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Monday, October 31
This Week in Media
by
Arron Wings
on Mon 31 Oct 2005 11:00 AM CST
 This Week in Media
This
week has been a busy one for media watchers. The transition to
Digital TV continued to occupy committees in the House and Senate and
AARP has joined the groups with an interest in the outcome. Video
News Releases and Broadcast flags continue to be topics of interest and
a new attempt at limiting advertising by non-profits surfaced.
There is a must read from USAToday that is a great overview of the
issues and action so far.
For all
things media I recommend the folks at FreePress where they live the
motto “media is the issue.” They now have a weekly 5-minute audio
summary of media news.
And last
but not least our friends from Sinclair Broadcasting received another
mention in the media, this time in Le Monde in Paris. This
article covers most of the issues including:
Swing State Influence
In the
past decade, Sinclair Broadcast Group has quietly taken advantage of
the deregulation process orchestrated by the Federal Communication
Commission (FCC) to become the largest owner of US television outlets,
with 62 stations in 39 markets and access to at least 24% of US
viewers, including those in key swing states such as Ohio, Florida,
Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Though Sinclair
lacks outlets in high-profile Democratic cities such as New York, Los
Angeles and Chicago, it has taken over one or two stations in mid-size
cities where it can influence voters without much national scrutiny.
The Point
The most
prominent News Central segment is The Point, a nightly editorial hosted
by Hyman that Sinclair forces its stations to broadcast. Hyman, 47, is
a Navy man and former intelligence officer who carries a prisoner of
war/missing in action bracelet, engraved with the name of a US war
casualty from the Persian Gulf, to remind himself of the cost of
freedom. He wears many hats at Sinclair, from vice-president to head of
lobbying. In his spare time he is also vice president of the Centre for
Science-Based Public Policy in Annapolis, not far from Sinclair’s
headquarters. The research findings published by this think-tank, which
has received more than $650,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, include
assertions that “the mercury levels found in fish have no adverse
effects on human health” and that air pollution “cannot be a major
cause of asthma.”
Weather
The
meteorology staff of eight to 10 on-air personalities works from
Sinclair’s offices in Hunt Valley, in Maryland, where they keep stacks
of atlases, study regional maps, and practice pronouncing the names of
places they have never been to. Each member does weather reports, as
well as editing, operating the camera, selecting graphics, and
distributing the segments, for three to five cities a day. There is a
real economy in this, as Hyman explains: “It takes just a few minutes a
day to put together a weather segment. That’s why meteorologists are
always the ones doing public affairs work for TV stations, going to
county fairs and school events. We said, what if instead we had
meteorologists doing weather all day long? Viewers don’t care if the
weather man is in a studio in Oklahoma City, or in College Park, or
here.” The Sinclair meteorologist who showed us the system, James
Wieland, added: “A lot of people are surprised that we’re not even
there.”
(Click here to read the entire article)
Monday, October 24
Digital TV is Coming
by
Arron Wings
on Mon 24 Oct 2005 11:00 AM CDT
 Digital TV is Coming
Digital TV is coming and an important question is “what is it going to
bring with it?” Will it bring an expanded requirement to serve
the public interest, or an expanded ability for greater profits?
There was action in House and Senate committees this week with no clear
winners and losers.
At issue is everything from when will compliance be mandated to how will cable companies be required to handle “must
carries,” and how to allocate uses for bandwidth that will become
available in the transition. Additional issues are a) how much publicly-supported consumer education will be available, b) how much subsidy for the purchase of DTV converter boxes for users
that still have analog sets, c) do we create a Digital Opportunity Investment Trust to promote public interest, and d) do we allow the industry to use “broadcast flags” to prevent recording and copying at home.
Many groups are lobbying hard to influence the future of media in this
country. The players are everyone from the industry (profits),
John McCain (emergency response on unused bandwith), American Library
Association (against broadcast flags), SMART Coalition (for consumer
education and converter boxes), and progressive and media reform groups
(affordable broadband).
The transition from analog to digital signals for broadcast TV is a
great opportunity to shape our future. Get informed and be ready
for grassroots action as these proposals begin to take shape over the
next few months.
Judith Miller Played Leading Role in Bush Echo Chamber
by
Trish Nelson
on Mon 24 Oct 2005 04:00 AM CDT
 Judith Miller Played Leading Role in Bush-Cheney Echo Chamber
Truthout
This must-read Maureen Dowd column was all the rage on the Sunday morning talk shows…
by Maureen Dowd/The New York Times
She
never knew when to quit. That was her talent and her flaw. Sorely in
need of a tight editorial leash, she was kept on no leash at all, and
that has hurt this paper and its trust with readers. She more than
earned her sobriquet "Miss Run Amok."
