ALONG, YOU'RE GOING TO GET THE REPUTATION OF BEING A TROUBLEMAKER. THERE'S ALSO THE FEAR THAT, YOU KNOW, PARTICULARLY IN NETWORKS, THEY'VE BECOME HUGE, INTERNATIONAL CONGLOMERATES. THEY HAVE BIG NEEDS, LEGISLATIVE NEEDS, REPERTORY NEEDS IN WASHINGTON. NOBODY HAS TO SEND YOU A MEMO TO TELL YOU THAT'S THE CASE. YOU KNOW, AND THAT PUTS A SEED IN YOUR MIND OF WELL, IF YOU STICK YOUR NECK OUT, IF YOU TAKE THE RISK OF GOING AGAINST THE GRAIN WITH YOUR REPORTING, IS ANYBODY GOING TO BACK YOU UP?"

The Knight Ridder newspaper chain was the only major mainstream American news organization to question the run-up to the war at the time, but its influence was minimal, since the stories were not printed in New York or Washington. John Walcott of Knight Ridder speaks:

JOHN WALCOTT CUT: 'YOU KNOW, WE'RE SENDING YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN, AND NOWADAYS NOT SO YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN, TO RISK THEIR LIVES. AND EVERYONE WANTS TO BE BEHIND THEM. THE QUESTION FOR US IN JOURNALISM IS, ARE WE REALLY BEHIND THEM WHEN WE FAIL TO DO OUR JOBS? IS THAT REALLY THE KIND OF SUPPORT THAT THEY DESERVE? OR ARE WE REALLY, IN THE LONG RUN, SERVING THEM BETTER BY ASKING THESE HARD QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT WE'VE ASKED THEM TO DO?"

There are no simple answers - there is no book with the answers to difficult journalistic questions, what to do in each situation. It's not just a question of caving in to fear - it's also the hollowing out of newsrooms across the U.S. Reporting is expensive, and there are no longer the resources to maintain large staffs of reporters.

Some questions now confronting journalism in the United States and around the world include:

How can newspapers become profitable on the Internet? Stories are free, but if they charge for the stories, almost nobody will read their sites.

Why are print newspapers continuing to flourish in Canada and in Europe and Asia while they are declining dramatically in the U.S.?

The press is the government's censor, but should there be exceptions in time of war? The New York Times knew all the details of the D-Day landing in June 1944, but did not publish them ahead-of-time, so the other side would not be tipped off, and there would be a disaster for the landing Allied troops.

What about television news, which has become in many ways the most powerful medium. Today, instead of reporters in capitals all around the world, there are pundits on the air offering their opinions of what might happen. How can these bureaus of reporters be reopened? Bureaus are expensive - especially foreign ones.

At one time newspapers such as the Boston Globe and Baltimore Sun maintained foreign bureaus, but they have all been closed. Only the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post maintain small bureaus overseas.

What about concentration of control of broadcast and print media in the U.S., where there are fewer owners?

Can consolidation be reversed? It was way back in 1943 when NBC was ordered to divest its second network, the Blue Network, which became ABC.

How can newspapers make up for Craig's List and their lost classified ad revenue, which traditionally brought in half of the papers' revenue?

When journalists do exhibit courage, it is often not rewarded by bosses at the time. When CBS broadcast the See It Now episode on Senator McCarthy, a top CBS executive told Fred Friendly the next day, "You may have cost us our broadcast licenses." But of course today Friendly and Edward R.Murrow are revered for their courage.

A year ago, it was reported that during the previous decade, eleven hundred journalists had been killed worldwide, doing their jobs.

What about the Internet? It continues to siphon viewers from TV, listeners from broadcast radio, and readers from newspapers and magazines. Along with them is a huge chunk of advertising. Can a way be found to direct some of this revenue to support major professional news organizations, as in decades past?

Can Americans still count on the press to keep their leaders from abusing power? Has the ostensibly independent press become little more than a mouthpiece for government, completely abandoning its role as "censor" of government power?

Up to the present most news organizations operate as for-profit businesses. Can this continue? Should there be a new model?

US MEDIA 2008

U.S. Households 112,800,000
Cable Households 48,130,200 (87% of total)
Satellite TV Households 29,553,600 (26% of total)
Total Broadcast advertising (2007) $22.43 billion (+2% from 2006)
Total Cable TV advertising (2007) $17.84 billion (+26% from 2006)
Spot Network TV advertising (2007) $15.59 billion (-10.2% from 2006)
Syndication (2007) $4.17 billion (-1.5%)

All media advertising (2007) $148.99 billion (+.2%)
Internet display advertising (2007) $11.31 billion
Consumer magazines (2007) $24.43 billion (+7%)
Outdoor ad revenues (2007) $4.02 billion (+4.9%)
Newspapers ad revenues in 2007, down 5.6% from 2006
Radio ad revenues in 2007, down 2.5% from 2006

Total ad revenue on the Internet totaled $21.2 billion in 2007


Time spent with Internet per week per person, 32.7 hours
Time spent with TV per week per person, 16.4 hours
Time spent per day by children watching TV (per child) 3 to 4 hours
Time spent listening to radio per person, 3 hours and 3 minutes per weekday

Read a newspaper total: 43% in 2006, 50% in 1996 (-7%)
Read a newspaper yesterday 18 to 29 year olds: 29% in 2006, 29% in 1996
Read a newspaper yesterday 30 to 49 year olds: 40% in 2006, 49% in 1996 (-9%)
Read a newspaper yesterday 50 to 64 year olds: 50% in 2006, 58% in 1996 (-8%)
Read a newspaper yesterday 65 and older: 58% in 2006, 70% in 1996 (-12%)

Numbers of stations/newspapers:
4,776 AM stations (all licensed to be commercial)
6,309 Commercial FM stations
2,892 Non-commercial FM stations
831 Low Power FM stations (all non-commercial)
TOTAL Radio stations: 14,808


1,180 Commercial TV stations
363 Non-commercial TV stations
2,173 Low Power commercial TV stations


1,452 Daily newspapers
6,704 Weekly newspapers

SOURCES: International Data Corp., Radio Advertising Bureau, TV Week, PEW
Center, FCC, Editor & Publisher, Journalism.org, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Media Briefing for Tuesday, February 26, 2008

North Korea's Stalinist dictatorship has spent decades vilifying Americans as "imperialist warmongers," but on Tuesday night it will broadcast live on state television a concert by what is arguably the most famous of all American orchestras. The concert will include The Star-Spangled Banner and George Gershwin's An American in Paris. The concert will be telecast tonight at 8 on Thirteen/WNET. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post report.

The chairman of the FCC has sharply questioned Internet service providers who control consumers' Web access over their networks, and suggested the FCC could intervene against the practice. The Washington Post, Associated Press, New York Times and Boston Globe report.

The CBS affiliate in Huntsville, Alabama WHNT channel 19 offered viewers nothing but a black screen for 12 minutes Sunday night - at the exact time that the CBS News program 60 Minutes was broadcasting a report about potential political skulduggery involving the former Bush administration official Karl Rove in the conviction of a former Democratic governor of the state of Alabama. The interruption raised suspicions among some viewers, especially Democratic backers of Don Siegelman, the former governor, that partisan political interests might be behind the blackout. Even some CBS executives wondered initially about the reasons for the disruption, though the general manager of the station, WHNT-TV, denied any ulterior motives, and immediately offered the report in its entirety on the station?s newscasts Sunday and Monday nights, as well as on its Web site. The New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, Associated Press, and Huntsville, Alabama Times report.

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon's daily newspaper the Washington Times, the organ of the conservatives in the nation, is for the first time using the word "gay". Until now it refused to use the word "gay" had used "homosexual" at all times. The Washington City Paper reports.

