INTRODUCTION: THE EMPTY STUDIO
1. The account that follows comes from transcripts from the Ward County 911 dispatcher, the Minot Rural Fire Department, and the Minot Police Department, and from the National Transportation Safety Board. Survival Factors Group Chairman’s Factual Report, June 12, 2002.
2. See the National Transportation Safety Board, Hazardous Material Factual Report, June 26, 2002, available at http://www.in-forum.com/specials/minot/NTSBreport/233006.pdf. Dimensions of the toxic cloud were reported by Marion Blakey, chairman, National Transportation Safety Board, during a U.S. Senate Commerce Committee hearing, July 10, 2002.
3. See the EAS fact sheet at www.fcc.gov/eb/easfact.html.
4. On Clear Channel’s acquisition of all six commercial stations in Minot, see Jennifer 8 Lee, “On Minot, N.D., Radio, A Single Corporate Voice,” New York Times, March 29, 2003.
5. The accounts of what happened to Kenny Moe and the Grabingers were reported in Steven Wagner, “Lost in the Cloud: Ammonia Spill Leaves Minot in Blind Panic,” Forum, August 18, 2002.
6. Law Enforcement News also reported that Minot officials first tried using the EAS system and then attempted to use EBS when it failed. See Jennifer Nislow, “The Wrong Time to Find out that Emergency Alert System Doesn’t Work,” Law Enforcement News, March 2003.
7. The comments from Steve Davis are available in a Clear Channel news release: http://www.clearchannel.com/Corporate/PressRelease.
aspx?PressReleaseID=1558.
8. According to the USINFO, a Web site produced and maintained by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Programs, “The average American … spends about eight hours a day with the print and electronic media—at home, at work, and traveling by car. This total includes four hours watching television, three hours listening to radio, a half hour listening to recorded music, and another half hour reading the newspaper.” http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/factover/chl2.htm.
9. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring: 40th Anniversary Edition (Boston and New York: Mariner Books, 2002), pp. 12-13.
1: IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
1. Susan Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899-1922 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), p. 227. The account of early radio regulation that follows draws on chapter 7, “The Titanic Disaster and the First Radio Regulation.”
2. Ibid., pp. 228-29.
3. House Reports, 62nd Congress, 2nd session, December 4, 1911-August 26, 1912, vol. 3, report 582, quoted in ibid., p. 233.
4. Paul Starr suggests that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who signed the bill that created the FCC, was one of the first national leaders to recognize both the political benefits of appeasing Big Media operators and the hazards of challenging them. “In the 1932 election,” Starr writes, “six out of ten newspapers had opposed him, and Roosevelt believed that he was the victim of a deep hatred among newspaper publishers who slanted press coverage against his programs. The radio networds, in contrast, gave the president their full cooperation, opening the airwaves to him whenever he wanted, and Roosevelt used radio to reach the public directly and explain his policies.” Such fear and respect for the power of media corporations would become a theme of American politics, from the presidential to the local level, and as Big Media companies grew in size and scale so would their influence on federal and state policies. See Paul Starr, The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications (New York: Basic Books, 2004), p. 360.
5. See Robert McChesney, Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy: The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928-1935 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
6. See Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 1 (New York: Vintage, 1990); Robert Park, “The Natural History of the Newspaper,” in Robert Park and Ernest Burgess, The City: Suggestions for Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban Environment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 80-98; Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (New York: Vintage, 1960), p. 188; Gunther Barth, City People: The Rise of Modern City Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 58.
7. On the increasingly local content of city newspapers during the nineteenth century, see Starr, The Creation of the Media, pp. 131-39. For the history of professional city reporting, see Michael Schudson, Discovering the News (New York: Basic Books, 1978).
8. The emphasis on primary reporting gave life to another American journalistic tradition: muckraking investigative projects into the uses and abuses of power in local government and business. During the Progressive Era, journalists including Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair, and Ida Tarbell helped to establish a model for truth-seeking, critical, and reform-seeking reporters across the country. In fact, as Michael Schudson argues in ibid., American newspapers have never sponsored muckraking investigations into local power structures as much as their professional mythology would suggest.
9. Lippmann’s statement is from a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, quoted in Geneva Overholser, “In the Age of Public Ownership, the Importance of Being Local,” Columbia journalism Review, November-December 1999.
10. Phyllis Kaniss, Making Local News (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 8.
11. See the Bee’s Pineros series online at http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/projects/pineros/.
12. Harvey Molotch, “The City as a Growth Machine,” American Journal of Sociology 82 (1976): 309-32.
13. Using the language of economics, Baker claimed that engaged local journalistic organizations produce “positive externalities,” public benefits reaped by citizens, whereas the absence of such organizations creates “negative externalities” for the community, because it emboldens powerful, self-serving, and corrupt interests to act with that much less scrutiny. Baker’s testimony is available at http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=1321&wit_id=3847; he elaborates the argument in his book Media, Markets, and Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
14. Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), pp. 238-39.
15. Jeffrey Mays, “City Council Will Pay for Good News in Newark,” New Jersey Star-Ledger, October 24, 2005.
16. On Wal-Mart, see Charles Fishman, The Wal-Mart Effect (New York: Penguin, 2006). On Costco, see Steven Greenhouse, “How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart,” New York Times, July 17, 2005. On McDonald’s and In-N-Out Burger, see Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001). Consolidation in the retail industry, best symbolized by the rise of big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot and the demise of small local businesses, further defangs local media by reducing the number of potential newspaper advertisers and making media companies more dependent on the national players that remain. A new Wal-Mart might force independent businesses to close and push down prevailing wages, but a national media chain that features reports about the problems Wal-Mart generates risks losing its patronage—not just in one town but in its entire fleet of papers and broadcast stations. Of course, chain media companies are not likely to make a fuss about chain retail companies anyway. Yet media conglomerates are not getting any favors for their support: the largest national retailers are now substituting direct mailings for paid advertisements in print publications, and local media outlets everywhere are watching their marketing revenues sink as a result. “Wal-Mart has a fairly standard policy of doing little to no local newspaper advertising,” complains Mike Buffington, president of the National Newspaper Association. “Community newspapers across the nation are all but invisible to Wal-Mart—unless the company is looking for some free PR in our pages.” Public letter from Mike Buffington to Wal-Mart, January 14, 2005.
17. For an insider account of how the pressure to produce such high margins has affected media organizations, see Leonard Downie Jr. and Robert Kaiser, The News about the News: American Journalism in Peril (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2001).
18. See this statement on the Citadel Web site: http://www.citadelbroadcasting.com/about/markets.cfm.
19. John Dunbar and Aron Pilhofer, “Big Radio Rules in Small Markets,” Center for Public Integrity, October 1, 2003, available online at http://www.publicintegrity.org/telecom/report.aspx?aid=63.
20. The account of buying and selling radio stations comes from the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt, Radio Deregulation and Consolidation: What is Public Interest? July 12, 2004. Neil Hickey, “So Big: The Telecommunications Act at Year One,” Columbia Journalism Review, January-February 1997.
21. Anthony DeBarros, “Consolidation Changes Face of Radio,” USA Today, July 17, 1998.
22. The U.S. Department of Justice ordered Capstar to sell eleven of SFX’s stations to comply with antitrust regulations. See the DOJ statement at http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/1998/March/153.htm.html.
23. See the Hickses’ bio on the Capstar Web site: http://www.capstarpartners.com/ourteam/bios/s_hicks.php. See also Paul Krugman, “Steps to Wealth,” New York Times, July 16, 2002; Andrew Wheat, “Legalized Bribery,” Multinational Monitor 3, March 2001; and Robert Bryce, “The Governor’s Sweetheart Deal,” Texas Observer, January 30, 1998.
24. Quoted in Anna Wilde Matthews, “Clear Channel Uses High-Tech Gear to Perfect the Art of Sounding Local,” Wall Street Journal, February 25, 2002.
25. The quotes from Alan are reported in ibid.
26. See the Center for Public Integrity’s report On the Road Again, at http://www.openairwaves.org/telecom/report.aspx?aid=15.
27. The data on political contributions by sector come from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group that tracks money in politics and assesses its effects on elections and public policy. See http://www.opensecrets.org.
28. The term reluctant regulators comes from Barry Cole’s book about the FCC, Reluctant Regulators: The FCC and the Broadcast Audience (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1978).
29. Mel Karmazin, testimony before U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, July 17, 2001.
30. Jack Fuller, testimony before U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, July 17, 2001.
31. See Dennis FitzSimons’s statement at http://www.tribune.com/investors/transcripts/midyear_05.html. Emphasis added.
32. See Steven Kull, Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War, the Program on International Policy Attitudes, University of Maryland, October 2, 2003.
2: REMOTE CONTROL
1. Susan Douglas offers a succinct technical explanation of why AM signals can travel from 100 to 1,500 miles from their transmitters at night: “The lower layers of the ionosphere (called the D and E layers by radio technicians), which are appromixately 45 to 75 miles above the earth’s surface, act like a huge sponge during the day, absorbing the signals that pass through them. But after the sun sets these layers disappear, and the ones above them—anywhere from 90 to 250 miles above the earth—combine to form a dense layer that acts like a mirror to sky waves.” Susan Douglas, Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination (New York: Crown, 1999), p. 38.
2. The FCC encouraged this kind of expansion, effectively giving FM licenses to AM stations to help generate activity on what was then the less-crowded side of the dial.
3. See Douglas, Listening In, chapter 10, for a rich account of the FM radio revolution.
4. For an account of the early days of KFRE-FM, see Jim Ladd, Radio Waves: Life and Revolution on the FM Dial (New York: St. Martin’s, 1991), pp. 5-6.
