Forum on FCC License Renewal

On Tuesday, September 13, 2005 approximately 130 people attended a public hearing to voice their concerns with the state of local TV in Grand Rapids. Organized by the Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy (GRIID), the forum took place at the Wealthy Theatre, a facility operated by the Grand Rapids Community Media Center. Speakers representing community groups and individuals repeatedly described the local broadcast media's failure to cover issues of great importance to the Grand Rapids community-a failure to provide substantive election coverage, reporting on issues of class, gender, and race in a way that perpetuates stereotypes, a failure to provide substantive educational programming, and a failure to provide adequate international new coverage.

The public hearing was taped by GRTV and will be submitted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for review as part of the licensing process. Because the airwaves used by broadcasters are owned by the public, the FCC grants reviews of broadcasters' licenses every eight years and can deny a renewal in the event that stations fail to serve the "public interest," "convenience," or "necessity." The terms are fairly vague and the FCC has never explained how they define them, yet according to the research conducted by GRIID, the local broadcast media has failed to adequately serve the public interest.

Thirty-four people took the opportunity to speak at the forum, many using data compiled by GRIID in reports released over the past five years, as well as their own experiences dealing with the media. Citizens talked about how the media consistently displays their race as criminal, how positive activities in the neighborhood are ignored in favor of crime reporting, and how neighborhood issues are rarely reported. Local citizens groups also described how local broadcasters are often indifferent to their issues. These groups, many of whom struggle for media attention as a way to reach a large number of constituents despite limited budgets, outlined how the media either fails to cover their issues entirely or provide inadequate or erroneous coverage.

One of the areas which drew the most attention was the local media's failure to cover local elections. Citizens described how they rarely knew who the candidates on the ballot were, let alone their stances on important issues. Citizens described how the media provides "horse race" coverage in national elections focusing on the contest and polling data rather than issues, how many local elections are ignored entirely, and how the elected bodies such as the Grand Rapids Public School Board are only focused on during the election and are ignored in between terms unless there is "controversy." Following the nearly two hours of citizen testimony, representatives of WOOD TV 8 and WZZM 13 (WXMI 17 was absent), were allowed to respond to the comments made during the hearing. Both WOOD TV 8's News Director Patti McGettigan and WZZM 13's Catherine Behrendt provided brief defenses of their news broadcasts, explaining the difficulty they would have in providing the type of coverage speakers at the hearing expected. While both station representatives stated that they welcomed peoples comments and appreciated being invited, neither agreed to adopt the recommendations put forward by GRIID at the beginning of the evening. In response to this lack of commitment from the local TV stations, GRIID plans to host future community forums twice a year with the local TV stations to hold them accountable to their public service obligations. The success of these future forums will rely on the participation of groups and individuals in Grand Rapids and in order to keep people updated on the state of local media, GRIID has started issuing a regular series of Media Alerts.

For those who missed the hearing, comments can be sent to the FCC until September 30. GRIID has a number of sample letters available on their license renewal website and is encouraging people to send them to the FCC. For people who would like to receive the GRIID Media Alerts, either in electronic or snail-mail format, contact GRIID.

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