The Iraq War is returning to political broadcast ads, says Associated Press.

In Iraq, U.S. troops detained the news editor of a prominent Shiite-run television station and his son in a raid aimed at disrupting Iranian-backed militia groups, the military says. Hafidh al-Beshara, the news editor and manager of political programming for Al-Forat TV, and his son were taken into custody after American forces, acting on a tip, stormed their house in Baghdad. Al-Forat is operated by Iraq's largest Shiite political party. Associated Press reports.

Pakistan's action to block access to YouTube in Pakistan ended up disabling access to youTube around much of the world, says Associated Press.

Pakistan has lifted its restrictions on YouTube, saying the "blasphemous" video has been removed, reports Associated Press.

Pakistan's government is targeting TV commentators and shows criticize the government, says Associated Press.

An Al Jazeera satellite TV news cameraman being held at Guantanamo may soon be freed, says Associated Press.

Tribune Co. head Sam Zell says Tribune will use its smaller newspapers to test and incubate ideas before bringing them to Tribune's "big 3" - the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Newsday. The Newport News, Virginia Daily Press reports.

LIN television is using the Web to capture the local advantage of its broadcast stations, says TV Newsday. LIN stations include ABC affiliate WTNH channel 8 New Haven and Buffalo CBS affiliate WIVB channel 4.

Nielsen is moving beyond TV ratings, and is working on measuring Internet and cellular telephone use, but is finding it a tough sell. The New York Times reports.

Broadcasters are concerned about a few paragraphs in the FCC's recent 98-page localism order that they say could gut local station protections of their network programming and syndicated shows, as well as weaken their retransmission consent negotiating position. Broadcasting & Cable reports.

An angry outburst by France's new conservative president is gaining a great deal of attention online. The 45-second YouTube clip shows French president Nicolas Sarkozy wading through a crowed, shaking hands until one unidentified man tells him not to touch him. Sarkozy then says "Then get lost, you poor jerk." The International Herald Tribune reports.

Pfizer has pulled the TV and print ads featuring Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart, say Associated Press, Bloomberg News, TV Week, and the New York Times.

NBC's Saturday Night Live has taken on the TV drug ads, reports the New York Times, which offers video.

DVR viewers recall TV ads, even when going through them at high speed, says the Wall Street Journal.

Google is investing in a trans-Pacific Ocean cable, says the San Jose Mercury News.

The European Union may fine Microsoft $2.2 billion, says Bloomberg News.

Yahoo is planning to let its users help mold its future, reports the New York Times.

Computer retailer BlueHippo, whose advertisements targeting customers with bad credit drew the attention of state and federal investigators, has agreed to pay consumers up to $5 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it improperly took money from customers without providing the promised electronics. The Baltimore Sun reports.

Online research is driving offline sales, says EMarketer.

Getty Images, the photo giant that spent the past 12 years acquiring dozens of smaller companies, has now agreed to be bought by private investors in a $2.1 billion deal. As the world's largest distributor of pictures and video, Getty Images' main business is licensing high-quality images from professional photographers around the world to advertising agencies and media companies. The Seattle Times reports.

Siemens will reorganize its corporate telecom unit, eliminating 3,800 jobs while another 3,000 will be transferred to partners or other units ? its biggest cuts in years.The job cuts and shifts will be global and affect nearly 40 percent of the unit's 17,500 workers. Associated Press reports.

The Scripps newspapers that shut down as print publications live on, on the WCPO channel 9 Cincinnati Web site, says Broadcasting & Cable.

In Minnesota, Rake magazine - which offers humor, stories and essays - is going online only, and discontinuing its print publication, says the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The effects of the writers' strike are lingering on broadcast TV, where premieres of second-rate reality shows mix with reruns and imports from cable to fill out the schedule until the regular shows return. The Hartford Courant reports.

Disney-ABC Television Group struck a deal with its affiliate association that lets ABC local stations sell local spots in ABC?s video-on-demand content, which is available in some cable systems with fast-forward functionality disabled. ABC already has a deal in place with Cox Cable to offer prime-time content on VOD in some markets with fast-forward disabled. This new agreement brings ABC affiliates into that deal. Each affiliate can insert one local spot in each half-hour. TV Week and Associated Press report.

PBS will launch a consumer-awareness campaign starting next month aimed at educating consumers about the analog shutoff after February 17 of next year. The first two spots will feature Kevin O?Connor, host of This Old House, and master carpenter Norm Abram. In October, PBS will launch phase two of the campaign, giving viewers more specific information about their digital-transition options. The informational spots will run in 30-second and 60-second versions, says Broadcasting & Cable.

With ratification of a hard-fought contract imminent, the Writers Guild of America has shifted its fight with movie and television studios to a new front: the California state Legislature, says the Los Angeles Times.

WFMU 91.1 East Orange, New Jersey, the voice of the former Upsala College which closed in 1995, continues broadcasting its free form format. It is regarded as the "godfather" of progressive rock stations, says the New York Daily News. The New York Times also has a report.

Federal regulators have approved a long-pending deal allowing News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch to swap his controlling interest in satellite broadcaster DirecTV Group for a larger stake in his own company, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Dwight Lauderdale of Miami ABC affiliate WPLG channel 10, who started out as South Florida's first black TV news anchor and wound up as one of its longest-running and most-watched anchors, announced his retirement last night after 34 years on the local airwaves. The Miami Herald reports.

Residents of Carroll County, Maryland can hear their commissioners speak each Sunday morning at 8 on The Commissioners' Report on WTTR 1470, reports the Baltimore Sun.

The New World of American Media
Remarks by Dr. William F. Baker
The Third Annual Loper Lecture 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
USC Davidson Conference Center
3415 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, California


I?m honored to be here today to deliver the third annual Loper Lecture in Public Service Broadcasting. Jim Loper?s contributions to this vital area of the broadcasting industry continue to be an inspiration to all of us who care about the quality and integrity of American media.

We have much to gain by looking back at Jim?s career and the era in which he made his lasting impact on public broadcasting. During the early 1960s, when Jim was instrumental in establishing a non-commercial television station here in Los Angeles, public broadcasting was in its infancy. But, in a world of three big networks, there was a well-defined need for community-based, not-for-profit television stations with strong educational missions.
Back then, public television stations were a unique facet in the American media-scape. Institutions like the outstanding KCET ? which Jim Loper helped create and which he ran for so many years ? provided a kind of programming found nowhere else. In those days of the famous ?television dial,? where else could you turn to explore the cosmos, enjoy the opera, investigate history through eyes of a scholar, or learn to appreciate the wonders of fine art? While commercial media was increasingly preoccupied with spectacle and light entertainment, public television created a space for intellectual, artistic and cultural pursuits, for ideas, depth, and reflection. Public television was like a park in the midst of a boisterous city. A place to slow down, breathe, think, gain perspective.

So much has changed since then.

According to a Nielsen Media Research study from earlier this year, the average U.S. home receives 104.2 television channels. And in 2006, the average household tuned in to 15.7 of those channels for at least 10 minutes per week. Needless to say, that statistic alone is enough to describe a dramatically different media landscape from the one Jim Loper made his mark in. And, indeed, it?s quite different from the environment that prevailed when I began my career as a commercial broadcaster. Or even from what we saw at the beginning of this decade, for that matter. According to Nielsen, in the year 2000, the average home viewed 13.6 channels out of an available 61.4 channels.

So, with each passing year, the American viewer has access to an increasing number of television channels. And as the numbers grow, the audiences continue to fragment into smaller and smaller segments. Certainly, it?s been a long time since we could think of public television as a sole alternative to a limited range of commercial outlets. Those days are gone forever.

