On Tuesday night, Sept. 14, a small group from Grand Rapids joined several hundred people for a town hall meeting on the Future of Media in Dearborn MI. The hearing, featuring FCC commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, was organized by the media reform organization Free Press to give the public a chance to voice concerns over the state of the media today. The event included two panels of people representing various viewpoints and interests concerning media and everyone in attendance were allowed two minutes to address the commissioners.
The event was called for by Free Press to supplement the six official FCC Localism Hearings initiated by FCC Chairman Michael Powell after millions of Americans expressed outrage at last year's loosening of media ownership rules. While scheduled to end at 9:30, the event lasted until almost 11:00 with the two commissioners staying until all people had a chance to speak. The majority of the people that addressed the commissioners during the public comment section voiced there concerns about the decline of journalism and localism in media and linked this decline to increased media consolidation.
African American and Arab American voices were well represented in the crowd, as well as on the panels. The Arab American speakers expressed their concern with negative depictions of themselves in the media as well as the lack of programming that spoke to their community. The African American speakers voiced a variety of concerns, including (but not limited to) the lack of minority owned radio and TV stations, negative stereotypes on TV, under representation on Detroit area TV and radio and the inability of local artists to get airplay on Detroit area radio stations. Also addressed was the Committee to Save Educational Radio in Detroit campaign opposing the leasing of the Detroit Public School radio station WRCJ.
Amongst the panelists was low power FM advocate Stacie Trescott of pirate station Radio Free Ferndale. Radio Free Ferndale is planned act of civil disobedience against media consolidation and the lack of Low Power FM stations in the form of a pirate radio station. The station will go on air for two weeks, will feature various community debates, forums, and public announcements, and has garnered a wide variety of supporters and endorsements.
Also present in the crowd were representatives of the National Association of Broadcasters and other corporate media owners or managers. Many of these representatives of the "mainstream" media, including the station director of WOOD TV 8, spoke about their supposed commitment to the public interest and claimed that the free market, not government regulation, was the best vehicle for policing the public air waves. This comment garnered a chorus of boos and hisses from the crowd as well as a spirited rebuttal from Commissioner Adelstein. Several charities read pre-perpared statements praising various corporate media outlets that had assisted them in raising funds. These statements were then in turn used by the various corporate media representatives to argue that they do indeed serve the public interest. Interestingly, none of the spokespeople for the corporate media gave a reason for why, with the exception of one Detroit News reporter, none of the local "mainstream" news outlets bothered to cover the night's proceedings.
