MEDIAWATCH FCC rules rollback gains momentum BY IAN DONNIS

In a fairly stunning development, Congress appears poised to reverse at least part of the sweeping media deregulation enacted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in early June.

As the New York Times reported on Wednesday, July 23, efforts in the House and Senate are focused on returning to 35 percent — from 45 percent — the percentage of national television viewers that can be reached by stations owned by a single corporation. Even though the FCC’s June 2 vote — which delivered the most significant changes to media ownership rules in a generation — received relatively little advance attention in the mainstream media, a grassroots coalition of critics has helped to generate bipartisan support for the rules rollback.

For now at least, however, efforts to reverse another part of the FCC deregulation — the ability of corporations to own a newspaper and television station in the same market — seems to be on hold. Even though some congressmen see maintaining media diversity as a vital goal, the Times reported, more of their colleagues either support the deregulation or doubt they have the votes to undo the lifting of the ban on cross-ownership.

As it stands, the Belo Corporation, which jumped into the big league of US media corporations when it bought the Providence Journal Company and its nine television stations in 1997, could still enhance the Providence Journal’s editorial and advertising dominance in Rhode Island by buying a local television station (see "Belo’s bonanza," News, May 30). And although things remain quiet on the surface, WLNE-TV (Channel 6), whose owner, California-based Freedom Communications, is on the block, still seems like the best bet. (Belo spokesman Scott Baradell didn’t return a call seeking comment.)

Maintaining a shred of media diversity strikes many observers as integral in an age when the number of corporations that own most of the news and entertainment media has diminished, from 50 to six, over the last 20 years, as media critic Ben Bagdikian has written in his landmark critique, The Media Monopoly.

This is an even more pressing issue locally, where the ProJo’s franchise has traditionally gained strength from the paper’s singular penetration throughout the state. "With any hope, these regulations are going to be revisited and changed, because Rhode Island is a perfect example," says Maureen Moakley, chair of the political science department at the University of Rhode Island. "With the exception of the Phoenix, with the exception of NPR and public television — and increasingly and interestingly, the emergence of talk radio — there isn’t a way to get out from under the establishment. The networks consign discussion of politics to 30-second sound bites. The Journal drives the agenda. There are no other venues, other than those I mentioned, to have some alternative. I think we really need it."

Beyond intermittent action alerts sent by the liberal group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) and relayed by the occasional activist, however, there seems to be little grassroots action on the deregulation issue in Rhode Island. The significance of the FCC vote continues to elude the attention of most Americans –— most of whom, after all, get the vast majority of their information from television. And although it will be a noteworthy development if Congress rolls back the national TV ownership cap, it would represent a relatively small step in the big picture.