Former FCC Chairman Newton Minow is famous for saying that ?television is a vast wasteland.? That was back in 1961. Well, as you can see, the notion of ?vast? has certainly changed since his day ? at least as far as the media landscape is concerned. As for the notion of ?wasteland? . . well, that?s still up for debate.

Of course, the exploding number of television channels in itself is just part of the remarkable change we?ve been experiencing in this full-blown media revolution.

I probably don?t need to run down the list of new outlets for programming that was for so many years exclusively the domain of that big box in the corner of our living rooms. Now, in addition to all the cable and satellite channels, we have podcasting, video over broadband and IP, devices like Slingbox, video on mobile phones. There are DVRs, TIVO and VOD. And, of course, we have streaming video on websites ? with streaming HD video on the way. There are the websites of broadcast and cable outlets, and there are independent video sharing sites. The most famous of these, as I?m sure you know, is YouTube, where viewers watch 100 million clips a day.

And if you want to wager that we?ll be hearing about yet another new way to watch television this week or next, I certainly wouldn?t bet against you.

Quickly ? very quickly ? these new forms of watching are making significant inroads into the dominance of the old model of television.

As we look forward through 2011, the latest numbers for broadcasters from Veronis Suhler Stevenson predict a compound annual growth rate of 35.3 percent in the areas of digital advertising and content. Meanwhile, in the areas of cable, satellite and RBOC television service, Veronis Suhler Stevenson predicts a growth rate 13.8 percent for VOD; 23.4 percent for DVRs; 48.2 percent for interactive television gaming; and 99.6 percent for online and mobile.

One of the things these growth projections indicate is an accelerating shift from a top-down, producer-driven model, to one that encourages the participation of consumers in the creation and distribution of media.

This fundamental paradigm shift has taken the trend begun by the explosion of cable channels to its logical destination. With virtually an infinite number of media choices, audiences have become increasingly fractionated, chiseled down into tiny subgroups, spread far and wide across the web, congregating in virtual communities that orbit around specific interests and agendas. These groups form and reform, dissolve and intersect with amazing fluidity. Unlike the well-defined demographics of 20th century, today?s audiences are in constant flux.

One of the most admirable attributes of this new media paradigm is its inherent sense of democracy. The spread of easy-to-use, relatively low-cost digital technology has made it possible for everyone to have a voice in the media today. Everyone can be a producer, a commentator, even a journalist

And rather than depend on professional icons ? the anchormen and established celebrities of days past ? today?s audiences have their own commentators. The vast majority of them are amateurs. But they speak the language of their audience and give them content that?s personally tailored to their profiles. These are commentators who invite people to interact with them and create dialogue in a much more open and populist media experience.

This is the essence of the increasingly important media forms known as the social network and the blog.

One blogger ? who goes by the name of Mickey Z. and sometimes finds himself reprinted in mainstream media ? points out, ?Blogs have replaced the dog-eared notebook into which we scribbled our deepest thoughts. Now, with a blog-inspired sense of community, we are baring our souls and finding that others share the same concerns ? something we could hardly discover from traditional media outlets.?

I can personally relate to what Mickey Z. is saying. For the past year, I have been trying my hand at blogging. As a blogger, my goal is to help people stay informed and engaged with the media issues that are affecting us all today. Every weekday I post a ?Media Briefing? at Blog Thirteen ? which is hosted on Thirteen/WNET?s website. In this briefing, I look at regulatory policy, mergers and acquisitions, legal developments. I follow technological advances, public interest and consumer issues, and just about anything that?s making news in the world of media.

I?m probably not the typical blogger, of course. Unlike most bloggers, I actually have access to a traditional broadcast signal. Nevertheless, blogging has been a remarkable experience for me. Not only do I get to delve deeper into the media issues that have been so influential in my life, I also get to participate in this burgeoning new type of media, where everyone can have a voice in the larger discussion.

I believe that that discussion ? that chorus of voices ? is at the heart of a healthy democracy. It?s always been the ideal of American media. But it hasn?t always been a reality.

For most of the history of American broadcasting, media outlets have been run like businesses. There?s nothing inherently wrong with that. A well-run business can be the source of great contributions to society. But the business model must include a public service component. The airwaves, after all, belong to the public, and the corporate licensees of those airwaves have always had at least a theoretical duty to give something back to society for being able to use those airwaves to make money. And with government regulations to keep broadcasters mindful of their obligations, we had many years of balance between the pure profit motive and the pure public service posture.

But during the last two decades of the 20th century, the emergence of a more laissez-faire attitude on Capitol Hill led to both horizontal and vertical consolidation and acutely increased competitiveness. With each new push by the commercial sector to monetize the airwaves, public service got trampled.

Fortunately, we?ve had public television as a counterbalance. In the days of only a few channels, public television, with its mission to educate, inform and serve the underserved, was the perfect alternative to the networks ? playing an iconic role in our media universe.

But it was only one channel. And the wilderness has been expanding with dizzying speed. As the forests are cut down, public television?s mission-driven, service-oriented brand of media is increasingly standing all alone in the wasteland.

That?s why what is happening today ? the explosion of blogs and user-generated content ? is so important. It is essential that today?s media environment enable and encourage those many individual voices to be heard.

Indeed, this was always the idea of public television. A place where all voices could find time to be heard. A place where even unpopular ideas could be explored ? without concern about whether those ideas would earn advertising revenue. In many ways, the current media revolution realizes the fundamental ideals of public television.

And Americans are embracing it. According to a We Media ? Zogby Interactive poll 55 percent of Americans say bloggers are important to the future of American journalism and 74 percent say citizen journalism will play a vital role. In addition, 53 percent believe the internet presents ?the greatest opportunity to the future of professional journalism? while 76 percent say ?the internet has had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism.?

Moreover, a new survey finds that 101 million adult Americans now get most of their news from Web sites, while 35 million people rely on TV comedians and eight million individuals turn to blogs for their main source of news.

According to Dale Peskin, a managing director of iFOCOS, the organization that conducts the annual We Media conference, ?We?ve arrived at a tipping point. A new definition of democratic media is emerging in our society.?

That being said, the media revolution is not a utopia. There are pros and cons. On the plus side, as I?ve said, everyone has a voice. On the minus side, well, everyone has a voice.

One of the problems we see today in the overall media picture is a lot of chatter and a lack of a coherent overarching discussion that unifies us and moves us forward as a society.

In his book "The Cult of the Amateur," Andrew Keen argues that all the blogs and wikis and video sharing sites are undermining the expertise and authority of established media industry institutions, such as newspapers, publishing houses, record companies and TV studios.

Keen?s assertion is supported by a potentially troubling new study just out last week showing that 84 percent of journalists say they would use or already have used blogs as a primary or secondary source for articles.

Because of this proliferation of amateur, often anonymous, reportage, our news is now ?made up of hyperactive celebrity gossip,? says Keen.

Indeed, it?s a great irony that we have more people than ever before in history publicly expressing their opinions, yet perhaps never in history have we been so isolated from, and unclear about, the stories that really mean something in our lives.

Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review recently, Charles Lewis noted, ?Never has there been a greater need for independent, original, credible information about our complex society and the world at large. Never has technology better enabled the instantaneous global transmission of pictures, sounds and words to communicate such reporting. But all this is occurring in a time of absentee owners, harvested investments, hollowed-out newsrooms, and thus a diminished capacity to adequately find and tell the stories.?

Lewis goes on to lament, ?There simply are fewer and fewer professional reporters monitoring power in America and the world for American readers.?

