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Citizens tell FCC media failing at responsibilities
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Federal Communications Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, right, had a sympathetic audience at the hearing. At left is Dan Goldstein, senior advisor to FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. (MPR Photo/Jeff Horwich)
Twin Cities residents had a chance to vent to one of the nation's top broadcast regulators on Thursday night. Federal Communications Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein held a public forum at St. Paul's Hamline University.

St. Paul, Minn. — Adelstein is one of two Democrats on the FCC. The other, Michael Copps, was also supposed to attend, but for health reasons sent a senior staff member in his place. Adelstein says there's an open invitation to their three Republican colleagues to join them as they hold forums around the country.

In St. Paul, Adelstein had a sympathetic audience that flowed out of the music hall at Hamline and into the neighboring fieldhouse.

Both Democratic commissioners opposed the FCC action last year to loosen the limits on ownership rules of TV and radio stations. For now, those changes have been halted by an appeals court in Pennsylvania.

Adelstein credited activist citizens with putting pressure on the Republican FCC majority.

"They can no longer hide this thing or think that they can somehow sweep it under the rug. And that you aren't going to notice. We'll just do this proceeding and people will be mad for a while and then they'll forget. That is not what happened," he said.

Adelstein says there's no reason to hand more stations over to the nation's largest media companies when most commercial broadcasters are failing in their civic mission.

"One study showed that community public affairs programming accounts for less than one-half of one percent of programming nationwide. But paid infomercials count for 14 percent. With all those infomercials, I'm worried that we may be getting tight abs, but we're getting a flabby democracy," he said.

Adelstein prompted panelists about how theTwin Cities media are doing. University of Wisconsin media researcher Ken Goldstein aroused the crowd by suggesting things might not be so bad.

"Actually this might not have been a good place to have this forum, because the Twin Cities actually has very good local news, and has had a had a tradition of very good local news. Oh, and I'm glad to see we've got lots of social scientists here who've done all the research," Goldstein said.

Among those who balked at Goldstein's statement was Carl Nois, a Minneapolis college student.

"Local television news is a joke," he said. "It's infotainment. I turned it on for, like, the first time in two years, I got stories on SUVs underwater in California, puppies, Christmas lights, and the Holidazzle parade. And in a serious story like crime rates, they show unrelated black men being arrested."

A number of panelists shared that complaint, that images of minorities in local media are mostly negative. Lorena Duarte, editor of the newspaper La Prensa de Minnesota, suggested the FCC do more to foster minority ownership of news outlets.

"We're also going to show our assets, the things we're doing positively and well. As far as minority ownership, there is inherent understanding there, there is inherent understanding there," she said.

A number of speakers asked the FCC to promote low-power radio as a way to get more diversity on the airwaves. Officials from Twin Cities community radio statio KFAI asked the commission to lift a two-year freeze on its application for an additional frequency here.

A number of people came to the forum ready to speak against what they see as an egregious local example of media consolidation: The recent acquisition by Minnesota Public Radio of St. Olaf station WCAL. One of them was Kay Peltier.

"In the recent action by which the FCC allowed the transfer of this license, I belive the FCC abandoned its function as a watchdog and rubber-stamped a request by a media empire," she said.

Minnesota Public Radio's senior vice president of marketing, Sue Edberg, attended the forum. She says MPR is nothing like the nation's true media empires, such as ClearChannel. Edberg says MPR is listening closely to fans of WCAL to make sure some of their favorite features and hosts continue through MPR's classical music service.

"There are still upset people, still upset feelings, and I think Minnesota Public Radio does have to do some fence-mending. And we'll be working on that, and hopefully those former WCAL listeners will become loyal Minnesota Public Radio listeners," she said.

The commissioners conveyed before public comments began that they had no power at this point to affect the WCAL purchase.


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