Calls for FCC Investigation Intensify
Feature Story by Michael Harmon - 9/28/2006
Revelations that two Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reports on the negative impacts of media consolidation may have been suppressed by the agency have prompted calls from members of Congress and advocacy groups for an independent investigation.According to media reports, one study, written in 2004, suggests that further media consolidation could reduce local news coverage. The other, drafted in 2003, addresses the negative impacts of radio consolidation.
Former FCC Lawyer Adam Candeub told the Associated Press that senior management at the FCC gave orders to destroy "every last piece" of the 2004 report. According to the public interest group Free Press, the 2003 report was never released and no subsequent studies of the topic have been conducted.
"If one or both of these reports were suppressed because they did not support official FCC policy, such actions could not only constitute fraud, but could also run counter to the FCC's state goals of transparency and public involvement in its media ownership proceedings," a group of 34 House members wrote in a September 21 letter to the FCC Inspector General.
Public interest groups Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, Free Press, and Media Access Project have also called for an investigation to "determine the extent to which the public was denied access" to the research.
Both studies are relevant to a past effort of the FCC, under the leadership of Chairman Michael Powell, to relax its media ownership rules, including a rule that would lift newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership restrictions. The letter from the House members notes that the 2004 study's conclusion that local news outlets produced more local news than their consolidated competitors ran counter to arguments made by the FCC during the 2002-2003 media ownership rulemaking process. The second study's evidence of increased radio consolidation, the House letter said, "would almost certainly have called into question the loosening of newspaper and television ownership rules finalized by the FCC in June 2003."
Under new Chairman Kevin Martin, the agency is once again reviewing its rules governing media ownership.
"This is a scandal. Apparently, FCC officials are willing to deep-six any research that contradicts industry's pro-consolidation claims. They can't be trusted. There needs to be an independent investigation and a full review of all research conducted under the leadership of Michael Powell and Kevin Martin," said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press.
The 2004 report came to light during Chairman Martin's re-confirmation hearing when he was asked about it by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D. Calif., who had obtained a copy of it indirectly from someone at the FCC. The second study surfaced less than a week later
Both Powell and Martin have denied any wrongdoing in the matter.