Indeed, if there is one consistent victim from the combined trends of deregulation, media consolidation and technological innovation, it is the quality of journalism.

As a columnist in the Daily Utah Chronicle put it recently, ?It is beginning to seem like the term ?news? is used loosely with no connection to the related piece?s newsworthiness. As the television channels have moved to increase viewership, they have abandoned responsible reporting in exchange for entertainment purposes. The local television news has little meaningful information, and is instead filled with junk. Journalism is reaching new lows and is moving more and more and more toward tabloid-like reporting.?

That commentator may have been thinking about one of the most notorious moments in the history of local news. This past summer, KYTX, a station in Tyler Texas, hired a swimsuit model ? without a day of journalistic experience ? to anchor its newscasts. To make it even more problematic, the whole grand experiment was, itself, the subject of a reality TV show. Thankfully, the reality show was canceled after its first episode. It?s not clear what happened to the swimsuit model.

That?s an extreme example of where things are headed, of course. Much more sobering and controversial, perhaps, is Rupert Murdoch?s takeover of the Wall Street Journal. As Julian Friedland wrote recently in a column in the Denver Post, ?What Murdoch has learned and embraced perhaps more than anyone is that in-depth investigative pieces are boring. What?s much more alluring is mixing news with opinion to provide a sense of debate no matter how far removed either position is from actual facts. There?s nothing like a good fight to keep people?s attention. And keep as many people?s attention . . . as long as possible is what matters to the bottom line.?

When I read those words, I take special pride in the fact that Thirteen/WNET in New York, the station I?ve had the privilege to lead for the past 20 years, has been producing a national PBS series called Expose: America?s Investigative Reports. This acclaimed series ? one of several in-depth public affairs series we produce ? follows investigative reporters in the process of covering important stories. It?s a unique series that not only makes for fascinating television, but also helps us remember the fundamental contributions experienced, professional journalists make to our lives.

As the Denver Post columnist indicated, we are in real danger today of losing the kind of aggressive, but responsible, journalism that protects the interests of citizens. Under the pressure of continued consolidation in the media industry, newsrooms continue to close and be merged.

Many local newscasts ? especially on the radio ? are actually canned ?centralcasts.? Eric Klinenberg, in his book, Fighting for Air, looks at the dangers of this trend. When a train derailed near a small town in North Dakota in 2002, spilling deadly chemicals into the air, the Clear Channel station there was running on an automated repeater ? a victim of station consolidation. Without anyone in the studio to go on the air and warn people to stay indoors, lives were endangered. A similar situation was noted during the terrible massacre at Virginia Tech last spring. Only one station of the four in Blacksburg had the ability to warn people of the unfolding crisis, as the other three were automated. These are dramatic, but telling, examples of how serious a matter media concentration can be.

This topic is even timelier than I imagined it might be when I was asked to speak here. As you probably know, the FCC is, at this moment, making a final push to relax limits on ownership of radio, television and newspaper outlets.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has made no secret of the fact that he wants scrap the cross-ownership rules that prohibit one company from owning a television station and a newspaper in the same market. Decisions are now expected by the end of the year, though protests by activists at recent hearings have been vigorous, and legislators and public interest groups are raising red flags.

But the question must be asked. Given all I?ve been saying about the proliferation of channels and blogs and Internet outlets, should we really be so concerned if the traditional broadcast and print outlets are bought up and consolidated by larger corporations? Aren?t those TV stations and newspapers just dinosaurs on their way to extinction?

The short answer is we should be very concerned.

Despite the rise of the Internet and mobile devices, broadcast outlets are, in the words of FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, ?still primary, critical sources of information for the American public. Nearly 60 percent of adults watch local TV news each day and it remains the nation?s most popular information source.?

Copps proposes creating a more rigorous test for renewing station licenses, suggesting the following questions be asked:
?Did the station show programs on local civic affairs . . . or set aside airtime for local community groups. Did it broadcast political conventions and local as well as national candidate debates? In an era when owners may live thousands of miles from their stations, have they met with local community leaders and the public to receive feedback? Is the station?s so-called children?s programming actually, in the view of experts, educational.?

The last of these questions is worth pausing over. A recent study shows that from 1998 to 2006, ?the average time devoted to kids? shows fell 70% . . . at stations in eight markets that became part of a ?duopoly? or ?tripoly?. . . . By contrast, children?s programming fell 41% . . . at stations that remained separate.?

Those statistics are, of course, a validation of public television?s non-commercial approach to children?s programming.

Returning to the issue of news and public affairs . . . another recent report has shown an alarming rise in incidences of stations running VNR?s or video news releases as news segments on their newscasts. These pre-packaged video segments are essentially public relations tools created to promote products and company interests. They have legitimate uses as part of news coverage, when properly incorporated and disclosed. What we are seeing, however, are understaffed newsrooms simply throwing them on the air in place of real journalism. This is another example of the ways in which media consolidation is affecting the quality of journalism and media experiences in general.

In a statement made two weeks ago, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein lamented the state of the news media today. ?It is also clear from our hearings that local issues that the electorate needs to know about are not being covered in a way that prepares voters to make educated decisions,? Adelstein said. ?In community after community, we hear from citizens that serious coverage of local and state government has been diminished. There is a virtual black out of coverage of state and local elections. And while news operations say they have to slash resources, some are offering up to one million dollars for an interview with Paris Hilton. Real investigative journalism and thoughtful reporting have given way to an ?if it bleeds, it leads? mentality.?

Is it any wonder that a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found that a majority of Americans believe the news media are politically biased, inaccurate and don?t care about them? And in the We Media-Zogby study I cited earlier, 72% said they were dissatisfied with the quality of American journalism today.

So where does this all leave us?

As you can see there are forces pulling in a number of directions. New technology is leading to an increasing number of media outlets. This is offering positive possibilities for freedom of expression and creativity. But this new democratization of the media has the downside of devolving into a lot of noise that makes no real sense for the society at large. At the same time, audience fragmentation is putting unprecedented pressure on the financial models of traditional media sources. To counter that pressure, big media companies are trying to control new media content and distribution at the same time that they are pushing for further consolidation of television, radio and print.

Against that volatile backdrop, policymakers and the public need to think about three key factors that will influence the current and future integrity of the media, especially in its most important function: news and information.


First, education.

In a recent article, media scholar Herman Wasserman writes: ?In a time where new media technologies emerge at dazzling speed, and optimistic observers foresee a sea of change in journalism as everyone with an internet connection and a cell phone can now claim to be a journalist, ethics will increasingly become the criterion that sets journalists apart from dangerous dilettantes. But journalism education should go beyond skills ? journalists should be taught how to interpret and contextualize events truthfully and meaningfully. Sending a grainy cell phone picture of a shooting or of flooding may earn you the lofty title of citizen journalist, but in itself does not help you explain why it happened in such a way that it comes to mean something in the lives of your audience.?

Indeed, we need to be clear about the limits of amateur journalism. Professionalism, training, experience and insight have important roles to play. The age-old practice of journalism ? a practice rooted in the foundation of the United States ? has not changed simply because the technology to deliver it has changed. The principles still apply. In fact, in this wild new world of media in which we find ourselves, those principles should apply more than ever. And we must demand that our news sources adhere to them.

Wasserman comments on this as well, writing that ?the onus of responsibility is also shifting from journalists to audiences . . . Audiences need to understand the media production process and become critical media consumers. They should realize they are not passive sponges who have to soak up everything that comes their way ? they are active participants in the media process . . . and should demand respect.?

Respect leads us to the second factor: quality. The two go hand in hand.

