StopBigMedia.com Coalition members Free Press, Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union filed thousands of pages of research with the FCC this week, blasting the agency for its “inconsistent, incompetent and incoherent” attempts to skew official research in support of Chairman Kevin Martin’s dubious but foregone conclusions about media consolidation.
The consumer groups use the FCC’s own data to show how ownership limits protect the quantity and quality of local news. The new study dismantles claims that removing the ban on newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership would increase local news. In reality, cross-ownership results in a net loss in the amount of local news produced across local broadcast markets.
“The FCC’s entire basis for removing the cross-ownership restriction is that consolidation creates more news,” says S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press. “But in fact, the FCC’s own data obliterate that argument, confirming that fewer owners produce less news for the local community as a whole. This is the nail in the coffin for the FCC’s pro-consolidation agenda.”
Despite overwhelming public opposition to further media consolidation, the FCC’s entire media ownership proceeding has been skewed toward foregone conclusions from the start. The FCC buried studies demonstrating the harmful impact of consolidation and then commissioned a biased, “junk science” agenda to prove otherwise.
“The Commission wanted to eliminate the cross-ownership rule, so it put together a series of studies to support its preconceived notions,” says Mark Cooper, director of research at Consumer Federation of America. “The outcome of this biased, tainted process is an ad-hoc collection of flawed research that trades objectivity for blind faith in deregulation.”
The FCC produced 10 ownership studies with no public input, peer review, or transparency about the studies’ authors or methodologies — then gave the public just 60 days to respond. But before that window for comment had even closed, Chairman Martin’s secret plan was revealed to push for a vote to relax media ownership rules by Dec. 18.
“Our research challenges the very foundation of the Commission’s legal and economic rationale for deregulation,” says Gene Kimmelman, vice president of international and federal affairs at Consumers Union. “The public record is now clear: Chairman Martin has no public interest basis for proceeding with his plan to relax the media ownership rules.”
Chairman Martin’s plans are now the subject of scrutiny by Congress — and the public, which is demanding action to rein in runaway consolidation.
Chairman Martin’s efforts to slant the official record, conduct a sham process, and move for a rapid vote without full consideration of public comment are starting to backfire. Big Media backers should expect a rough road ahead if they try again to cut the public out of the process.
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