5. See ibid.
6. Historians credit the invention of the Top 40 format during the 1950s to Todd Storz, the director of programming at KOWH AM in Omaha, Nebraska, and its proliferation to Gordon McLendon, the owner of KLIF in Dallas. Bill Drake is the namesake of the “Drake format,” a tight playlist in which a small number of popular songs recur regularly and DJ chatter is held to a minimum. See Ben Fong-Torres, The Hits Just Keep on Coming: The History of Top 40 Radio (San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 1998). The quotes on FM radio are from Richard Neer, FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio (New York: Villard. 2001), p. 2; Ladd, Radio Waves, pp. 5-6; and the transcript from “The Rise of Rock FM,” Museum of Radio and Television, New York City. T: 32807. See also Douglas, Listening In, pp. 269, 273.
7. For a fascinating discussion of the way African American DJs helped achieve cultural desegregation, see chapter 9, “The Kids Take Over,” in Douglas, Listening In. Jeff Chang discusses the role of local DJs in breaking new hip-hop styles in his book Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005).
8. Asch’s statement is from “WNEW: Free Form Format,” a panel discussion a the Museum of Radio and Television, New York City, T: 50942.
9. See WLIR’s self-reported history on its Web site: http://www.wlir.fm. Bingenheimer is the subject of the documentary Mayor of the Sunset Strip. He is quoted in Kate Sullivan, “A Man Out of Time,” Los Angeles Weekly, July 13-19, 2003. To read about Maxanne Sartori, see http://www.geocities.com/uridfrm/s/maxanne.htm.
10. Douglas, Listening In, p. 280.
11. See http://www.prophetsys.com/lines/broadcast/voicetrac.asp. Emphasis added.
12. This and the following quotes from the Fayetteville case are from Tricia Nellessen and Robert Brady, “May I Speak with the DJ? Industry Consolidation, Computer Technologies, and their Impact on Radio in the Late 1990s: A Case Study,” American Communications Journal, May 2000, available online at http://www.acjournal.org/holdings/vo13/Iss3/articles/nell.html.
13. Lawrence K. Grossman, “The Death of Radio Reporting,” Columbia Journalism Review, September-October 1998.
14. The NPR audience figures come from the Arbitron ratings service and are cited in Jacques Steinberg, “Money Changes Everything,” New York Times, March 19, 2006.
15. Deadwood, as its name suggests, has a long history of burning. The town was built by the thousands of miners, cowboys, and gamblers who flocked to the area in the 1870s, during the last great western gold rush. After tiring of their temporary camps, those who decided to settle in the hills constructed new houses from trees downed in previous fires. This was a convenient but unstable arrangement. According to local legend, two major fires, the first of which destroyed over three hundred structures, hit Deadwood during the town’s first decade. With gold came new resources, and soon the wealthy prospectors quarried native stone and used it to assemble fire-resistant structures, many of which survive today. Others continued building with wood, however, and despite ample experience dealing with fire hazards, periodically Deadwood ignites. The 1950s, known locally as the “fiery fifties,” were especially brutal, with a series of major conflagrations culminating in 1959 with an inferno that consumed 4,500 acres and forced local residents to evacuate. Many of the town’s current residents remember the experience today.
3: CLEAR CHANNEL COMES TO TOWN
1. Robert Short, Jr., testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, January 30, 2003, available online at http://commerce.senate.gov/press/03/short013003.pdf. See also Paul Davidson, “Singers Take on Big Radio,” USA Today, January 30, 2001.
2. For an account of the AMFM merger, see Joseph Weber and Louis Lavelle, “Family, Inc,” BusinessWeek, November 10, 2003. For the FCC’s official approval of the merger, see http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Mass_Media/News_Releases/2000/nrmm0034.html.
3. In December 1996, Jacor spent more than $1 billion for stations owned by Citicasters, Regent Communications, and Mutual Insurance, giving it nearly one hundred outlets. In March 1997, Jacor purchased E.F.M. Media Management for $50 million, which gave it control of the nation’s most popular radio program, The Rush Limbaugh Show. In June, Jacor bought Premiere Radio, a leading radio syndicator, for $190 million. The Cincinnati Business Courier and the Cincinnati Enquirer closely tracked Jacor’s acquisitions through the period. For a timeline of Jacor and Clear Channel’s growth, see “How Clear Channel Became the Biggest,” Cincinnati Enquirer, March 19, 2000, and Richard Curtis, “Sam Zell May Be Shopping Jacor,” Dayton Business Journal, October 17, 1997. Jacor CEO and future Clear Channel radio head Randy Michaels had once gained attention by being carried into industry meetings on a throne and wearing disco outfits to embarrass his stodgier colleagues. As Salon’s Eric Boehlert reported, “Behind the mike he made a name for himself back in the ’70s and ’80s farting on the air, cracking jokes about gays and tantalizing listeners with descriptions of “incredibly horny, wet and ready” naked in-studio guests. Along with getting hit with a sexual harassment suit [which was eventually settled], Michaels pulled in big ratings wherever he went.” Eric Boehlert, “Radio’s Big Bully: Clear Channel,” Salon, April 30, 2001.
4. The data on radio industry revenues are from BIA Financial Networks and are included in a report by the Future of Music Coalition, Radio Deregulation: Has it Served Citizens and Musicians? Available online at http://www.futureofmusic.org/images/FMCradiostudy.pdf.
5. See Clear Channel’s press release on the merger, which valued AMFM at $23.5 billion, including the assumption of $6.1 billion in debt, at http://www.clearchannel.com/Corporate/PressReleases/
2001/100199AFMCCU.pdf. See the FCC’s approval at http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Mass_Media/News_Releases/2000/nrmm0034.html. See also the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s State of the News Media report for 2004, in particular the section on radio ownership, at http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/narrative_radio_ownership.asp?cat=5&media=8. Infinity and ABC have a strong presence in the leading and most lucrative markets. Citing BIA Financial Network statistics for 2004, the Center for Public Integrity reported that Clear Channel’s 1,195 stations generated revenues of $3.57 billion, while Infinity’s 179 stations produced revenues of $2.22 billion. For a list of the largest broadcast radio and television companies, in revenue and stations, see http://www.publicintegrity.org/telecom/industry.aspx?act=broadcast.
6. “Clear Channel Communications, Inc. Fact Sheet,” http://www.clearchannel.com/PressRoom/FactSheets/Corporate.pdf. It was alleged in a complaint filed with the FCC that Clear Channel may control an even larger number of stations, since advertisers and competitors have accused the conglomerate of setting up front companies that house “shell stations,” which they covertly operate, to get around the remaining local ownership caps. In November 2001, David Ringer, an advertiser in Chillicothe, Ohio, petitioned the FCC to complain that “in situations where Clear Channel cannot operate a station in a particular market, it substitutes Concord Media or some other entity as its alter ego.” Salon reported that Ringer, who worried that advertising prices would skyrocket if one company dominated local radio, discovered that employees at the Chillicothe station WKKJ were being paid by Clear Channel rather than by its legal owner, Concord Media, that Clear Channel employees worked at Concord’s other stations, in Florida and New York, and that the Web site for Concord’s outlets in Jacksonville identified them as the “Clear Channel Jacksonville Media Family.” See Dan Monk, “Advertiser Fights Radio Titan,” Cincinnati Business Courier, November 30, 2001; and Eric Boehlert, “Is Clear Channel Playing a ‘Shell Game’?” Salon, November 20, 2001.
7. See Chris Nolter, “Radio: Static from Clear Channel,” Columbia Journalism Review, January-February 2002; and see http://www.clearchannel.com/Radio/rad_ktf.aspx. Before acquiring Inside Radio, Clear Channel set up a mock Web site, http://www.insideinsideradio.com, which featured an image of a man with his head in his ass and the caption, “Jerry checks with an inside source.”
8. Mays is quoted in Christine Chen, “Clear Channel: Not the Bad Boys of Radio,” Fortune, March 3, 2003, available online at http://www.fortune.com/fortune/print/0,15935,423802,00.html.
9. Duncan’s American Radio, Radio Market Guide 2002.
10. See Clear Channel’s self-report at http://documents.clearchannelint.com/upload62949PM_1.pdf, and “Clear Channel Credit Rating Revised,” Dayton Business Journal, May 7, 2003.
11. See the testimony of Jon Mandel before the U.S. Senate hearing on media ownership, July 8, 2003.
12. Maria Figueroa, Damone Richardson, and Pam Whitefield, The Clear Picture on Clear Channel Communications, Inc. (Ithaca: Cornell University, 2004), p. 29.
13. For reports on Clear Channel’s use of voice tracking to cut labor costs, see also Anna Wilde Mathews, “Clear Channel Uses High Tech Gear to Perfect the Art of Sounding Local,” Wall Street Journal, February 25, 2002; Todd Spencer, “Radio Killed the Radio Star,” Salon, October 1, 2002; Boehlert, “Radio’s Big Bully”; and Figueroa, Richardson, and Whitefield, The Clear Picture on Clear Channel Communications, p. 38.
14. Mathews, “Clear Channel Uses High Tech Gear to Perfect the Art of Sounding Local”; and Boehlert, “Radio’s Big Bully.” Mathews reports that in Florida, Clear Channel agreed to make an eighty-thousand-dollar “contribution” to the Consumer Frauds Trust Fund after the state attorney general began investigating complaints that it deceived listeners with voice-tracked call-in contests.
15. Chris Baker, “Voice Tracking Lets Disc Jockeys Create Radio Shows for Different Cities,” Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, Washington, D.C., May 25, 2002.
16. Lowry Mays, testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, January 30, 2003.
17. David Rubin, “When Power Went Off, WSYR Failed Listeners,” Syracuse Post-Standard, August 23, 2003.
18. Bill Carey, “SU Dean Failed to See How WSYR Met Local Needs,” Syracuse Post-Standard, August 31, 2003.
19. David Rubin, “Radio’s Response to Crisis Too Important to Tune Out,” Syracuse Post-Standard, August 31, 2003.
20. See the testimony of Lewis Dickey Jr. before the Senate Committee hearing on media ownership, July 8, 2003.
21. See the report on the Future of Music Coalition Web site: http://www.futureofmusic.org.
22. Jenny Toomey, “Radio Deregulation: Has It Served Citizens and Musicians?” testimony of the Future of Music Coalition on media ownership, submitted to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, January 30, 2003.
