Broadcasters Must Improve News Coverage, Say Copps, Adelstein Aide
NORFOLK, Va. -- Broadcasters must improve news programs by covering more local politics and minorities, airing music by independent artists and refusing payola, said FCC Comr. Copps and an aide to Comr. Adelstein. At an Old Dominion U. ownership forum here late Thurs., Copps ripped industry, declaring that local journalism gets “short shrift” from centralized operations. Video news release (VNR) material is palmed off “as if it was the real thing” and less than 0.5% of programs are devoted to public affairs, said Copps. Adelstein aide Rudy Brioche attacked VNRs for “masquerading as legitimate news.” He ripped payola, a pet issue of his boss (CD Dec 27 p3).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The FCC drew criticism from Copps and a tweak from Brioche on an Enforcement Bureau payola probe. Copps used the event, organized by Free Press, to slam the approach that former Chmn. Michael Powell took to media deregulation in 2003. “The FCC got it wrong -- wrong outcome, wrong process… We made a huge mistake,” he said: “The ball is back at the Commission’s court [and] discussions are under way” on redoing media ownership rules remanded to the Commission. Copps wants all commissioners at field hearings around the country on the topic the focus of the event here (CD March 31 p7).
The FCC must pursue payola charges by N.Y. Attorney Gen. Eliot Spitzer (D), whose probes show abuses perhaps “the worst in the history of broadcasting,” said Brioche. Secret product promotions are rife, “turning news and entertainment into undisclosed commercials,” he said, singling out The Apprentice and American Idol. “We need to stop payola and disclose promotions, one of media consolidation’s most pernicious” consequences, said Brioche. Payola is nothing new; the House Commerce Committee investigated it in 1959. But in recent years media activists have claimed a spate of radio mergers has worsened the problem.
The media stifle creativity, Copps complained. “We're moving away from localism to a kind of national sameness… We should all worry” about a sea of “precanned and nationalized fare aimed primarily at selling products,” he said. With less than 2% of U.S. broadcast assets owned by minorities, Copps said “media have a responsibility to reflect [diversity]… and they need to do a much better job of it.” Adelstein thinks “all parts of the community” must be covered, “not just the problems,” said Brioche.
Emergency information is a critical community need met by broadcasters, said an executive who spoke on a panel where about 100 attendees told the FCC representatives they're wary of further media consolidation. Don’t paint the industry with a broad brush based on isolated abuses, Tidewater Communications Pres. David Paulus said. “Just because you hear some stories of alleged payola doesn’t mean we are all on the take,” said Paulus, former pres. of Va. Assn. of Bcstrs. During Hurricane Isabel in 2003, 8 Tidewater employees lived in a radio studio, he said. They worked around the clock, subsisting on crackers and canned tuna, said Paulus: “We, along with many other media outlets in our area, were an absolute lifeline.”
NAB defended broadcasters, saying they serve the public interest. Broadcasters “are invested in the community and committed to localism,” said an NAB spokesman. Lauding news and emergency alert work by broadcasters, the spokesman wouldn’t comment further on the Commissioner’s remarks. PAL wouldn’t comment.