Anyone who has even vaguely paid attention to the development of television news over the past couple of decades understands the trend all too well. As Commissioner Adelstein noted: If it bleeds, it leads. Violent crime, disasters, death and mayhem are always the headlines. Followed by entertainment gossip, weather, and sports. That?s the so-called news.

That trend has been propagated by media companies that believe it?s what their audiences want.

Now here?s a surprise. The Project for Excellence in Journalism studied newscasts from over 150 local televisions stations over a period of five years. And what they found is that people prefer quality over sensation.

Drake Bennett of the Boston Globe writes: ?Viewers, the study found, are perfectly willing to watch stories on education policy or tax debates ? in many cases they'll tune in to those stories but flip away from a segment on a celebrity divorce or a deadly highway pileup. And they'll consistently reward in-depth reporting with higher ratings than more cursory stories, no matter what the topic.?

Bennett adds: ?The findings suggest that the shift to violence and voyeurism has left everyone worse off. Viewers, fed a diet of out-of-state car chase footage, are left knowing less about issues, like the schools, that actually affect them. And the TV stations, in clumsily catering to an audience they misunderstood, may actually be sabotaging their own ratings.?

Imagine that! Audiences are intelligent after all. It?s a proposition that we in public television have pushed since the very beginning.

Finally, the third factor we should consider is independence.

One of the most vexing issues facing all media today ? especially news media ? is the compromising of editorial independence. Whether it be concerns about advertising revenues or political agendas, the media need to be insulated from the factors that may introduce bias and corrupt objectivity and quality.

Because we in public television are constantly struggling to raise money with no strings attached, we find ourselves in an especially challenging situation.

It needn?t be that way.

All you have to do is compare us to the BBC. Federal funding for public broadcasting in America amounts to $480 million a year. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, the BBC receives about 8.75 billion dollars a year. The difference is astounding.

And even that meager 480 million dollars we receive ? the equivalent of $1.53 per American per year ? is a sum we have to battle for constantly.

About the price of a cup of coffee gets every American a year?s worth of quality, commercial-free programming. Not to mention educational and community outreach services that aren?t found anywhere else. You?d think every business leader and investor in the country would sit up and take notice. For a buck fifty, you get an assured source of thoughtful, educational, relevant respectful, diverse media. No shouting, no scandal mongering, no rampant commercialism. Just media Americans trust.

And trust it they do. Four the past four years, a Roper poll has found that Americans consider to be the nation?s most trusted institution among nationally known organizations.

And whether we?re producing a nationally respected public affairs series or a humble blog, that bond of trust is something we are pledged not to betray.

When Jim Loper started out on his quest to create a new kind of broadcaster in southern California, he was promoting that very idea of trust. And all these years later, amid all these dazzling changes in our world, the essential value of that kind of trust hasn?t changed.

My belief is that if there?s a model for good media in this crazy new world of American media, that pledge of trust should be at the heart of it.

Whatever transformations the media as a whole may make in the years to come ? and there are dramatic ones waiting on the horizon, no doubt about it ? public broadcasting can and must be guided by that core sense of trust.

I have no doubt that all of you in this room share my concern about the existence of media that makes a meaningful contribution to our society. We are joined by millions upon millions of citizens across the land who feel the same way. Together we share the responsibility to keep that kind of media present and active in America. It is up to all of us to ensure that public broadcasting remains strong, independent and able to fulfill its unique role in our lives.

In this dizzying new world of American media, public media is ? and will continue to be ? more important than ever before.

CONSOLIDATION AND CLEAR CHANNEL AM RADIO STATIONS

This is an examination of the increasing concentration of control of the most important AM radio stations in the United States. Now the largest conglomerate owns 16 of the prime 58 high power AM stations in the United States, whereas in pre-consolidation days before the 1990s, the most owned was four.

Further, a proliferation of national conservative talk shows has replaced local programming on these stations, along with most other important AM stations.

Below is a complete list of clear channel AM stations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas. There are 87 total, including 58 in the U.S., under international agreement, a treaty that took effect inn March 1941.

A clear channel station -- not to be confused with the group station owner Clear Channel Communications -- means that the station is almost always 50,000 watts and during hours of darkness has interference-free coverage for about 750 miles around its city of license. Other stations on the same frequency sign off at sunset or go directional to protect the huge service areas of the clear channel stations. The clear channel stations also have wide daytime coverage, sometimes extending 100 miles or more in many directions.

While FM stations sometimes have greater audience in some markets, clear channel stations are usually the top information and talk stations in their markets. They usually carry tremendous influence in their markets, and often are the top billing stations, even though the age of FM dominance spans more than a quarter century now.

Clear channel stations, once designated as Class I-A and I-B stations, are now designated as Class A AM stations. (There are other 50,000 watt stations but they are not clear channel stations, and are not protected from interference and have no recognized wide area coverage at night. Examples include WRKO 680 Boston, WEEI 850 Boston, WINS 1010 and WEPN 1050 New York, CKLW Windsor, Ontario, KTRH 740 Houston, and KCBS 740 San Francisco, among many others.)

In pre-consolidation days before the 1990s the highest number of clear channel AM stations owned was four: CBS owned WBBM 780, Chicago, WCBS 880 New York, KNX 1070 Los Angeles and KMOX 1120 Saint Louis. NBC owned three: WNBC 660 New York, WMAQ 670 Chicago and KNBR 680 San Francisco. ABC owned three: WABC 770 New York, KGO 810 San Francisco and WLS 890 Chicago.

Now the biggest owner is Clear Channel Communications, which took its name from WOAI 1200 San Antonio, which it acquired in 1975. Clear Channel Communications now has 16 of the 58 clear channel stations. (Clear Channel also had rights to programming and sales and marketing for another, in Tijuana, Mexico, XETRA 690, but in 2006 the FCC notified Clear Channel XETRA would be counted against its total of AM and FM stations in San Diego, so Clear Channel surrendered XETRA.) In all, Clear Channel owns 1,200 of the most powerful and influential AM and FM stations in the nation.

CBS is next with 13 stations.

Also included on this list below are the names of the station owners of stations before consolidation. Many of them were locally owned, and local owners tend to be more sensitive to the local community and its needs, rather than a corporate owner which is looking at the bottom line. A vivid example of this was in West Virginia three years ago. In March 2004 the Daily Mail of Charleston WV reported Clear Channel planned to remove WWVA 1170 from Wheeling, and move it to the Akron/Cleveland market to greatly increase its value, depriving West Virginia of its only 50,000 watt clear channel AM station. The plan was quietly dropped.

When WTIC 1080 Hartford was locally owned by Travelers Insurance, Travelers said it wanted the station to act like a mirror reflecting the community in the region, and WTIC's service was legend.

Though with deregulation, one company can own up to eight stations in a market, Clear Channel and other companies are seeking an even higher limit. In May 2005 Clear Channel was reported in Inside Media as saying it wished to increase the total number of stations it would own in a single market from up to 8, to 12. A Clear Channel executive said that if satellite radio companies have 50 music channels, Clear Channel deserves to have more local broadcast stations in each market. The FCC is now considering whether to relax the rules on how many radio and TV stations a company can own, and whether to allow further consolidation.

There has also been a relaxation of the ownership rules for TV, and in New York, Fox now owns two of the six VHF television stations, WNYW channel 5 and WWOR channel 9, as well as the daily New York Post and it is now seeking a stake in the giant Long Island daily Newsday.

With consolidation, there has also been a replacement of local programs on AM radio during the day, with nationally syndicated political talk shows, such as Rush Limbaugh, a show owned by Clear Channel Communications. (Clear Channel also owns the Glenn Beck and Dr. Laura Schlesinger shows.)