23. Gabriel Rossman, “Concentration of Ownership and Concentration of Content in Rock Radio,” unpublished manuscript.
24. The classic account of payola is Fredric Dannen, Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business (New York: Vintage, 1991). In Listening In (1999), Susan Douglas claims that the Payola crackdown contributed to the loss of DJs’ control over programming.
25. Eric Boehlert, “Record Companies: Save Us From Ourselves!” Salon, March 13, 2002; Eric Boehlert, “Pay for Play?” Salon, March 14, 2001; and Eric Boehlert, “Fighting Pay-for-Play,” Salon, April 3, 2001.
26. See Charles Duhigg and Walter Hamilton, “Paying a Price,” Los Angeles Times, July 26, 2005.
27. Chuck Taylor, “Hundreds of Radio Stations in Payola Probe,” Mediaweek, February 13, 2006.
28. Don Henley, testimony before the the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, January 30, 2003. The members of the Recording Artists’ Coalition include Christina Aguilera, Beck, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Eric Clapton, Dave Matthews Band, Billy Joel, Elton John, Linkin Park, Joni Mitchell, Pearl Jam, Kenny Rogers, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Stone Temple Pilots, and Tom Waits.
29. Transcribed from “The Rise of Rock FM,” Museum of Television and Radio, New York City, T: 32807.
30. See the Web site for the PBS Frontline special “The Way the Music Died”: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/music/perfect/radio.html.
31. See Simon Renshaw, testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, July 8, 2003. Rintels is quoted in Brett Pulley, “Gee, Thanks Dad,” Fortune, October 18, 2004.
32. See the CPI report on Clear Channel at http://www.publicintegrity.com/telecom/analysis/CompanyProfile.aspx?HOID=183 #Financials.
33. A transcript of the interview is available at http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/stories.php?story=02/08/31/6144861.
34. Jeff Chang, “Urban Radio Rage,” San Francisco Bay Guardian, January 22, 2003.
35. Walker is quoted in Andy Paras, “Morning Radio Co-Host Sues Station that Fired Her,” Greenville News, July 7, 2003. For Goyette’s account of his conflict with Clear Channel, see Charles Goyette, “How to Lose Your Job in Talk Radio: Clear Channel Gags an Antiwar Conservative,” American Conservative, February 2, 2004.
36. Media Matters provides excerpts of Beck’s attack on Berg at http://mediamatters.org/items/200405170002. Clear Channel’s Premiere Radio Networks offers photos, news coverage, and audio clips from the rallies on one of its sponsored Web sites: http://www.glennbeck.com/home/rally.shtml.
37. Quoted in Eric Boehlert, “The Passion of Howard Stern,” Salon, March 4, 2004.
38. See Shakowsky’s Web site: http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/article_04_15_03massmedianotes.html.
39. Michelle Garcia, “Antiwar Billboard Nixed in N.Y.,” Washington Post, July 13, 2004.
40. Scott McKenzie, “Fox News to Partner with Clear Channel,” Billboard Radio Monitor, December 5, 2004.
41. See http://www.clearchannel.com/Radio/home.aspx.
42. Sarah McBride, “From Conservative Talk Format to All Katrina,” Wall Street Journal, September 6, 2006.
43. Ellen Barry, “A Lifeline Sent by Airwave,” Los Angeles Times, September 10, 2005.
44. See the list of press releases at http://www.clearchannel.com/PressRoom/Display.aspx?DivisionID=6.
45. Clear Channel’s lobbying expenditures were reported to the U.S Senate Office of Public Records, and posted by the Center for Public Integrity: http://www.publicintegrity.org/telecom/analysis/CompanyProfile.aspx?HOID=183.
46. See “Hertz, Clear Channel Among $88 Billion Falling into Junk Market,” Bloomberg, October 4, 2005.
47. Quoted in “Clear Channel Renews Bid to Ease Ownership Restrictions,” Reuters, October 3, 2005.
48. See Katy Bachman, “Clear Channel Divides into Three,” Mediaweek, May 2, 2005.
49. http://www.xmradio.com/newsroom/screen/press_release_1999_06_08.html.
50. Quoted in Sarah McBride, “Hit by iPod and Satellite, Radio Tries New Tune: Play More Songs,” Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2005.
51. However, XM Satellite Radio provides weather and traffic reports for twenty-one cities.
52. See Walter Kirn, “Stuck in the Orbit of Satellite Radio,” Time, May 23, 2005.
4: NEWS FROM NOWHERE
1. In late 2004 Sinclair began selling some of its stations, and it was down to fifty-eight in April 2006.
2. See the transcript for CNN’s American Morning, October 12, 2004: http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/12/ltm.06.html.
3. For more on Hyman, see http://www.sinclairwatch.org/sinclair_report.pdf.
4. See “Sinclair and the Public Airwaves: A History of Abuse,” Free Press, October 11, 2004, http://www.sinclairwatch.org/sinclair_report.pdf. See also http://officialmedia.blogspot.com/; http://web.archive.org/web/20030401200453/ www.newscentral.tv/thepoint/thepoint.shtml; http://mediamatters.org/items/ 200412140002; and http://www.alternet.org/story/15718. In addition to Hyman’s editorial, these segments included one called “Truth, Lies and Red Tape,” which offered examples of government waste and inefficiency, and news reports broadcast by Sinclair’s Washington, D.C., bureau that were so consistently skewed to the right that reporters and producers complained they were having trouble getting moderate or Democratic sources to talk to them.
5. For information about the Norman Lear Center’s local news and elections project, see http://www.learcenter.org/html/projects/?cm=news.
6. See Bob Papper, Local Television News Study of News Directors and the General Public, Radio and Television News Directors Foundation, 2003, pp. 23-24; and Tom Rosenstiel, Carl Gottlieb, and Lee Ann Brady, “Local TV News: What Works, What Flops, and Why,” Columbia Journalism Review, January-February 1999.
7. Martin Kaplan, Ken Goldstein, and Matthew Hale, Local News Coverage of the 2004 Campaigns: An Analysis of Nightly Broadcasts in 11 Markets, The Lear Center Local News Archive, February 15, 2004. (Emphasis added.)
8. See the state of Washington’s report at http://vote.wa.gov/general/recount.aspx.
9. Kaplan, Goldstein, and Hale, “Local News Coverage of the 2004 Campaigns,” p. 15.
10. There is a vast literature on the link between television coverage and racial discrimination. See Martin Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999); Robert Entman and Andrew Rojecki, The Black Image in the White Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); and Jerry Kang, “The Trojan Horses of Race,” Harvard Law Review 118 (2005); 1491-1593. Neil Postman and Steve Powers condemn the use of actor-anchors: “The fact that the audience is being deluded into thinking that an actor-anchor is a journalist contributes a note of fakery to the enterprise. It encourages producers and news directors to think about what they are doing as artifice, as a show in which trust-telling is less important than the appearance of truth-telling.” They are similarly critical of TV consultants: “Consultants are hired by stations to find ways to increase the ratings of news shows, and to do so quickly. The usual way to proceed is by emphasizing ‘hair-spray’ ethics at the expense of solid journalism.” Neil Postman and Steve Powers, How to Watch TV News (New York: Penguin, 1992), pp. 32, 77. Also see chapter 6 of Leonard Downie Jr. and Robert Kaiser, The News about the News: American Journalism in Peril (New York: Knopf, 2001).
11. Jon Fine, “Local TV’s Brave New World,” Business Week, September 12, 2005.
12. Before 1992, when Congress passed the “Fin-Syn” rule (financial interest and syndication), networks were legally prohibited from producing and syndicating their own shows.
13. See the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s annual State of the News Media report: http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/narrative_localtv_ownership.asp?cat=5&media=6 and http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/narrative_localtv_ownership.asp?cat=5&media=6.
14. Ibid.
15. See the Scripps annual report: http://www.scripps.com/2002annualreport/10k/10.html.
16. Alan Frank, statement to U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, July 17, 2001, http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/071701Frank.pdf.
17. Alan Frank, “Keep Cap on Number of TV Stations for One Owner,” USA Today, February 24, 2002.
18. Dan Ackman, “The Infomercial Triumphant,” Forbes, November 11, 2002. According to a 2003 study of forty-five local television stations conducted by the Alliance for Better Campaigns, during a typical one-week period paid infomercials filled up about 14.4 percent of programming time, including popular daytime hours, whereas local public-affairs shows comprised under 1 percent of the schedule. The title of this study is All Politics Is Local: But You Wouldn’t Know It from Watching TV.
19. See Doreen Carvajal, “Is it News, Ad, or Infomercial?” http://www.journalism.indiana.edu/gallery/Ethics/isnews.html.
20. Quoted in Jeff Chester and Gary O. Larson, “Whose First Amendment?” American Prospect, December 17, 2001.
21. See http://www.publicintegrity.org/telecom/analysis/CompanyProfile.aspx?HOID=22261.
22. See http://www.stljr.org/. In 2006 the WB and UPN networks merged to form the CW network.
23. “Sinclair’s Shame,” Broadcasting and Cable, May 3, 2004, http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA414506.html?display=Editorials.
24. http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=NewsCenter.ViewPressRelease&Content_id=1276.
25. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6293163/site/newsweek/.
26. Moody’s: http://www.rbr.com/tvepaper/pages/october04/04-210_newsl.html.
27. The Smiths take in handsome salaries for their leadership at Sinclair. But they also keep busy with other enterprises, some of which take advantage of unconventional synergies with their television empire. David has large investments in car dealerships that are among the largest advertisers in Baltimore, and he benefits nicely when they buy commercials on his station. Frederick has a real estate company, Todd Village, which Baltimore Neighborhoods sued in 2004, alleging discrimination against African Americans by refusing to show them residential properties that they willingly showed to whites. See http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/3805874/detail.html.
