FCC on the Information Needs of Communities

The FCC Working group on the Information Needs of Communities has just released its eighteen-months-in-the-making Future of Media report—now called “The Information Needs of Communities: The Changing Media Landscape in a Broadband Age.” The 365-page report thoroughly assesses the current news media landscape, including policy and regulation, and provides recommendations, some directed at the FCC, others to the broader community of policymakers, philanthropists, and citizens.

From the Report's Overview:

Thomas Jefferson, who loathed many specific newspapers, nonetheless considered a free press so vital that he declared, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” If he were alive today, Jefferson would likely clarify that his dedication was not to “newspapers” per se but to their function: providing citizens the information they need to both pursue happiness and hold accountable government as well as other powerful institutions.

That sense of the vital link between informed citizens and a healthy democracy is why civic and media leaders grew alarmed a few years ago when the digital revolution began undercutting traditional media business models, leading to massive layoffs of journalists at newspapers, newsmagazines, and TV stations. Since then, experts in the media and information technology spheres have been debating whether the media is fulfilling the crucial role envisioned for it by the Founders. In 2008 and 2009, a group that was both bipartisan (Republicans and Democrats) and bi-generational (“new media” and “old media”) studied this issue at the behest of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The group, the Knight Commission on Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, concluded: “America is at a critical juncture in the history of communications. Information technology is changing our lives in ways that we cannot easily foresee...The digital age is creating an information and communications renaissance. But it is not serving all Americans and their local communities equally. It is not yet serving democracy fully. How we react, individually and collectively, to this democratic shortfall will affect the quality of our lives and the very nature of our communities.”

The Knight Commission’s findings, as well as those of other blue-ribbon reports, posed a bipartisan challenge to the FCC, whose policies often affect the information health of communities. The chairman responded in December 2009 by initiating an effort at the FCC to answer two questions: 1) are citizens and communities getting the news, information, and reporting they want and need? and 2) is public policy in sync with the nature of modern media markets, especially when it comes to encouraging innovation and advancing local public interest goals?

A working group consisting of journalists, entrepreneurs, scholars, and government officials conducted an exploration of these questions. The group interviewed hundreds of people, reviewed scores of studies and reports, held hearings, initiated a process for public comment, and made site visits. We looked not only at the news media but, more broadly, at how citizens get local information in an age when the Internet has enabled consumers to access information without intermediaries.

This report is intended both to inform the broad public debate and help FCC Commissioners assess current rules.

Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010

From the FCC's October 8 press release on the signing of the 21^ST CENTURY COMMUNICATIONS AND VIDEO ACCESSIBILITY ACT:

“The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act is the most significant disability law in two decades. The law’s provisions were endorsed in the FCC’s National Broadband Plan. They will bring communication laws into the 21st Century, providing people with disabilities access to new broadband technologies and promoting new opportunities for innovation.

“Most importantly, the new law will ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind and can share fully in the economic and social benefits of broadband. The law will enable people with disabilities to participate in our 21^st century economy.

“It is thanks to the bipartisan efforts of the legislation’s sponsors Representative Markey and Senator Pryor and the bipartisan commitment of Chairmen Representative Waxman and Senator Rockefeller and ranking members Representative Barton and Senator Hutchison that this update to our nation’s disability laws has become a reality. Subcommittee Chairmen Representative Boucher and Senator Kerry and ranking members Representative Stearns and Senator Ensign are also to be commended for their tireless work."

See the Act and related materials here.

Benton Foundation

The Benton Foundation is a private foundation in existence since 1948 that works in the areas of public policy, specifically serving the public interest in the media and telecommunications arena.
Current priorities include Current priorities include: "promoting a vision and policy alternatives for the digital age in which the benefit to the public is paramount; raising awareness among funders and nonprofits on their stake in critical policy issues; enabling communities and nonprofits to produce diverse and locally responsive media content."

They are worth pointing out on a library resource blog because their site is resource rich. Homepage sections includes Recent Headlines (free, daily summaries of articles on telecommunications policy), Policy Initiatives (on such topics as media ownership, affordable broadband, and other communication legislation), digital Beat Blog (Charles Benton and others' take on communications policy), and Community Media (the foundations work in educating nonprofits in this area) and more.

The Library and Topics sections are full of annual reports, research papers, news articles, and postings on a variety of topics in the areas of advertising, broadcasting, cable, children and media, community media, cyberwarfare and cybersecurity, digital content, digital divide, diversity, elections and media, emergency communication, energy and climate, FCC reform, health and media, indecency regulation, internet/broadband, journalism, labor, localism, media ownership, satellite, spectrum, telecom, violence, and wireless.

June CommQuote

This month's quote trips us back to the 1980's when Reagan-appointed Chairman of the FCC Mark Fowler issued his famous toaster metaphor to justify the sweeping deregulation of TV advertising that was to follow. Demoting the medium of television to object-status fit into his view of broadcasters as market players rather than trustees of the community.

" Television is just another appliance. It's a toaster with pictures. Let the people decide through the marketplace mechanisms what they wish to see and hear. Why is there this national obsession to tamper with this box of transistors and tubes when we don't do the same for Time magazine?"
--Mark Fowler, Interview in Reason magazine, 1 November 1981