[Judith
Miller’s] stories about WMD fit too perfectly with the White House's
case for war. She was close to Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who was
conning the neocons to knock out Saddam so he could get his hands on
Iraq, and I worried that she was playing a leading role in the
dangerous echo chamber that former Senator Bob Graham dubbed
"incestuous amplification." Using Iraqi defectors and exiles, Mr.
Chalabi planted bogus stories with Judy and other credulous journalists.
She
casually revealed that she had agreed to identify her source, Scooter
Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, as a "former Hill staffer" because
he had once worked on Capitol Hill. The implication was that this bit
of deception was a common practice for reporters. It isn't.
Judy
coughed up the details of an earlier meeting with Mr. Libby only after
prosecutors confronted her with a visitor log showing that she had met
with him on June 23, 2003. This cagey confusion is what makes people
wonder whether her stint in the Alexandria jail was in part a career
rehabilitation project.
I admire
Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Bill Keller for aggressively backing
reporters in the cross hairs of a prosecutor. But before turning Judy's
case into a First Amendment battle, they should have [tied] her to a
chair and extracted the entire story of her escapade.
(click here to read the entire story)
Click here to
join
Iowa's Media Reform Group
Sunday, October 23
Join the Fight Against Fake News
by
Trish Nelson
on Sun 23 Oct 2005 04:00 AM CDT
 Join the Fight Against Fake News
Center for Media and Democracy: PR Watch
Monday on Blog for Iowa, Arron reported that the Senate
Commerce Committee was considering a bill, the Truth in Broadcasting Act (S
967) addressing the issue of disclosure on VNR’s (government-produced,
prepackaged video news releases). Here
is the watered down version of the original bill passed this week, but the
fight is not over….
The Truth in Broadcasting Act (S 967) was considered [this week] by the Senate
Commerce Committee. The original bill would have required a
"conspicuous" disclosure to accompany any government-produced or
-funded prepackaged VNR or the radio equivalent, an audio news release (ANR).
What the committee passed, however, was significantly
different. Even the name had changed, to the "Prepackaged News Story
Announcement Act."
First, the revised Act drops the continuous on-screen
notification requirement for VNRs. Second, it calls for "clear
notification within the text or audio of the prepackaged news story,"
without specifying the minimum requirements for audience disclosure. Most
troubling, it allows that disclosure to be removed altogether, following rules
that the Act requires the Federal Communications Commission to develop.
According to to TV Week… "The bill clears the way for
TV news operations to continue using snippets of government-produced VNRs for
[video footage] in their own stories, as they do currently, leaving the issue
of how to identify the material up to station news personnel." The problem
is that nondisclosure - that's covert propaganda - is currently the norm.
But the fact that the revised
Act did make it out of the Senate Commerce Committee is a step, however small,
in the right direction. The legislative process is far from over, and the Act's
language can be strengthened as easily as it was weakened - if concerned
citizens get involved.
The Act's
main sponsors, Senators Lautenberg and Kerry, "tried to make it much
stronger," but did not have the support of their colleagues. That can change
if enough U.S residents call or write their two Senators and Representative, to demand clear,
conspicuous disclosure accompanying all video or audio footage coming from the
government. In the case of VNRs, that must be a continuous, on-screen notification.
For ANRs, that must be an announcement, prior to and/or following the provided
audio.
The Center for Media and Democracy has been exposing
"fake news," such as the ready-to-air faux TV reports known as video
news releases (VNRs), since 1993. Now, we have joined forces with the media
reform group Free Press, in an ongoing investigative and activist campaign to
say "No Fake News!"
The fight is far from over - in fact, it just got more
important. Get active and stay tuned.
(source)
Click here to
join
Monday, October 17
Last Week in Media by Iowa's Arron Wings
by
Trish Nelson
on Mon 17 Oct 2005 11:00 AM CDT
 Last Week in Media
by Arron Wings
There are major issues surfacing in the regulation and future of media this fall.
The FCC is reviewing and rewriting the “ownership rules” they got wrong in 2003 and are now before them again.
Broadcast licenses for all TV and radio stations in Iowa
are up for renewal this winter. The deadline for stations to
request renewal is October 1, 2005, and the deadline for public comment
and participation is January 1, 2006.
But there are also other issues that will have long-term consequences for us the public.
The
Truth in Broadcasting Act of 2005 (S. 967) currently before the Senate
Commerce Committee
will mandate the identification of all pre-packaged “news releases”
(VNRs) created by the government and broadcast on our airwaves.
The need for this action arose when both the Justice Department and the
FCC failed to protect consumers from products that the Government
Accounting Office has said violate a prohibition on “covert
propaganda.” The Justice Department has said an unattributed VNR
is not covert propaganda as long as it is fact-based, and the FCC does
not require disclosure unless the VNR is on a political or
controversial topic.