28. Critics immediately pointed out that the sale price, $7 million, was suspiciously low given that Sinclair had just paid $55 million for WPGH, while WPTT, which was not sold through a public auction, was transferred to Edwards after he put down $10 for a $7-million loan. On the Edwards loan, see Teresa Lindeman, Rob Owen, and Barbara Vancheri, “Cashing It In: Eddie Edwards Sells WCWB,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 18, 1999. Edwards converted WPTT to WCWB in 1998. Sinclair acquired WCWB in 2000, after the FCC relaxed its duopoly restrictions, and changed the call letters to WPMY in 2006.
29. http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Copps/Statements/2001/stmjc133.html.
30. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-06-williams-whitehouse_x.htm.
31. According to the FCC’s rules on payola: “When a broadcast licensee has received or been promised payment for the airing of program material, then, at the time of the airing, the station must disclose that fact and identify who paid for or promised to pay for the material. All sponsored material must be explicitly identified at the time of broadcast as paid for and by whom, except when it is clear that the mention of a product or service constitutes sponsorship identification. Any broadcast station employee who has accepted or agreed to accept payment for the airing of program material, or the person making or promising to make the payment, must disclose this information to the station prior to the airing of the program. Any person involved in the production or preparation of a program who receives or agrees to receive payment for the airing of program material must disclose this information. Broadcast licensees must make reasonable efforts to obtain from their employees and others they deal with for program material the information necessary to make the required sponsorship identification announcements. The information must be provided up the chain of production and distribution before the time of broadcast, so the station can air the required disclosure. These rules apply to all kinds of programs aired over radio and television stations. Some may also apply to cable-casts.” See http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/PayolaRules.html.
32. Government Accountability Office, Department of Education—Contract to Obtain Armstrong Williams Services, September 30, 2005, B-305368.
33. See Howard Kurtz, “Writer Backing Bush Plan Had Gotten Federal Contract,” Washington Post, January 26, 2005; and Jim Drinkard and Mike Memmott, “HHS Said It Paid Columnist for Help,” USA Today, January 27, 2005.
34. Anne Kornblut, “Bush Prohibits Paying of Commentators,” New York Times, January 27, 2005.
35. See the KEF Web site: http://www.kefmedia.com/. Audience research confirms that viewers find VNRs more credible than commercials. Anne Owen and James Karrh, “Video News Releases: Effects on Viewer Recall and Attitudes,” Public Relations Review 22 (1996): 369-78. See also Anne Owen, “Breaking through the Clutter: The Use of Video News Releases in Integrated Marketing Communications,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, 1996. There are only a small number of academic research articles on how TV stations use VNRs. See Glen Cameron and David Blount, “VNRs and Air Checks: A Content Analysis of the Use of Video News Releases in Television Newscasts,” Journalism and Mass Communications Quarterly 73, no. 4 (1996): 890-904, and Mark Harmo and Candace White, “How Television News Programs Use Video News Releases,” Public Relations Review 27 (2001): 213-22.
36. See the transcript of National Public Radio, “Public Relations and the Media,” Talk of the Nation, March 15, 2005. John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, Toxic Sludge Is Good for You! Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1995), p. 184.
37. Quoted in David Barstow and Robin Stein, “Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News,” New York Times, March 13, 2005.
38. Marion Just and Tom Rosenstiel, “All the News that’s Fed,” New York Times, March 26, 2005.
39. See Michael Stoll, “News from Nowhere,” Grade the News, September 4, 2003.
40. Stauber and Rampton, Toxic Sludge; and Barstow and Stein, “Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News.”
41. Government Accountability Office, “To Heads of Departments, Agencies, and Others Concerned: Prepackaged News Stories,” memo, February 17, 2005.
42. Quoted in Accuracy In Media Report: Senator Clinton and the Fake News Scandal—April B, April 14, 2005, http://www.aim.org/aim_report/2866_0_4_0_C/.
43. See the GAO decision from May 19, 2004, at http://www.gao.gov/decisions/appro/302710.pdf.
44. Quoted in Robert Pear, “U.S. Videos, for TV News, Come Under Scrutiny,” New York Times, March 15, 2004.
45. Quoted in Ron Suskind, “Without a Doubt,” New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2004.
46. Ketchum, the firm that hired Armstrong Williams for the Department of Education, was the largest recipient of government contracts, with $97 million during Bush’s first term. See Jim Drinkard, “Report: PR Spending Doubled Under Bush,” USA Today, January 27, 2005.
47. Barstow and Stein. “Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News.”
48. See http://democrats.house.gov/news/librarydetail.cfm?library_content_id=632.
5: OWNING IT ALL
1. This quote from Caylor and the quotes from Bingham and Oppegard that follow are from Katharine Seelye, “The Day the News Left Town,” New York Times, January 30, 2006.
2. On the Bingham family, see Susan Tifft and Alex Jones, The Patriarch: The Rise and Fall of the Bingham Dynasty (New York: Summit, 1991). Gannett is formally incorporated in Delaware, where there is no income tax for companies that do not transact business in the state.
3. See Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Bread and the Newspaper,” reprinted in The Oxford Book of American Essays and available online at http://www.bartleby.com/109/.
4. James Surowiecki, “Printing Money,” New Yorker, April 3, 2006.
5. The combined print and Web circulation figures from the Newspaper Audience Database are reported in http://www.naa.org/nadbase/2005_NADbase_Report.pdf. The Audit Bureau of Circulations figures are for the six-month period ending on September 30, 2005.
6. The Project for Excellence in Journalism report on newspaper economics is available at http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/narrative_newspapers_economics.asp?cat=4&media=2; the Morton Research study was reported in “Something to Discover,” Columbia Journalism Review, November-December 2005, http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/6/editorial.asp; Katharine Q. Seelye, “At Newspapers, Some Clipping,” New York Times, October 10, 2005.
7. The quotes from FitzSimons and Mullen (see next paragraph) are available in the transcript from Tribune Company’s Mid-Year Media Review, June 24, 2003, http://www.tribune.com/investors/transcripts/midyear_03.html.
8. Frank Blethen, “Who’s Controlling Your Information?” speech at the University of Washington, October 26, 2004.
9. Jack Fuller, testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, July 17, 2001, http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/071701Fuller.pdf.
10. See the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data at http://www.naa.org/info/facts04/employment.html.
11. Phyllis Kaniss, Making Local News (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 35.
12. A. J. Liebling, The Press (New York: Pantheon, 1981).
13. George Ryan, “An Address on the Death Penalty,” the University of Chicago Divinity School, June 3, 2002. See http://pewforum.org/events/index.php?EventID=28.
14. Quoted in Gary Washburn, “Daley: Tribune Makes Chicago a Cubs Town,” Chicago Tribune, October 7, 2005.
15. See the CHA Web site: http://www.thecha.org/relocation/overview.html.
16. Ernest Hollings, statement at the Senate media concentration hearings, July 17, 2001, http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/071701EFH.pdf.
17. See, for example, the Federal Communications Commission, Media Ownership Working Group, Study 8: Consumer Survey on Media Usage, prepared by Nielsen Media Research, September 2002 (see especially questions 1 and 8); the Consumer Federation of America report New Survey Finds Americans Rely on Newspapers Much More than Other Media for Local News and Information, January 2004; and the Newspaper Association of America NADbase report for 2005, at http://www.naa.org/nadbase/.
18. For cautionary stories about cross-ownership in Milwaukee, Tampa, Dallas, Columbus, and Atlanta, see the Consumers Union, “Loss of Diversity, Local and Independent Voices Harms the Public Interest: Some Recent Examples,” March 11, 2003, http://www.consumersunion.org/telecom/media-d-report.htm. For an account of the Wisconsin State Senate’s stadium-financing debate, see Steve Fainaru, “Selig Plays Hardball on Stadium Deals,” Washington Post, June 27, 2004.
19. Federal Communications Commission, “FCC Issues Broadcast Ownership Biennial Review Report,” press release, May 30, 2000. In an article published by the American Bar Association, Harold Feld and Cheryl Leanza, from the Media Access Project, wrote: “At best, these multimedia conglomerates will homogenize news and entertainment into a single ‘infotainment’ package leveraged across multimedia platforms and targeted primarily at advertiser-coveted demographics. At worst, the few media gatekeepers may suppress news or perspectives that run counter to their economic or ideological interests, or to curry favor with the government.” Cheryl Leanza and Harold Feld, “More than a Toaster with Pictures: Defending Media Ownership Limits,” Communications Lawyer 21, no. 3 (2003): 12, 18-22.
20. According to U.S. Senate records, Tribune’s lobbying expenses were $72,000 in 2000, $121,000 in 2001, $147,000 in 2002, and $153,000 in 2003, the year of the FCC’s decision. See http://www.openairwaves.org/telecom/analysis/CompanyProfile.aspx?HOID=8033#Lobby.
21. Quoted in James Squires, Read All About It! The Corporate Takeover of America’s Newspapers (New York: Crown, 1993), p. 82; and Ken Auletta, “Synergy City,” American Journalism Review, May 1998.
22. Some reporters and editors at Media General and Tribune were given anonymity or pseudonyms as a condition of my observational research.
23. John Pavlik, the executive director of Columbia University’s Center for New Media, reports that “newspapers that have not set up a separate new media staff have put incredible demands on their reporters, who must now report for both the newspapers and online. People are putting in sixteen- to twenty-hour days and getting burned out.” Journalism and New Media (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 101.
24. Although computers and digital production programs allow for more efficient internal circulation of articles once they are written, writers and editors have not found that the high-tech editorial systems have given them more time to work. Summarizing the research on new editing technologies in 1991, the communications scholars David Weaver and Cleveland Wilhoit reported that with video display terminals and computers, “editing speed is reduced, because of the need for more proofreading, more keystrokes to make changes, and greater manual dexterity.” David Weaver and Cleveland Wilhoit, The American Journalist: A Portrait of U.S. News People and Their Work, 2nd. ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 149.