Conservative talk was facilitated in 1987 with the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, which had required broadcast stations to provide airtime for opposing points of views of controversial and strong political stands. Democratic congressmen Maurice Hinchey of New York and Dennis Kucinich are seeking to restore the Fairness Doctrine now that the Democrats once again control Congress. Conservatives oppose it, calling it the "Hush Rush" proposal,. aimed at silencing conservative talk hosts.

An examination of the station websites indicates Rush Limbaugh, a conservative is now carried on 25 of the 58 U.S. clear channel stations. Conservative Sean Hannity is on 15. The best known liberal radio talk host, Al Franken, is not carried on any clear channel station, though one station, WWKB 1520 Buffalo, does have a liberal talk format. With the exception of national shows carried on WWKB, there generally are no national liberal talk shows on clear channel stations.

Rush Limbaugh (conservative) - 25 clear channel stations: KFI 640, WJR 760, WABC 770, WGY 810, WBAP 820, WHAS 840, KOA 850, WWL 870, WLS 890, WHO 1040, WTIC 1080, WTAM 1100, WBT 1110, KFAB 1110, KMOX 1120, WRVA 1140, WWVA 1170, WHAM 1180, KEX 1190, WOAI 1200, WPHT 1210, WLAC 1510, KFBK 1530, KXEL 1540 and KNZR 1560. (Rush Limbaugh's 26th clear channel station, WBAL 1090, dropped the show last year for a local show.)

Sean Hannity (conservative) - 15 clear channel stations: WSB 750, WJRM 760, WABC 770, WGY 810, WBAP 820, WLS 890, WTIC 1080, WRVA 1140, KSL 1160, WWVA 1170, WHAM 1180, WOAI 1200, WPHT 1210, WLAC 1510 and KXEL 1540.

Glenn Beck (conservative) - 10 clear channel stations: KFAB 1110, WRVA 1140, WWVA 1170, KFAQ 1170, WHAM 1180, WOAI 1200, WPHT 1210, WLAC 1510, KXEL 1540 and KNZR 1560.

Michael Savage/Savage Nation (conservative) - 8 clear channel stations: WOR 710, WSB 750, WGY 810, KFAB 1110, WRVA 1140, WHAM 1180, KGA 1510, and KOKC 1520.

Bill O'Reilly (conservative) - 8 clear channel stations: WOR 710, KDKA 1020, KSL 1160, KFAQ 1170, WPHT 1210, KGA 1510, KOKC 1520, and KNZR 1560..

Laura Ingraham (conservative) - 5 clear channel stations: WABC 770, KFAQ 1170, KGA 1510, KOKC 1520 and KNZR 1560.

Dr. Laura Schlesinger (conservative) - 4 clear channel stations: KFI 640, WJR 760, KFAQ 1170 and KEX 1190.

Al Franken (liberal) - 0 clear channel stations.

The slant of the station can sometimes be touted quite straightfowardly. KFAQ 1170 Tulsa's website greets viewers with these words in large letters: "KFAQ - Tulsa's Fox News Station That Stands Up For What's Right."

Here are the tallies for clear channel stations owned by the big conglomerates and station groups:

- > Clear Channel Communications: 17

- > CBS: 13

- > ABC: 7 (ABC is being sold to Citadel which would make a total of 9 for Citadel)

- Bonneville (Mormon Church): 2 (transfer of KIRO 710 Seattle from Entercom to Bonneville pending, would make 3 for Bonneville)

- Entercom: 3 (transfer of KIRO 710 Seattle to Bonneville pending, would make 2 for Entercom)

- Buckley: 2

- Bahakel: 1

- Bloomberg: 1

- Citadel 2 (Citadel is buying ABC which would give it a total of 9)

- Cox: 1

- > Cumulus: 1

- Fisher: 1

- Gaylord: 1

- Hearst: 1

- Hubbard: 1

- Jefferson Pilot: 1

- Journal: 1

- Tribune: 1

- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (government-owned public broadcasting system) owns 6 in Canada.

Here are the 87 clear channel stations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas: For web sites, just click on each one.

540 CBK

CBK Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada CBC

540 XEWA San Luis Potosi, Mexico

640 KFI

KFI Los Angeles, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation owners: L.A. car dealership owner and KFI founder Earle C. Anthony until the 1970s, then Cox Broadcasting, sold to Clear Channel in mid 1990s)

640 CBN

CBN Saint Johns, Newfoundland, CBC

650 WSM

WSM Nashville, GAYLORD

660 WFAN

WFAN New York, CBS (pre-consolidation: founded in 1922 by AT&T and sold to RCA/NBC for $1` million in 1926; sold to Emmis in 1988 and then CBS/Infinity in 1990s)

670 WSCR

WSCR Chicago, CBS (pre-consolidation: owned by NBC, with WMAQ call letters)

680 KNBR

KNBR San Francisco, CUMULUS (pre-consolidation: owned by NBC, then Susquehanna)

690 XETRA

XETRA Tijuana

690 CINF

CINF Verdun/Montreal

700 WLW

WLW Cincinnati, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: owned by Powel Crosley, who also produced Crosley automobiles)

710 WOR

WOR New York, BUCKLEY (founded by Bamberger Department Store, later owned by RKO)

710 KIRO

KIRO Seattle, ENTERCOM (transfer to BONNEVILLE pending)

720 WGN

WGN Chicago, TRIBUNE

730 XEX

XEX Mexico City

740 > CHWO

CHWO Toronto

750 WSB

WSB Atlanta, COX

760 WJR

WJR Detroit, ABC (pre-consolidation: owned by Pontiac dealer George A. Richards, later by Goodwill Broadcasting)

770 WABC

WABC New York, ABC

780 WBBM

WBBM Chicago, CBS

800 XEROK

XEROK Juarez, Mexico

810 WGY

WGY Schenectady, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: founded and owned by General Electric)

810 KGO

KGO San Francisco, ABC

820 WBAP

WBAP Fort Worth/Dallas, ABC (pre-consolidation: owned by Fort Worth Star Telegram)

830 WCCO

WCCO Minneapolis, CBS (pre-consolidation: owned by Midwest Radio and Television Inc.)

840 WHAS

WHAS Louisville, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: owned by Bingham family and Louisville Courier Journal)

850 KOA KOA

KOA Denver, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: owned for a time by General Electric)

850 XETQ Orizaba, Mexico

860 CJBC Toronto, CBC

870 WWL

WWL New Orleans, ENTERCOM (pre-consolidation: owned by Jesuit-run Loyola University of New Orleans)

880 WCBS

WCBS New York, CBS

890 WLS

WLS Chicago, ABC

900 XEW

XEW Mexico City

940 CINW

CINW Montreal

940 XEQ

XEQ Mexico City

990 CBW

CBW Winnipeg, CBC

1000 WMVP

WMVP Chicago, ABC (pre-consolidation: owned by Chicago Federation of Labor, with WCFL call letters)

1000 KOMO

KOMO Seattle, FISHER

1000 XEOY

XEOY Mexico City

1010

CBR Calgary, Alberta, CBC

1020 KDKA

KDKA Pittsburgh, CBS (pre-consolidation: owned in 1920 by founder Westinghouse, with KDKA being the very first radion station)

1030 WBZ

WBZ Boston, CBS (pre-consolidation: owned by Westinghouse)

1040 WHO

WHO Des Moines, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: owned by B.J. Palmer and later son David Palmer)

1050 XEG

XEG Mexico City

1060 KYW

KYW Philadelphia, CBS (pre-consolidation: owned by Westinghouse)

1060 XEEP

XEEP Mexico City

1070 KNX

KNX Los Angeles, CBS

1070 CBA

CBA Moncton, New Brunswick, CBC

1080 WTIC

WTIC Hartford, CBS (pre-consolidation: owned by Travelers Insurance Co., then Ten Eighty Corporation, a local firm)