The Act
attempts to eliminate the ambiguity created by those two departments
and mandates that all VNRs produced by or for a branch of government is
identified as such. It requires that “Produced by the U.S.
Government” or similar language is displayed on all VNRs regardless of
topic or content.
Click here for more information or to join the fight against government propaganda.
Arron Wings lives in Iowa City and is a member of Iowans for Better Local TV.
Unwatchable TV
by
Trish Nelson
on Mon 17 Oct 2005 04:00 AM CDT
 Unwatchable TV
The following appeared as a guest opinion in the Iowa City
Press-Citizen
By Charles Miller
“This is the single most important discussion any American
citizen can be a part of.” With those words media critic John Nichols began Iowa
City’s Wednesday meeting with FCC officials. In a
packed auditorium, Iowans expressed their concerns about the state of our
broadcast media. It was a triumph of direct citizen engagement with Washington,
the latter actually coming to listen to the former.
But it also was very troubling. We learned about a
critically sick media. Sick to the point that television news is packaged as
entertainment and entertainment is packaged as news. Sick to the point that the
most popular political affairs show for right-leaning people is one in which
the host bullies his guests, and the most popular political show for
left-leaning people is a comedy. Sick to the point that the third-largest
source of TV revenue is political commercials, so that only millionaires run
for office and use attack ads that “work” because they destroy their opponents.
We go to war, we waste resources, we lack basic health care,
we slouch to a “service” economy, while our media divide and trivialize.
The media’s demise did not occur overnight, but across 25
years of deregulation. Since the 1930s, the FCC saw a strong public good in
regulating radio and, later, TV. It established that, as users of a valuable
and limited public resource — the airwaves — stations may profit from them in
exchange for also serving “the public interest.”
At his inauguration, Ronald Reagan said, “government is not
the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” and his FCC
proclaimed, “the perception of broadcasters as community trustees should be
replaced by a view of broadcasters as marketplace participants.” Not only did [Reagan] veto the Fairness Doctrine, but he also abolished limits on commercials,
eliminated community-affairs program requirements and trivialized the renewal
of broadcast licenses.
Deregulators promised much: better shows, diversity, lower
cable prices, etc., as the free market would magically deliver a gem. But the
airwaves are anything but a free market and deregulation and mergers profit
only the extremely wealthy while returning unwatchable TV.
(click here to read the entire article)
Charles Miller is a research scientist at the University
of Iowa and a member of Iowans for
Better Local Television
Click here to learn more about:
Friday, October 14
Nuclear Funding Accountability
by
Caroline Vernon
on Fri 14 Oct 2005 04:00 PM CDT
 Nuclear Funding Accountability
Excerpts from nirs.org
At a time when Congress is threatening to cut off hundreds of thousands
of individuals from their life-lines by making drastic cuts to Medicaid
in order to reduce the deficit, here is an opportunity to eliminate
some of the pork from the DOE’s Fiscal Year 2006 budget.
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) has evaluated and
identified seven nuclear weapons and three nuclear energy programs in
next year’s budget that are wasteful and warrant cutbacks or
elimination of the programs entirely. Proposed cuts would result in
immediate savings of over $1.8 billion. Billions more could be cut from
the DOE’s budget over the next five years and much of the savings could
be applied toward addressing the environmental and potential health
effects which result from nuclear weapons production.
It comes as no surprise that I have heard little to nothing about these
proposed nuclear weapons programs within the mainstream media.
Evidently, our fourth estate has decided that this same issue that
permeated our airwaves throughout the 60's and 70's and which
threatened not only our national security but our global security, is
no longer newsworthy enough to share with the American people.
We
still haven’t cleaned up many of the Superfund sites which this
Congress has neglected to fully fund, and yet the DOE wants to pile a
new mess on top of an old one, but this is one mess you can’t continue
to just sweep under the rug.
Congress
could save taxpayers nearly a billion dollars by simply agreeing to
cuts already made in the House and Senate versions of the FY 2006
Energy & Water spending bill (H.R. 2419). The Chairmen of the
Conference Committee have the most power over what cuts or increases
survive in the final bill. Call your legislators and urge them to tell
the Chairmen to accept the House and Senate funding cuts to nuclear
weapons and energy programs while preserving the House increases to
environmental cleanup and nuclear warhead dismantlement.
TIMING: Valid for the month of October, 2005.
Differences between the House and Senate versions of the Energy &
Water spending bill must be worked out by a joint House-Senate
Conference Committee. With the deficit over $330 billion, it is
imperative that Congress approve the $1 billion in cuts to nuclear
weapons and energy programs that were adopted earlier this year.
Budget cuts that we support include:
* $85 million for the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, a dangerous and expensive return to REPROCESSING nuclear waste.