25. The same anxieties are the basis of television criticism from Neil Postman, the late media scholar who authored Amusing Ourselves to Death (New York: Viking, 1985), and Pierre Bourdieu, the late sociologist whose book, On Television (New York: New Press, 1999) sparked a national debate about how television degraded both journalistic and public discourse in France.
26. http://www.journalism.org/resources/research/reports/ownership/default.asp.
27. James Squires, Read All About It! The Corporate Takeover of America’s Newspapers (New York: Crown, 1993), pp. 220, 210; Leonard Downie Jr. and Robert Kaiser, The News about the News: American Journalism in Peril (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2001), pp. 10-11, 92.
28. Davis Merritt, Knightfall: Knight Ridder and How the Erosion of Newspaper Journalism Is Putting Democracy at Risk (New York: Amacom, 2005), p. 4; Richard McCord, The Chain Gang: One Newspaper versus the Gannett Empire (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996).
29. The account of Gannett’s plans to establish a monopoly presence in Salem comes from McCord, The Chain Gang, chapters 2 to 5.
30. Ibid., p. 91.
31. Aurora Wallace, Newspapers and the Making of Modern America: A History (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005), p. 4. On Gannett’s relationship to the Newseum complex, see Thomas Frank, One Market under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy (New York: Doubleday, 2000).
32. Geneva Overholser, “In the Age of Public Ownership, the Importance of Being Local,” Columbia Journalism Review, November-December 1999.
33. For an extensive profile of Black, including an account of his relationship with Radler, see Dominic Rushe, “Black Narcissi,” Sunday Times, March 28, 2004, http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9071-1044025,00.html.
34. The series is available online at http://www.suntimes.com/special_sections/clout/ and http://www.suntimes.com/special_sections/clout/followup/
hired_020905.html.
35. The report by the Hollinger International special committee is available online at http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/868512/000095012304010413/
y01437exv99w2.htm. Hollinger International’s own journalists provided some of the best reports on Black’s and Radler’s “corporate kleptocracy.” See, for example, Eric Herman, “The Looting of the Sun-Times,” Chicago Sun-Times, September 1, 2004.
36. See Richard Siklos, “Hollinger Board Rides Out Criticism,” New York Times, September 26, 2005; Elena Cherney, “Radler Plea Deal Vows Cooperation in Hollinger Probe,” Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2005; and Elena Cherney, “Hollinger’s Black Is Likely to Face Broad Indictment,” Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2005.
37. For an excellent account of the business media’s failure to cover Enron, see Scott Sherman, “Enron: Uncovering the Uncovered Story,” Columbia Journalism Review, March-April 2002. The Houston Chronicle has archived its ongoing coverage of Enron, which is online at http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/special/01/enron/oct01/nudex.html.
38. See Charles Layton and Mary Walton, “Missing the Story at the State-house,” American Journalism Review, July-August 1998; and Neil Gordon, “State Lobbyists Near the $1 Billion Mark: For Every Lawmaker, There Are About Five Lobbyists,” Public Interest, Center for Public Integrity, August 10, 2005.
39. Wallace, Newspapers and the Making of Modern America, p. 145.
40. For an account of Carroll’s frustrations with Tribune, see Ken Auletta, “Fault Line,” New Yorker, October 10, 2005. On the Tribune’s $1-billion tax burden, see Kate Berry, “The Billion-Dollar Bite: Everything Went Wrong with Times’ Tax Gamble,” Los Angeles Business Journal, October 3, 2005.
41. On the loss of local journalism at the Times, see Auletta, “Fault Line.” See also Steve Wasserman, “Chicago Agonistes: The Plight of the L.A. Times,” Truthdig.com, November 28, 2005; and Joseph Hallinan, “Los Angeles Paper Bets on Softer News, Shorter Stories,” Wall Street Journal, October 3, 2005.
42. Quoted in Gadi Dechter, “London Falling,” Baltimore City Paper, October 12, 2005.
43. Associated Press, “Recent Newspaper Cuts,” November 18, 2005. By summer 2006 the Chandler family, which had sold Times Mirror to Tribune and become the company’s second-largest shareholder, announced that they too were fed up with Tribune’s business strategy. That June the Chandlers wrote an open letter calling for Tribune to break up and sell off the corporation.
44. The September 12 letter from Los Angeles civic leaders to Tribune is addressed to Mr. FitzSimons and Members of the Board of Directors. It was published in the Opinion section of the Los Angeles Times on September 19, 2006.
6: CHAINING THE ALTERNATIVES
1. See Jarrett Murphy, “Paper Route: Buying and Selling the Voice,” Village Voice, November 1, 2005, p. 31, for a brief account of the paper’s owners; and Alexander Cockburn, “Guess Who’s Paying for Dinner? Rupert Murdoch Buys the Voice,” Village Voice, January 10, 1977 (reprinted in November 1, 2005, p. 60), for the response to Murdoch’s takeover.
2. On the early history of the Voice, see Kevin McAuliffe, The Great American Newspaper: The Rise and Fall of the Village Voice (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1978).
3. Wolf is quoted in ibid., p. 92, and McAuliffe’s line is from ibid., p. 96. McAuliffe has an excellent account of the Voice’s role in the fight to save Washington Square Park, pp. 91-99.
4. Calvin Trillin, “U.S. Journal: Seattle, Wash.: Alternatives,” New Yorker, April 10, 1978.
5. See the Project for Excellence in Journalism report on alt weeklies at http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/chartland.asp?id=332&ct=line&dir=&sort=&coll_box=1.
6. See the AAN’s overview of the report at http://aan.org/gyrobase/Aan/ViewPage?oid=145320, or the executive summary at http://aan.org/files/inf.pdf.
7. Sandra Yin, “The Weekly Reader,” American Demographics, May 1, 2002.
8. Lacey is quoted in Eric Bates, “Chaining the Alternatives,” Nation, June 29, 1998.
9. Mark Jurkowitz, “No Alternative,” Boston Phoenix, August 31, 2005.
10. Lacey is quoted in Bates, “Chaining the Alternatives.”
11. See the transcript from “The Future of Alternative Newspapers,” NPR, Talk of the Nation, October 27, 2005.
12. Mike Lacey, “Brugmann’s Brain Vomit,” San Francisco Weekly, September 7, 2005.
13. Mark Jacobson, “The Voice from Beyond the Grave,” New York, November 14, 2005.
14. Harold Meyerson, “Hold the Politics,” Los Angeles Weekly, January 24-30, 2003.
15. Marc Cooper, “Return of New Times,” Los Angeles Weekly, November 4-10, 2005.
16. Rodney Benson, “Commercialism and Critique: California’s Alternative Weeklies,” in Nick Couldry and James Curran, eds., Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked World (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), pp. 117, 119.
17. Their comments explain Benson’s discovery that, compared to other alt weekly publishers, “New Times papers are the most consistently anti-protest. Activists appearing in their pages always play comic roles. For instance, the SF Weekly delights in exposing what it calls the ‘only in San Francisco’ protests … [and] typical LA Weekly headlines include ‘Review this Book or Else: The Latest Gripes from the “Gun-Toting Lesbians’” and ‘Three Guys and a Megaphone: The JDL’s Shrinking Role in Jewish Extremism.’” See Benson, “Commercialism and Critique,” p. 118.
18. John Mecklin, “Mecklin,” San Francisco Weekly, June 9, 1999.
19. See San Francisco Bay Guardian’s chronology, “The First 30 Years,” San Francisco Bay Guardian, thirty-year anniversary issue, 1996.
20. Ibid.
21. Tim Redmond, “The Predatory Chain,” San Francisco Bay Guardian, March 6, 2002.
22. John Mecklin, “It’s the Journalism, Bruce,” San Francisco Weekly, March 13, 2002.
23. Amy Jenniges reports that “according to a memo obtained by the Bay Guardian, Schneiderman told New Times execs earlier this year that VVM’s San Francisco and Cleveland papers were ‘locked in a brutal struggle … with no sign of success.’ He wrote: ‘In the 2004 Calendar year, SF Weekly, East Bay Express, and the Cleveland Scene racked up losses of $4 million.’” Amy Jenniges, “Chain Gang,” Seattle Stranger, October 27-November 2, 2005.
24. Quoted in Tim Redmond, “Bay Guardian Sues New Times Chain for Predatory Pricing,” San Francisco Bay Guardian, October 20-26, 2005.
25. See Tim Redmond, “Chain Gang,” San Francisco Bay Guardian, May 25-31, 2005; and “SOS: No Secret New Times-Village Voice Media Deal,” San Francisco Bay Guardian, August 24, 2005.
26. Tim Redmond, “Merger on the March,” San Francisco Bay Guardian, August 31-September 6, 2005.
27. The press release is available at http://www.villagevoice.com/aboutus/index.php?page=merger.
28. The press release is available at ibid.
29. “Mike Lacey to Village Voice: Drop Dead!” San Francisco Bay Guardian, November 9-16, 2005.
30. “The Final Merger Battle,” San Francisco Bay Guardian, November 30-December 6, 2005.
31. http://www.cantstopwontstop.com/blog/2005/10/eulogy-for-alt-weekly.cfm.
7: THE NET AND THE NEWS
1. At Marketwatch.com, Jon Friedman wrote that “although New Orleans is certainly a prominent (and beloved) American city, many of the national network reporters seemed to have little real feeling for or understanding of the city’s psyche. The onrushing media practically acted as if they had been dropped into Zimbabwe.” See Jon Friedman, “TV Employs a Familiar Hurricane Script,” August 31, 2005.