1080 KRLD

KRLD Dallas, CBS (pre-consolidation: owned by Dallas Times Herald)

1090 WBAL

WBAL Baltimore, HEARST

1090 KAAY

KAAY Little Rock, CITADEL (pre-consolidation: owned by Arlington Hotel of Hot Springs, then Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce, later Beasley)

1090 XEPRS

XEPRS Tijuana

1100 WTAM

WTAM Cleveland, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: owned by NBC and Westinghouse)

1110 WBT

WBT Charlotte, JEFFERSON PILOT

1110 KFAB

KFAB Omaha, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: founded by Nebraska Buick Automobile Co., then by Lincoln Journal Star, with employees holding 51% during 1960s and 1970s)

1120 KMOX

KMOX Saint Louis, CBS

1130 WBBR

WBBR New York, BLOOMBERG

1130 KWKH

KWKH Shreveport, Louisiana, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: owned by W.K. Henderson, local businessman)

1130 KWKH

1140 WRVA

WRVA Richmond, Virginia, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: owned by Larus and Brother, a Virginia tobacco company)

1140 XEMR Monterey, Mexico

1160 KSL

KSL Salt Lake City BONNEVILLE

1170 WWVA

WWVA Wheeling, West Virginia, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: owned by Screen Gems, and by other owners)

1170 KFAQ

KFAQ Tulsa, Oklahoma, JOURNAL

1180 WHAM

WHAM Rochester, New York, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: owned by Stromberg Carlson Co. of Rochester, manufacturers of radio receivers)

1190 KEX

KEX Portland, Oregon, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: owned by Great American Broadcasting)

1190 XEWK Guadalajara, Mexico

1200 WOAI

WOAI San Antonio, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: owned ,by Avco)

1210 WPHT

WPHT Philadelphia, CBS (pre-consolidation: owned by the Philadelphia Bulletin for a time, with WCAU call letters)

1220 XEB

XEB Mexico City

1500 WWWT

WTWP Washington, BONNEVILLE (pre-consolidation: owned by Washington Post, with WTOP call letters)

1500 KSTP

KSTP Saint Paul, HUBBARD

1510 WLAC

WLAC Nashville, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: owned by Life and Casualty Insurance Co. of Nashville):

1510 KGA

KGA Spokane, Washington, CITADEL (pre-consolidation: owned by Jesuit-run Gonzaga University of Spokane)

1520 WWKB

WWKB Buffalo, ENTERCOM (pre-consolidation: owned by founder Clinton Churchill, then Capital Cities Broadcasting)

1520 KOKC

KOKC Oklahoma City, RENDA

1530 WCKY

WCKY Cincinnati, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: owned by L.B. Wilson, who left the station to WCKY's employees after his death)

1530 KFBK

KFBK Sacramento, CLEAR CHANNEL (pre-consolidation: owned by Sacramento Bee daily newspaper)

1540 KXEL

KXEL Waterloo, Iowa BAHAKEL

1540 ZNS

ZNS Nassau, the Bahamas (website not maintained by ZNS)

1550

CBE Windsor, Ontario, CBC

1550 XERUV Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico

1560 WQEW

WQEW New York, ABC (pre-consolidation: owned by New York Times; owned by founder John Hogan up to 1944)

1560 KNZR

KNZR Bakersfield, California, BUCKLEY (pre-consolidation: owned by Pioneer Mercantile Co., with KPMC call letters)

1570 XERF <.a>

XERF Ciudad Acuna, Mexico

1580 CKDO

CKDO Oshawa, Ontario

President Suggests Cuts to CPB Funding
by Bill Baker

Word has just come through that President Bush's 2008 budget proposal recommends a $50 million cut to the 2008 funding for public broadcasting, as well as some other key cuts. The announcement comes from Patricia Harrison, president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which distributes funds designated by Congress to the public broadcasting entities nationwide.

The suggested cutback is a rescission to money already designated by Congress for public broadcasting. This is a very serious issue, of great concern to all who care about public broadcasting.

In case you were unaware of how federal funding works, public broadcasting is funded by a mechanism called "forward funding." This means that public funds are designated for public television and radio for future years. This system was put in place to insulate public broadcasting from any attempts at political control of editorial content. By designating the money for future years, the reasoning goes, legislators will be less tempted to make funding contingent on programming that agrees or disagrees with their political viewpoints.

Congress has already appropriated $400 million for public broadcasting for the year 2008. This newly announced rescission is an attempt by the administration to cut $50 million from that budget. Overall, the funding cuts announced, if enacted, would represent a nearly 25 percent reduction from CPB's 2007 funding levels.

Remember that $400 million represents only about $1.33 (one dollar and thirty-three cents) per American per year! It's a relatively small amount of money per taxpayer, but it goes a long way to giving public broadcasters a solid base of support to create and broadcast diverse, thoughtful, relevant, independent programming in communities across the nation.

This is not the first time the White House has suggested a rescission in funding that has already been appropriated. It's happened in years past and we have managed to work with Congress to restore these funds to the budget. Once again, we will be working hard to make our case for the importance of this funding and its value to the American public.

Stay tuned to Blog Thirteen and this column for further information as the budget process proceeds.

Bill Baker?s Column for Blog Thirteen
January 23, 2007

A Fair Wind Blowing

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich?s announcement at the National Conference for Media Reform last week that he would be looking to revive The Fairness Doctrine has caused a stir in the halls of media and as well as the halls of power.

For those who aren?t familiar with it, the Fairness Doctrine was a mainstay of broadcasting policy through the heyday of the big three networks. Enacted by the FCC in 1949, the policy required broadcasters to give equal air time to competing perspectives on controversial issues.
As TV Week noted, ?Recently when President Bush announced his Iraq policy in a prime-time speech, the Democratic Party response by Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin wasn't aired by most broadcasters. The Fairness Doctrine could have required broadcasters to air that response.? In 1987, however, courts determined that the Fairness Doctrine had no Congressional mandate and most of its provisions were abandoned by the FCC.

The Fairness Doctrine returns to the national consciousness at an interesting moment, to say the least. With the nation polarized as perhaps never before, the airwaves have become one of the most embattled fronts in the struggle to set the course for the nation. Indeed, from where I sit, it seems like as though public broadcasting is in the no-man?s zone between two warring armies ? with one side insisting that public television is a hot-bed of liberalism and the other side convinced that public television does nothing other than speak for the entrenched establishment.

At first glance, one would think that the Fairness Doctrine would be welcome in this heated environment. After all, the doctrine seems to be the policy expression of Fox News?s famous ?Fair and Balanced? slogan. Wouldn?t we all be better off if the public had a guarantee that allowed for all sides of very controversial issue to be aired?

Of course, it?s not so simple. The broadcast networks and station owners want no part of the Fairness Doctrine. Indeed, it was the deregulatory environment of the 80s that killed the doctrine off. Offering equal time to every side of a controversy ate into too much valuable commercial time. Public service was fine, but not at the expense of profits.

We can expect that the networks would energetically resist any current attempt to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. Probably their first argument would be that ? as the FCC rulings cover only terrestrial (over-the-air) broadcasters ? cable and satellite providers would be exempt from the obligation, worsening their prospects in an already overheated competitive environment.

(The situation would echo the FCC?s decision to impose dramatically increased fines for violation of indecency rules. While these fines have significantly hampered networks ? and public broadcasting as well ? cable and satellite providers, falling outside of FCC jurisdiction, continue to be free to air nudity and obscene language with impunity. Broadcasters generally bristle at what they see as an unfair advantage for non-broadcast media providers.)

