When Jonathan Adelstein posed the question Monday evening, the response was predictable.
“Are you happy with the media here in Tampa Bay?” he asked.
“No!” the audience responded.
“Well,” the FCC commissioner replied, “we’re going to need a little more detail than that.”
For the next several hours, that’s what he got. The Federal Communications Commission was in Tampa to hear from opponents and advocates of media consolidation, and from others who don’t fit neatly into either category. Since June, the FCC has been reviewing several planned changes to the rules governing media ownership. The commission will hold two more public hearings and plans to come to a decision sometime next year.
Why come to Tampa? The city is part of one of the most highly converged major media markets in the country. Media General owns The Tampa Tribune, one of the largest newspapers in the state, WFLA, one of the largest television stations, and TBO.com, a Web site produced by the newspaper and television station.
The commission heard from two panels of 10 pre-selected experts — including a wide range of scholars, executives, advocates and journalists — before inviting two-minute statements from members of the audience.
At times, the debate surrounding media ownership can appear singularly uncomplicated. Consolidation is evil, one person argues. Consolidation is good, says another.
But if any one thing became clear at the hearing, it is this: Like most public-policy issues, the question of media ownership is more complex than that.
Media General vice president of news for broadcast Dan Bradley opened the first panel.
“Without a doubt, convergence has brought more eyes, ears and feet to the street,” said the former WFLA news director. Stories, he added, “belong to the community,” and convergence gets journalists working together to tell them in the best way possible. He did not mention the financial benefits of convergence, or his company’s recent elimination of 70 jobs at the Tribune.
Robert Dardenne, a professor of journalism and media studies at the University of South Florida, countered, saying convergence doesn’t improve the news, but homogenizes it.
“Convergence doesn’t enhance [a news organization’s] strengths, so much as blend them,” he said. This leads to a smaller number of mediocre publications. And, he added, fewer reporters.
Political blogger Jim Johnson, who maintains the Web site State of Sunshine brought a third perspective, arguing that because the Web sites of big news organizations have the most content, they draw the most traffic. He urged the FCC to provide oversight.
“If you can’t change the rules because local news will suffer, and you have to change the rules because local coverage is already starting to suffer, I think you have to find a middle ground,” he said.
Several people, both from the panels and the audience, spoke up in favor of diversity, one of the three values the FCC is charged with defending — the other two being competition and localism.
Patrick Manteiga, editor and publisher of La Gaceta, an English-Spanish-Italian weekly newspaper in Tampa, and one of the oldest minority-owned newspapers in America, said big media companies are squelching small, minority-owned publications all across the country.
In Tampa, he said, that’s exactly what Media General-owned Centro is doing to his publication.
“Competing against an opponent who has unlimited resources and is willing to operate at a loss is, in our view, unfair,” he said.
Despite the audience’s resounding reply to Adelstein’s opening question, several people came to the defense of the local media. Former Congressman Jim Davis, a self-professed opponent of media consolidation, said that “cross-ownership in this area has had some benefits.” The CEO of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers; advocates from Children’s Cancer Center, The Spring and the American Heart Association; and Mark Lunsford, a fierce advocate for child safety since his daughter, Jessica, was brutally murdered north of Tampa in 2005; all praised the local media.
“The media has never let me down,” Lunsford said.
Sam Rosenwasser, president and general manager of WTSP, the CBS affliate in Tampa, said Media General’s cross-ownership arrangement, with which he competes directly, hasn’t stifled competition in the Tampa Bay area.
“Each day, I compete with Media General, which owns The Tampa Tribune and TBO.com,” he said. “Has this newspaper/TV combination kept us from competing in the market? Absolutely not.”
In all, more than 100 people spoke to the commissioners. But while opinions, viewpoints and stories were easy to come by, practical suggestions were scarce. When she spoke in the second panel, Poynter president Karen Brown Dunlap offered one.
As she emphasized the importance of local public affairs reporting, Dunlap suggested the FCC require what she called a “community report” before relicensing any station.
“It would be a return to a more rigorous assessment,” she said. “It could involve a small task force of citizens, a cross-section of a community, led by a leader from outside that community, maybe a journalism professor.”
The task force would present its findings to the station leaders, the community and, ultimately, the FCC.
“Clearly any one form of media ownership doesn’t determine the quality of stewardship,” Dunlap said. “Many communities suffer under local owners who bleed their stations for profits and to promote personal interests. There are large corporations, including chain owners who serve local communities with outstanding service.”
Near the beginning of the hearing, Adelstein told the audience: “You’re the best jury, you’re the real experts.” Media ownership is an issue that affects everyone in America, but it has a particularly acute impact on journalists. You can submit a comment to the FCC here, or click here to tell us what you think.
Click on the images below to access video of testimony from a few of the expert panelists — video produced by Ellyn Angelotti.
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For those of you who want to learn more, here are the FCC rules under review.
- Local Television Ownership Limit
- Local Radio Ownership Limit
- Newspaper Broadcast Cross-Ownership Ban
- Radio Television Cross-ownership Limit
- Dual Network Ban
- UHF Discount on the National Television Ownership Limit
Also, here are 10 places worth checking out. A few of them lean pretty hard against media consolidation. Besides the folks who run major media companies, advocates for deregulation are relatively hard to come by.
Full Disclosure: The Poynter Institute owns The St. Petersburg Times, which competes with The Tampa Tribune.