2. See Joab Jackson, “Telephone Infrastructure Was No Match for Katrina,” Washington Technology, November 7, 2005.
3. For an account of how the New Orleans Times-Picayune managed to continue publishing, see the three-part series by Paul McCleary, “The Times-Picayune: How They Did it,” CJR Daily, September 12, 2005; “Embedded with the Times-Picayune in New Orleans,” CJR Daily, September 13, 2005; and “In New Orleans, Everyone’s a Critic,” CJR Daily, September 14, 2005.
4. I wrote this rough transcript while watching the webcast on August 31, 2005.
5. Transcript of “Showdown at the FCC,” NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (PBS), May 15, 2003.
6. James Gattuso, “The Myth of Media Concentration: Why the FCC’s Ownership Rules are Unnecessary,” the Heritage Foundation Web Memo no. 284 (May 2003).
7. See Powell’s interview with the University of Southern California Annenberg School’s Online Journalism Review at http://www.ojr.org/ojr/law/powell.php.
8. For a useful summary of the differentiated-use aspect of the digital-divide problem, see Paul DiMaggio, Eszter Hargittai, Coral Celeste, and Steven Shafer, “From Unequal Access to Differentiated Use: A Literature Review and Agenda for Research on Digital Inequality,” in Katherine Neckerman, ed., Social Inequality (New York: Russell Sage, 2004), pp. 355-400; and Leslie Harris and Associates, Bringing a Nation Online, http://www.civilrights.org/publications/reports/nation_online/
bringing_a_nation.pdf. The statistics on Internet usage are from the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School, 2005 Digital Future Report. The highlights are available online: http://www.digitalcenter.org/pdf/Center-for-the-Digital-Future-2005-Highlights.pdf.
9. See the PEJ 2006 report at http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2006.
10. Transcript of “Showdown at the FCC.
11. Johnnie Roberts and Barry Diller, “Is Big Media Bad?” Newsweek, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3606172/.
12. http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2005/narrative_online_intro.asp?cat=1&media=3.
13. The high-profile cases involving major U.S. media companies that failed to accurately report on issues of local, national, and international significance have compromised public confidence in the major media. Even after earning broad acclaim and a heightened national audience for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina, the “mass media” enjoyed the trust of only half of the population, compared to the more than 70 percent trust levels it enjoyed in the 1970s. According to the annual Gallup governance survey, 68 percent of Americans trusted the mass media in 1972, rising to a highpoint of 72 percent who expressed a good deal or fair amount of trust in the media in 1976. Public confidence in mass media had declined to 53 percent by 1997, when Internet news sites began to proliferate, and it remained there until 2003, when it dropped to a record low of 44 percent amid high-profile journalistic scandals, some of which involved credulous coverage of the U.S. government’s case for war in Iraq. Gallup conducted another survey in late September 2005, immediately after the media had aggressively covered Hurricane Katrina, and 50 percent of respondents reported having a “great deal” (13 percent) or “a fair amount” (37 percent) of trust in mass media. See Joseph Carroll, “Trust in Media Rebounds Somewhat this Year,” Newswatch, September 27, 2005.
14. Dan Gillmor, We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, For the People (Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly, 2004), p. 74. The story of Wal-Mart’s use of bloggers for public relations is reported in Michael Barbaro, “Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in Its Public Relations Campaign,” New York Times, March 7, 2006. BusinessWeek Online, reported that during Katrina, Wal-Mart achieved a “PR coup” by enlisting bloggers to spread its self-promotional story line: “Government doesn’t work, Wal-Mart does.” See Stephen Baker, “Edelman Shows Wal-Mart the Power of Blogs,” BusinessWeek Online, October 26, 2005.
15. “For the Record,” Los Angeles Times, December 28, 2005.
16. The transcript was published in the New York Times and is available at http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30615F83B580C7A8CDDA90994D8404482. See the Urban Legends Web site for an account of the Federal Bill 602P hoax, http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/bill602p.asp.
17. See the site at http://www.dhmo.org.
18. Gillmor, We the Media, p. 188.
19. The statement of purpose is available at http://www.gothamgazette.com.
20. See Mark Glaser, “Holy Policy Wonks, Batman! Gotham Gazette Aces Civic Duty,” Online Journalism Review, November 20, 2003, http://www.ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1069368190.php.
21. Archives of the Gazette’s 2001 election coverage are available online at http://www.gothamgazette.com/searchlight2001/index.shtml.
22. Jonathan Mandell, “Behind the Scenes: Gotham Gazette’s Rebuilding NYC,” Cyberjournalist, http://www.cyberjournalist.net/features/behindthescenes
/gothamgazette.html. In 2006 the staff writer Joshua Brustein reported on the death of James Zadroga, a thirty-four-year-old detective who spent 470 hours cleaning up Ground Zero and five years later died of lung disease and mercury poisoning—“a condition that hasn’t been a widespread occupational hazard for over a century when hatters were sickened as they dyed beaver pelts.” The Gazette, providing links to scattered news reports and the 9/11 Health Registry, speculated that the deaths of some twenty workers may be related to toxic poisoning at “the pile,” and that about five thousand of the forty thousand people who participated in the cleanup are not getting necessary health care. See Joshua Brustein, “The Heroes of 9/11 Are Getting Sick,” January 2006, http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/health/20060130/9/1742.
23. See two studies released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project: Elena Larsen and Lee Rainie, Digital Town Hall: How Local Officials Use the Internet and the Civic Benefits They Cite from Dealing with Constituents Online (Washington, DC: Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2002); and John Horrigan, How Americans Get in Touch with Government (Washington, DC: Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2004).
24. Patrick Healy, “Weld Aides Find a Way to Deal with Negative Press: Re-edit It,” New York Times, February 4, 2006. There is an emerging academic literature on e-government, most of which concludes that it is too early to make conclusive claims about the effects of government Web sites. In one of the few empirical studies, the public-policy scholars Donald F. Morris and M. Jae Moon found that “few local governments reported impacts from e-government, and not all the reported impacts have been positive (such as increased work for staff) and some anticipated positive impacts have not occurred (such as revenue production, staff reductions, and lowered administrative costs).” Donald F. Morris and M. Jae Moon, “Advancing E-Government at the Grassroots: Tortoise or Hare?” Public Administration Review 65, no. 1 (2005): 64-75. Darrell West, a policy scholar at Brown University, publishes an annual Urban E-Government Report on his Web site, http://www.insidepolitics.org, and is the author of Digital Government: Technology and Public Sector Performance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).
25. See Daniel Drezner and Henry Ferrell, “The Power and Politics of Blogs,” http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~farrell/blogpaperfinal.pdf.
26. A rave review from the influential music Web site Pitchfork was even more important in launching the band, generating thousands of sales on http://www.insound.com, which is a popular way that independent bands without major labels distribute their albums.
27. http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2005/11/20/opinionist_corp.php.
28. See the BBC news coverage at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4567236.stm; the Wired coverage at http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,69741-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_13; and the Washington Post coverage at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/25/AR2005122500589.html.
29. The story is told in Bernard Lefkowitz, Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb (New York: Vintage, 1997).
30. The post is online at http://www.baristanet.com/barista/2005/12/our_hiphop_guys.html.
31. http://www.baristanet.com/barista/2006/05/what_do_mothers.html.
32. Michael Getler, “The News in Black and White,” Washington Post, September 25, 2005.
33. The most exhaustive and compelling version of this argument comes from the historical sociologist Paul Starr, The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications (New York: Basic Books, 2004).
8: FIGHTING FOR AIR
1. Thomas Bleha, “Down to the Wire,” Foreign Affairs, May-June 2005. For an account of how the U.S. public sector developed the Internet, see Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999).
2. See Michael Calabrese and Matt Barranca, “Reclaiming the Public Airwaves,” in Robert McChesney, Russel Newman, and Ben Scott, eds., The Future of Media (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2004), pp. 207-18. A group of economists at MIT and Carnegie Mellon recently found initial evidence that “broadband positively affects economic activity in ways that are consistent with qualitative stories told by broadband advocates. Even after controlling for economic-level factors known to influence broadband availability and economic activity, we find that between 1998 and 2002, communities in which mass-market broadband was available by December 1999 experience more rapid growth in (1) employment, (2) the number of businesses overall, and (3) businesses in IT-intensive sectors.” See William Lehr, Carlos Osorio, Sharon Gillett, and Marvin Sirbu, Measuring Broadband’s Economic Impact, report prepared for the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration. February 2006. Small cities are beginning to see high-speed Internet access as a key tool for development, and if private companies do not make it available they build it themselves. According to Robert McChesney and John Podesta, “When three major employers in Scottsburg, Ind. (pop. 6,040), threatened to leave town because they didn’t have the communications infrastructure needed to deal with their customers and suppliers, the town’s mayor, Bill Graham, went to the major cable and telephone companies for help. They told him that extending high-speed broadband services to Scottsburg wasn’t profitable enough. So the city decided to build a municipal wireless “cloud” using transmitters placed on water and electric towers that reach more than 90 percent of the surrounding county’s 23,000 residents … Scottsburg’s investment worked—the employers stayed.” See Robert McChesney and John Podesta, “Let There Be Wi-Fi,” Washington Monthly, January-February 2006.
3. The quotes from Rabe and Street are from a NewsHour with Jim Lehrer broadcast, “Philadelphia Plans City wide Wireless Internet,” http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/cyberspace/july-dec05/philadelphia_11-22.html.
4. On the telecom industry’s lobbying campaign to ban municipal wireless, see Mark Levy, “Lobbyists Try to Kill Philly Wireless Plan,” Associated Press, November 23, 2004, and other articles about the legislative process on the Free Press webpage dedicated to Pennsylvania’s wireless legislation, http://www.freepress.net/communityinternet/=PA. On Cohen’s political influence, see “Ex-Rendell Staff Chief Tops the List of Powerful,” Philadelphia Business Journal, May 23, 2003. On the telecom industry’s lobbying in Pennsylvania, see the Center for Public Integrity report, Well-Connected.