No wonder that some are calling for a newly imposed Fairness Doctrine to apply to cable as well.

But even if Congress were so disposed to extend the Fairness Doctrine-type regulation to cable and satellite, it might not solve anything.

With the advance of the broadband, we should expect that in a few years the number of available outlets for television-style news and information will be so great that it will be impossible for any government policy to effectively enforce a fairness obligation.

Moreover, as media forms continue to evolve, it?s clear that we are witnessing the disappearance of an essential characteristic of viewing upon which the Fairness Doctrine depends. The Fairness Doctrine, as it was formulated, would seem to depend largely on the continuation of a linear style of viewing. As people increasingly dip into the content of media providers on a selective basis, the ability for a given provider to ensure that viewers have access to opposing viewpoints ? aired or posted at a later date ? becomes highly problematic.

Nevertheless, the idea behind the move to revisit the Fairness Doctrine is valuable. There is little doubt that media consolidation is causing a significant degradation in the quality of the news. Most notably, as news organizations are increasingly controlled by corporations that have close ties to government and vested interests in policies that may prove profitable to their businesses, news quality and integrity is suffering.

The purpose of the press in America is to tell the truth in order to protect the public from abuse of power. That special role was spelled out in the First Amendment by the framers of the Constitution. Today, television journalists can no longer claim the independence that was once their calling card. And when the press loses its editorial independence, the public welfare is threatened.

The spirit of the Fairness Doctrine is exactly that editorial independence ? the ability and obligation to air of all points of view without bias, prejudice or vested interest.

It?s unclear how the traditionally formulated Fairness Doctrine would function in today?s society. It is not even certain that a Fairness Doctrine, per se, could operate in a new media environment.

But, one thing is certain. As spin, reckless opinion and undisguised ideological attacks come to dominate public affairs media, the need for balance and impartiality is greater than ever before. Editorial independence is what is needed. Let?s hope that a good hard look at the ideas behind the Fairness Doctrine result in some new ideas about how to inject new integrity and fairness into American journalism.

In the meantime ? the point?s been made before, but I?ll reiterate it ? when both sides are shouting that public broadcasting is biased toward the other side, you have your best indicator that we are, in fact, biased toward neither.

In Memoriam: Dr. Frank Stanton

American media enters 2007 without one of its most important figures. In the last week of December, Dr. Frank Stanton, the legendary television executive and champion of the First Amendment passed away at the age of 98.

Frank Stanton was an unusual figure in the world of broadcasting and media. We ordinarily save our hero worship for journalists, anchors and creative types. But Dr. Stanton was a television executive. His domain was the corporate office, not the bright lights of the TV studio. Even so, we cannot build a too high a pedestal for him.

As president of CBS he helped shape the nature and direction of the network news that informed Americans through the entire latter part of the 20th century. For Dr. Stanton, news and public affairs programming was the highest calling of television. Many will recall how, in 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated, Dr. Stanton had CBS News stay on the air for four straight days, without commercial interruption. For Dr. Stanton, public service was television?s greatest calling.

Perhaps Frank Stanton will be best remembered by the history books for standing tough when Congress he rebuffed subpoenas from the House of Representatives demanding he provide outtakes from the CBS documentary The Selling of the Pentagon. Despite being threatened with jail, he stood firm, and set a precedent that continues to be a model for journalists today.

For me, personally, though, Frank Stanton will be best remembered as a mentor and guiding light. He was the inspiration that led me to pursue a career in television. And when I was studying for my doctorate, I will never forget how he took the time out to speak with me and give the kind of advice that would stay with me throughout my career. Later, he tapped me to be the head of America?s most-watched public television station, Thirteen/WNET, opening my eyes to the incredible possibilities of public service media.

Frank Stanton was a quiet hero, but a hero nonetheless. I urge everyone to pick up a copy of Fighting for the First Amendment by Corydon Dunham. It?s essential reading for any student of American media, and, really, all who have an interest in the constitutional guarantees to freedom of the press.

Not long ago, at a benefit in New York, he leaned over to me and said, ?Always fight for the First Amendment, there is nothing more important.? Words that should be inscribed on the door every media provider in America.

(I?ll be offering a tribute to Frank Stanton in the upcoming issue of Television Quarterly, so I hope you?ll look out for that.)

Bill Baker's Weekly Column for Monday, December 18, 2006

More media is not better media

Next year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (as reported in USA Today), Americans will spend nearly half of their lives consuming media.

The paper reports that, according to the Census Bureau?s Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007, ?Americans will spend 3,518 hours with their beloved media, including 1,555 in front of the TV.? This compares to the 3,333 hours the average American spent with the media at the beginning of the decade (including 1,467 spent watching TV in 2000).

The intelligence comes from media research company Veronis Suhler Stevenson, which collaborated on collecting data for the abstract. US Today quotes Leo Kivijarv, vice president of research at PQ Media, which worked with Veronis Shuler Stevenson in its research, as saying: that ?people want to have ? and almost need to have ? information and entertainment at their fingertips now, 24 hours a day."

Inevitably, as the media come to be integral to more and more aspects of our daily lives ?- from business to education to social and even familial interaction ?- television, radio, the Internet and other forms of electronic media are going to have increased influence on our behaviors, our outlooks and our ideals.

With this in mind, we might read with interest an essay by a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Peter R. Kann, the chairman of Dow Jones, which appeared in The Wall Street Journal last week. In The Media Is in Need of Some Mending, Kann looks at ?10 current trends in the mass media that ought to disturb us.?

Among the troubling tendencies in Kann?s list are ?the blurring of the lines between journalism and entertainment?; ?the blending of news and advertising, sponsorships and other commercial relationships?; ?the growing media fascination with the bizarre, the perverse and the pathological?; and ?the media?s short attention span.?

Most media observers and critics -- and surely a sizable majority of the public ?- are already quite aware of some of these trends and turn their attention to individual issues on a regular basis. But Kann?s codification of this series of problems in one place helps us think about the entire panorama of the media, and what appears to be systemic shortcomings in the way we are producing and consuming media in America today.

As the Census Bureau study points out, with each passing day we are spending more time with media. And, collaterally, new media forms and venues are coming online all the time. Indeed, it seems that the efforts of media purveyors -- be they content creators, distribution networks, or technology developers ?- is to promote an ever-expanding universe of options.

But, just as with many things in life, more media is not necessarily better media.

One could easily argue that we have more than enough outlets to accommodate our societal needs at the moment. What cannot be readily argued is that the quality of content is improving on a par with the growth in distribution channels. In fact, as Kann suggests, the media is beset by issues that may be directly related to the exponential increase in the quantity of media available to us, and the competition that the new wealth of choices engenders.

The short attention span, the encroachment of commercialization on news and information programming, the blurring of lines, and the dominance of spectacle and sensationalism are all symptoms of an environment that has become hyper-competitive.

As the FCC once again considers easing ownership rules, we should recall that one of the big arguments being made less media regulation is that it would allow consumers more choices. But is more choice what American media needs right now? Or is it time to start paying more intention to the nature of the content that fills up those many hours we devote to our ?beloved media.??

At a time when the media seem to be increasingly subordinate to commercialism, materialism and the profit motive, a final note in the USA Today article cited above should not be overlooked.

The same Census report that charted the steady rise in American media use, also looked at a wide range of issues defining American life today. The article noted one fascinating statistic about college students:

?The majority (79%) of freshmen in 1970 had a personal objective of ?developing a meaningful philosophy of life.? By 2005, 75% said their primary objective was ?being very well off financially.??

A seismic philosophical shift. My question is: is our media simply reflecting that reality? Or is the reality a reflection of our media?