Religion and News Media Share Commonalities, Waldman Says

The Internet boom of the 1990s and early part of last decade offers some hope for long-time institutions seeking to remain relevant, Waldman suggested. EToys, which some thought would become the top website for buying kids’ presents, went bust, he noted. But toysrus.com, owned by the brick and mortar retailer, is now the online leader, Waldman said in the annual Everett Parker Ethics in Telecom Lecture. The United Church of Christ helped organize it and was among the sponsors.

"If you embrace technology, use it as an exciting way to get your message out, rather than sticking your head in the sand, you will thrive,” Waldman said. That “would have been very good advice” for “TV news managers” to have heard. Journalists and religious authorities “both care, in some sense, about the good news,” he said. “There are more similarities there than might be first apparent, and I don’t mean that only news and the holy scripture tell stories about floods,” he said. “They both attempt to get at something they call the truth, they both try to do so in profoundly different ways” and “they both attempt to get at the question ‘why is the world this way?'”

At the same event, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps pressed his case for more diversity in media, while the head of the National Hispanic Media Coalition again sought an FCC inquiry into hate speech. Both men accepted awards, along with Joe Waz, who retired this year as senior vice president of Comcast. Commitments to diversity and selling cheap Internet access to the poor that Comcast made to buy control of NBCUniversal are bearing fruit and will continue to, Waz said.

"We're taking them on,” NHMC President Alex Nogales said of media that perpetuate what he called hate speech -- he didn’t define the term -- in markets including Los Angeles. “Hate speech is not good for anyone, it’s not good for people who are the recipients, or the people who are doing it,” he said. Hate crimes have risen in L.A. and in Washington, which he said “is not an accident” and comes after more hate speech.

"We still have so many miles to go to build the media that America requires,” said Copps. There’s “too little substance and too much fluff” now, he added. Consumers should “work for and insist upon a media environment that informs us with real news and information” and reflects “the diversity of this land,” he said. Copps speaks Monday in Phoenix about the report Waldman finished in June that was done under the auspices of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, who also will talk about its recommendations.

If Waldman had to send out a summary on Twitter of his 478-page report (http://xrl.us/bmesmp), it would be: “There is tremendous innovation in the modern media landscape, but there are very consequential gaps,” he said. “Technology has reduced the cost of gathering, producing and distributing news” while a “search engine-driven Internet has just made it much easier to find stuff out,” he said. Newer local news websites, some started by former traditional journalists, “have the skill, but not the scale” needed, Waldman said. He stumped for the report’s recommendation of disclosure by broadcasters of how they're serving their communities, including by disclosing news sharing and other arrangements with stations in the same market. “I don’t mean coverage that is locally relevant” should be disclosed in lieu of only local information, he said, “because that is a loophole that you can drive a truck through. But I mean news about their community, as that is commonly understood.”