5. Matt Richtel, “Pennsylvania Limits Cities in Offering Net Access,” New York Times, December 2, 2004.
6. Chester is quoted in Jesse Drucker, “Verizon, Philadelphia Discuss Deal on City’s Wi-Fi Proposal,” Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2004.
7. David Baumgarten, More Cities Offering Wireless Internet Access, the Center for Public Integrity, September 29, 2005.
8. Although in Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League et al., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states are entitled to regulate how municipalities offer telecommunications services. Free Press has made an interactive map with information about community wireless projects across the United States. See http://www.freepress.net/communityinternet/networks.php.
9. Robert McChesney, The Problem of the Media (New York: Monthly Review, 2004), p. 283. See Wayne LaPierre, “Speak Out vs. FCC While You Can,” New York Daily News, July 18, 2003. Boxer is quoted in Jube Shiver Jr., Richard Simon, and Edmund Sanders, “FCC Ruling Puts Rivals on the Same Wavelength,” Los Angeles Times, June 9, 2003. McChesney also reports that in December 2003 Lou Dobbs Tonight polled its viewers on the question “Do you agree big media companies should be broken up?” More than 96 percent of thefive-thousand-plus respondents said yes.
10. Robert McChesney and John Nichols, Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy (New York: New Press, 2005), p. 178.
11. Adelstein is quoted in the transcript of his interview with Rick Karr for the PBS show NOW, April 4, 2003, available at http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_adelstein.html.
12. Jackson is quoted in Robert McChesney and John Nichols, “The Making of a Movement,” Nation, January 7, 2002.
13. The best historical account of the organized opposition to the private-sector and initial government plans for regulating broadcast media is Robert McChesney, Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy: The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928-1935 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). See also Paul Starr, The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications (New York: Basic Books, 2004). On the campaign led by the Office of Communications of the United Church of Christ, see Kay Mills, Changing Channels: The Civil Rights Case that Transformed Television (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 2004).
14. The quoted passages here are from Robert Horwitz, “Broadcast Reform Revisited: Reverend Everett C. Parker and the ‘Standing’ Case,” Communication Review 2, no. 3 (1997): 311-48. My account of the case between the UCC and FCC draws heavily on Horwitz’s article.
15. Horwitz, “Broadcast Reform Revisited.”
16. Ibid. The source for WLBT’s employment and audience statistics is from Kay Mills, “Changing Channels,” U.S. National Archives and Records Administration 36, no. 3 (Fall 2004).
17. Office of Communication of United Church of Christ v. FCC, 1966, p. 1003.
18. Horwitz, “Broadcast Reform Revisited.”
19. Bozell’s comments are from his testimony before the U.S. Senate hearing on indecency, sponsored by the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, November 29, 2005. The ACLU letter is available online at http://www.aclu.org//freespeech/commercial/109641eg20040210.html.
20. McCain’s remarks are available at http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=1127&wit_id=2532.
21. See the FCC press release: “FCC Media Bureau Finds Substantial Consumer Benefits in A La Carte Model of Delivering Video Programming,” February 9, 2006.
22. McCain is quoted in U.S. PIRG, The Failure of Cable Deregulation, August 2003.
23. U.S. General Accounting Office, Wire-Based Competition Benefited Consumers in Selected Markets, GAO-04-241, February 2004, pp. 60-61.
24. See Kimmelman’s testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, in a hearing on escalating cable rates, March 25, 2004. The figures on cable ownership come from U.S. PIRG, The Failure of Cable Deregulation.
25. The testimony of James Robbins at the hearing on escalating cable rates is available at http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=1127&wit_id=2835. The Cox Communications annual report for 2003 is available at http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/IROL/76/76341/reports/AR_2003/letter.html.
26. Roberts is quoted in a Comcast press release, http://www.cmcsk.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=118591&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=670027. The Comcast annual reports are available at http://www.cmcsk.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=118591&p=irol-reportsAnnual#.
27. A Center for Digital Democracy report on how cable companies campaigned against á la carte pricing is at http://www.democraticmedia.org/news/marketwatch/cablelies.html.
28. L. Brent Bozell’s testimony is from the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, indecency hearing, January 19, 2005.
29. See the original article, Mark Rahner, “FCC Indecency Fight Chilling Free Speech?” Seattle Times, April 24, 2004.
30. Michael Copps, testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, February 11, 2004. A recent study by Jonathan Rintels, executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, and Phil Napoli, a professor of communications and media management at Ford-ham University, supports Copps’s claim for the radio industry. In “Ownership Concentration and Indecency in Broadcasting: Is there a Link?” the authors show that “ninety-six percent of the FCC indecency fines from 2000 to 2003 were levied against four of the nation’s largest radio station ownership groups: Clear Channel, Viacom, Entercom and Emmis. The percentage of overall indecency fines incurred by these four companies was nearly double their 48.6 percent share of the national audience. In contrast, the 11,750 other U.S. radio stations not owned by these companies—88 percent of the country’s stations—received just four FCC indecency violations. Eighty-two percent of the radio programs that generated FCC indecency fines were owned by large, vertically integrated radio station ownership groups.” The report is available online at http://www.creativevoices.us/cgi-upload/news/news_article/FINALReport 090605.pdf.
31. On the value of ESPN for Disney, and the consumer survey of cable viewers, see Leslie Cauley, “How We Pay for Cable May Be About to Change,” USA Today, March 1, 2006.
32. L. Brent Bozell and Gene Kimmelman, “Enough with the ‘All or Nothing’ Bit,” Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 5, 2006.
33. Parents Television Council, “PTC Calls Time Warner’s ‘Family Tier’ a ‘Very Bad Joke,’” December 15, 2005.
34. See the FCC press release “FCC Media Bureau Finds Substantial Consumer Benefits in A La Carte Model of Delivering Video Programming,” February 9, 2006.
35. Ken Belson, “FCC Sees Cable Savings in a la Carte,” New York Times, February 10, 2006; Kimmelman and Bozell are quoted in Leslie Cauley, “Study: A la Carte Cable Would be Cheaper,” USA Today, February 10, 2006.
36. Speaking for Ourselves is available at http://www.youthmediacouncil.org/pdfs/speaking.pdf.
37. Is KMEL the People’s Station? is available at http://www.youthmediacouncil.org/pdfs/BuildAPeoplesStation.pdf.
1. For reports on the lobbying expenditures of media companies, see http://www.opensecrets.org.
2. Patricia Aufderheide, Communications Policy and the Public Interest: The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (New York: Guilford Press, 1999). p. 1.
3. Hundt’s comment about his fortunate seat assignment appears in Ken Auletta, “Selling the Air,” New Yorker, February 13, 1995. The remarks about the 1996 Telecom Act from Clinton, Gore, and Hundt are available at http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/laws/majorlaw/telecomc.htm.
4. See the Common Cause Education Fund, The Fallout from the Telecommunications Act of 1996: Unintended Consequences and Lessons Learned, 2005.
5. William Safire, “The Five Sisters,” New York Times, February 16, 2004.
6. See Frank Rose, “Big Media or Bust,” Wired, March 2002; Eric Boehlert, “The Media Borg’s Man in Washington,” Salon, August 6, 2001; and Paul Davidson, “‘Team Player’ Powell Takes Over as FCC Chairman,” USA Today, January 23, 2001.
7. Hundt is quoted in Frank Rose, “Big Media or Bust,” Wired, March 2002.
8. A transcript of the House hearing is available at http://www.energycommerce.house.gov/107/action/107-21.pdf. Hollings is quoted in Boehlert, “The Media Borg’s Man in Washington.” The FCC news release on the waiver is available at http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Mass_Media/News_Releases
/2001/nrmm0108.html, and Commissioner Tristani’s dissent is at http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Tristani/Statements/2001/stgt149.html.
9. Michael Powell, “The Public Interest Standard: A New Regulator’s Search for Enlightenment,” April 5, 1998. For a transcript, see http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Powell/spmkp806.html.
10. William Safire, “The Urge to Converge,” New York Times, March 7, 2002.
11. William Safire, “Merger Mania Can Hurt Media,” New York Times, January 20, 2003.
12. William Safire, “Regulate the F.C.C.,” New York Times, June 16, 2003.
13. William Safire, “The Great Media Gulp,” New York Times, May 22, 2003.
14. See the full text of Trent Lott’s statement at http://lott.senate.gov/news/2000/0606.fcc.html.
15. Richard Burr and Jesse Helms, “Keep Control of Local TV,” Charlotte Observer, October 19, 2003.
16. Wayne LaPierre, “Speak Out vs. FCC,” New York Daily News, July 18, 2003; and National Rifle Association, “Urgent NRA Bulletin: Media Monopoly Alert,” May 14, 2003.
17. The two CPI reports are online: On the Road Again—and Again is available at http://www.openairwaves.org/telecom/report.aspx?aid=15, and Behind Closed Doors is at http://publicintegrity.org/telecom/report.aspx?aid=83.
18. This remark and the Copps statements quoted below are available on his FCC Web site, http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/copps/welcome.html.
19. Quoted in Catherine Yang, “The FCC’s Loner Is no Longer so Lonely,” Business Week, March 24, 2003.
20. See Robert McChesney, The Problem of the Media, chapter 7, “The Uprising of 2003” (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004). Quotes from the hearing are reported in Bob Rayner and McGregor McCance, “Media Issue Gets Full Venting,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 28, 2003.
21. Copps’s speech at the University of Southern California is available at http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-233924A1.pdf.
22. According to an American Journalism Review study, commercial television and the cable networks had forced a “News Blackout” on the FCC’s ownership policy debate, providing “virtually no coverage” on the matter during the first five months of 2003. See Charles Layton, “News Blackout,” American Journalism Review, December-January 2004.
23. The texts of Copps’s call for hearings are available at http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-229233A1.pdf and http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-230981A1.pdf. The quote by Adelstein is from his interview with Rick Karr on the PBS show NOW, April 4, 2003. The transcript is available at http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_adelstein.html.