* $74 million from the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository;
* $303 million for plutonium fuel fabrication (MOX), a commercial reactor fuel;
* $7.6 million for a new plutonium bomb plant to mass-produce nuclear bomb triggers;
* $4 million for research into a nuclear bunker buster that has the
potential of a million casualties but would be unable to penetrate many
of the deepest targets;
* $25 million to increase the readiness to resume underground nuclear testing;
* $146 million for constructing the National Ignition Facility for nuclear weapons research;
Budget increases we support include:
* $115 million to dismantle nuclear warheads as pledged by the President following the Moscow Treaty;
* $190 million to the environmental cleanup budget for sites to adhere
to legal obligations for cleanup of contamination from U.S. nuclear
weapons production.
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, (202) 544-0217
You can also send a letter to your members of congress by going to the following links:
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has posted the alert on Capwiz (which has already generated over 1,000 messages) at: http://capwiz.com/wagingpeace/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=8067771
Working Assets has posted a similar alert on its Act for Change site (which has already generated over 11,650 messages) at http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=19499
A postcard version of the alert is attached, which can be copied, cut
and distributed at local events. The alert is posted online at http://www.ananuclear.org/action.html
See ANA’s radioactive pork report at http://www.ananuclear.org/topten2005.html
See sign-on letter from 44 national and local groups to Energy & Water Conferees at http://ananuclear.org/E%26Wletteroct305.html
This Alert originated with:
Jim Bridgman, Program Director
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
322 4th Street, NE, WDC, 20002
202-544-0217 x3
FAX: 202-544-6143
jcbridgman@earthlink.net
www.ananuclear.org
Monday, October 10
FCC Town Meeting in Iowa City a HUGE Success!
by
Trish Nelson
on Mon 10 Oct 2005 11:00 AM CDT
 FCC Town Meeting in Iowa City a HUGE Success!
Iowa City, Iowa
Update: Town Meeting a huge success…more than 500 people packed the Pomerantz
Center at the University of Iowa to participate in a forum
on media ownership. – Free Press
“FCC official warns against media consolidation” – Des Moines Register
“400 Attend FCC Forum” – Iowa City
Press-Citizen
"Residents air media complaints; FCC officials listen to
criticism, ideas" - Cedar Rapids Gazette
“Forum Criticizes Big Media" – Daily Iowan
"Iowans irate with media," says Adelstein, Broadcasting & Cable, October 6
Wow! Is the only word
to describe it. The FCC Town Hall
Meeting on the Future of the Media was a phenomenal success! 500
people packed the University
of Iowa’s Pomerantz
Center Wednesday night. One-hundred people gave 2-minute testimony
before Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps’ aide Jordan Goldstein,
describing how our media is failing our communities.
The FCC Town Meeting in Iowa City, Iowa, on October 5, 2005, was a
smashing success. From left to right: John Nichols of The Nation; Mark
Smith, President, Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO; Nicholas
Johnson, Professor, University of Iowa College of Law, former FCC
Commissioner; and Amy Johnson Boyle, former KGAN anchor, currently
Marketing & Communications Director, Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of
Commerce. Photo courtesy of Dennis Roseman.
People came from across Iowa to make sure their voices were heard.
The Quad Cities’ group, Progressive Action for the Common Good, was
there in force as were Johnson County DFA’ers and of course Iowans for Better
Local TV. All three groups were
co-sponsors of the event.
Other
co-sponsoring organizations were:
University of Iowa Lecture
Committee, FAIR!, Iowa City Federation of Labor, SEIU Local
199, Iowa Civil Rights Commission, Iowa Civil Liberties Union, Linn County
InterReligious Council, American Federation of Teachers Local 716, AFSCME Local
12, League of Rural Voters, Iowa City GLBT Pride Committee, Quad Cities
Interfaith, Iowa City Public Access Television, Iowa Federation of Labor,
AFL-CIO, Johnson County League of Women Voters and ICAN.
Special thanks to Amanda Ballantyne of FreePress for the
incredible job she did organizing her first ownership meeting.
Adelstein and Jordan
Goldstein, Copps' senior legal adviser, listened attentively until nearly midnight, as more than 100 concerned citizens
each offered two minutes of testimony. All testimony was recorded and will be
submitted to the FCC and Iowa's
congressional delegation.
FCC commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein made the following
statement after the hearing:
"We learned last night that people in the heartland see
many good reasons to oppose further media concentration. We heard a lot of
solid evidence that the area's media may be failing to address key issues of
local concern. People decried the lack of serious coverage of the problems
faced in their communities. They pleaded with us not to let it get any worse.
"The verdict was unanimous - from elected leaders,
teachers, workers, minorities, nurses, parents and grandparents - people are
dissatisfied their with local media outlets. The message I will take back to Washington
is that we had better address the very real issues raised by concerned citizens
of Iowa before we consider
further media consolidation."
To read more about the Town Meeting on the Future of the
Media, click here.
Click here to learn more about:
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