24. Adelstein is quoted in McChesney, The Problem of the Media, p. 275.
25. The quotes from Adelstein and Powell come from PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, June 2, 2003. The transcript is available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june03/powell_6-2.html.
26. MoveOn.org Civic Action is a 501(c)(4) organization, which is legally permitted to lobby for legislation but not to intervene in political campaigns. MoveOn.org Political Action is a federal PAC, and it is allowed to raise hard money for political candidates.
27. Powell claimed to be a surrogate for the people on the PBS show NOW, April 4, 2003. See http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_powell.html.
28. McChesney, The Problem of the Media, p. 285.
29. Safire, “The Great Media Gulp.” Michael Copps, “Statement at USC Media Consolidation Forum,” April 28, 2003.
30. See the June 2 NewsHour with Jim Lehrer at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june03/powell_6-2.html.
31. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Web site has the dissenting statements from both Copps and Adelstein. See http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/conglomeration/.
32. Hollings and Wyden are quoted in Dominic Timms, “U.S. Media Bill Faces Further Revolt,” Guardian, July 16, 2003.
33. The Media Access Project’s petition is available at http://www.mediaaccess.org/programs/diversity/PrometheusPetReview.pdf.
34. Quoted in Leon Lazaroff, “Radio Activists Take on FCC, Media,” Chicago Tribune, October 16, 2003.
10: LOW POWER TO THE PEOPLE
1. Greg Ruggiero, Microradio and Democracy: (Low) Power to the People (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999), p. 17.
2. There is an accessible account of the Class D licensing history at http://www.diymedia.net/feature/fhistlpfm.htm.
3. See Matt Spangler, “FCC Tries to Sink Pirate Operation,” Radio and Records, November 7, 1997; and visit the Web site for Beat Radio, at http://www.beatworld.com/.
4. Korn is quoted in a press release released by Prometheus, available online at http://www.prometheusradio.org/releaseaug99.shtml.
5. The FCC statement, docket 99-25, is available at http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-00-19A1.pdf.
6. Dunifer’s e-mail is quoted in Ron Sakolsky, “The LPFM Fiasco,” LiP Magazine, January 17, 2001.
7. See the FCC’s document “Low Power FM Radio Service: Allegations and Facts,” available at http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Mass_Media/Factsheets/lpfmfact032900.html.
8. For a sample of the NAB’s statements on LPFM, including the audio file of signal interference, see http://www.nab.org/newsroom/issues/lpfm/default.asp. The FCC’s response to the NAB’s claims about cross-talk interference is available at http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Mass_Media/Factsheets/lpfmfact032900.html.
9. See the NPR statement at http://www.npr.org/about/press/000406.Ipfmlegislation.html.
10. See Pete Tridish and Kate Coyer, “A Radio Station in Your Hands Is Worth 500 Channels of Mush!” in Elliot Cohen, ed., News Incorporated: Corporate Media Ownership and Its Threat to Democracy (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005), p. 300.
11. Quoted in Alex Markels, “Radio Active,” Wired, June 2000, http://wiredvig.wired.com/wired/archive/8.06/radio.html?pg=5&topic=&topic_set=.
12. Quoted in Tridish and Coyer, “A Radio Station in Your Hands,” p. 300. The full document is available at http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/
News_Releases/2000/nret0005.html.
13. The FCC document is available at http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/lpfm/index.html#RETURN.
14. Tridish and Coyer, “A Radio Station in Your Hands,” p. 300.
15. See Mary Louise Wrabley, “Two Little Radio Stations that Could,” Chesapeake BayWeekly.com, March 10-16, 2005.
16. See the Washington Post’s report on the barn raising at http://www.prometheusradio.org/barnartpost.shtml.
17. For statements on the boycott and resolution, see http://www.ciw-online.org/contact.html.
18. Jim Ridley, “Low Power to the People,” Nashville Scene, April 14-20, 2005.
19. See ibid.
CONCLUSION: THE DIGITAL FRONTIER
1. All the quotes from the hearing are in the transcript of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Prometheus Radio Project v. Federal Communications Commission, February 11, 2004.
2. Quotes from the Third Circuit Court’s decision are from the Media Access Project, “Prometheus v. FCC: Summary of the Third Circuit Opinion,” June 24, 2004.
3. See Andrew Ross Sorkin, “Former FCC Chief to Join Providence Equity,” New York Times, August 11, 2005; Olga Kharif, “Why Did Providence Hire Michael Powell?,” BusinessWeek Online, August 14, 2005; and James Granelli, Sallie Hofmeister, and Jon Healey, “FCC Finds Itself Up to Its Neck in Hot Issues,” Los Angeles Times, January 24, 2005.
4. Merritt is quoted in Paul Nowell, “FCC Holds Hearing on ‘Localism’ in Charlotte Media,” Associated Press, October 22, 2003. Klenz is quoted in Mark Washburn, “Hearing Gauges Media’s Service,” Charlotte Observer, October 23, 2003.
5. L. A. Lorek and Travis E. Poling, “Complaints and Praise Heard in S.A.,” San Antonio Express-News, January 29, 2004.
6. See Dirk Lammers, “FCC Opens Airwaves at Hearings,” Aberdeen News, May 26, 2004.
7. “Adelstein Hosts Town Meeting in Iowa on Deregulation,” Friday Morning Quarterback, October 7, 2005.
8. Keith Brown and Peter Alexander, “Do Local Owners Deliver More Localism? Some Evidence from Local Broadcast News,” Federal Communications Commission Media Bureau, June 17, 2004.
9. John Dunbar, “Lawyer Says FCC Ordered Study Destroyed,” Associated Press, September 14, 2006.
10. Quoted in Peter Kiefer, “John Kerry,” Hollywood Reporter, January 27,2004.
11. U.S. representative Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, asked NBC to turn over videotapes of the studio on election night that were rumored to show whether or not Welch pushed the news reporters to call the election. NBC refused his request.
12. For XM Satellite’s statement explaining why Clear Channel has the right to broadcast its programs and advertisements, see http://www.xmradio.com/lineup/letter.jsp.
13. Radley Balko, “Broadcast Lobby Fighting Satellite Radio,” FoxNews.com, July 4, 2004.
14. For Knight Ridder’s 2005 financial summary, see http://knightridderinfo.com/releases/index.php?id=810407. See Joseph Menn and James Rainey, “As Knight Ridder Goes, So May News Industry,” Los Angeles Times, November 8, 2005.
15. In summer 2006, for example, members of the Chandler family, which had sold Times Mirror to Tribune Company and become the corporation’s second-largest shareholder group, publicy demanded that Tribune break up its divisions and consider selling off the parts.
16. See Davis Merritt, Knight fall: Knight Ridder and How the Erosion of Newspaper Journalism Is Putting Democracy at Risk (New York: Amacom, 2005).
17. See Katharine Seelye and Andrew Ross Sorkin, “Newspaper Chain Agrees to a Sale for $4.5 Billion,” New York Times, March 12, 2006.
18. Pruitt’s interview aired on CNBC, March 14, 2006.
19. Simmons is quoted in Steve Levingston and Terence O’Hara, “McClatchy’s Paper Chase,” Washington Post, March 14, 2006.
20. See Joseph Menn, “Burkle May Bid High for Newspapers,” Los Angeles Times, April 6, 2006.
21. Holcomb is quoted in Joseph DiStefano and Thomas Ginsberg, “It’s Back to Bidding for City’s Papers,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 14, 2006.
22. The quotes from Foley and the Newspaper Guild are in Jennifer Saba, “Newspaper Guild Calls for Emergency Meeting over MediaNews Deal,” Editor and Publisher, April 27, 2006.
23. See Mike Cassidy, “A Sense of Relief, for Now, over Boss,” San Jose Mercury News, April 27, 2006; Joseph Menn and James Rainey, “Deal Set for Three Bay Area Papers,” Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2006; and Carolyn Said, “MediaNews to Acquire More Bay Area Papers,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 27, 2006.
24. The quote from Durbin and the report about fired staff members are cited in Gabriel Sherman, “Can Voice Make it Without Its Lefty Zest? New York Observer, April 24, 2006. Michael Lacey did not reply to my request to interview him about the Voice.
25. See the transcript from Democracy Now! April 13, 2006, available at www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/13/145245.
26. Randall Stross, “Hey, Baby Bells: Information Still Wants to Be Free,” New York Times, January 15, 2006.
27. Chester’s quote is from the Pacifica talk show Democracy Now! April 13, 2006. The U.S. Supreme Court could have helped to establish network neutrality protections in 2005, when it considered FCC v. Brand X, a case involving the question of whether cable companies were required to share their infrastructure with Internet service providers, including the small California company Brand X. Brand X argued that the Internet is a “telecommunications service,” and that—just as telephone companies are obligated to share their lines with competitors—cable companies should be treated as “common carriers” (“a company that provides the transmission of communications services to the general public”), obligated to give competitors access to the network for a reasonable fee. The FCC, however, claimed that the Internet is an “information service,” and that cable companies who offer it have no common-carrier responsibilities. In a six-to-three decision, the Court ruled in favor of the FCC, paving the way for discriminatory pricing of Internet services. For a useful overview of the Brand X case, see Marguerite Reardon, “FAQ: What Is Brand X Really About,” available online at http://news.com.
28. See the Savethelnternet.com press release at http://www.savetheinternet.com/=press2.
29. See http://www.twu-canada.ca/cgi-bin/news/fullnews.cgi?newsid1122447600,4516.
30. Martin is quoted in Mark Fitzgerald, “FCC Chairman Martin: Repeal of Cross-Ownership Ban Overdue,” Editor and Publisher, April 4, 2006.
31. Eddie Fritts, opening speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, Las Vegas, April 18, 2005.
32. Jonathan Segal, “Commissioners Get an Earful from the Public,” Monterey Herald, July 22, 2004.
33. Remarks of Commissioner Michael Copps at the FCC hearing on localism and license renewal, Monterey, California, July 21, 2004.