Federal Communications Commission
FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps criticizes the agency’s “The Information Needs of Communities” report released Thursday, saying it isn’t the “bold response” needed to address the lack of accountability reporting and diversity in local media. “Instead of calling for stepped-up Commission action, it tinkers around the edges,” he writes. His thoughts on the report’s recommendations after the jump.On the report’s recommendation for further disclosure, for instance regarding “pay for play” TV news:
“Let’s also remember that disclosure is a means to an end–not an end in itself. If disclosure brings to public light actions that require redress, where is the redress to be found? Some will doubt whether it is to be found in a Commission that has for most of 30 years sworn off public interest rules and guidelines. Why would consumers bother to plumb the Internet looking at public files if there is so little confidence their effort will be rewarded with remedial action?”
What it will take to realize the potential of digital media:
“The Digital Age holds amazing promise for expanding the scope of our democratic discourse. … But let’s recognize up-front that building a new town-square paved with broadband bricks and stacked with good news and information is not going to happen on auto-pilot. Right now the vast majority of the news we read on the Internet is produced elsewhere–in traditional media newsrooms. Interesting news and information innovations have, we all know, developed on the Net. What hasn’t developed there is the model, mass or momentum to sustain the kind of resource-hungry journalism that an informed electorate requires. An open Internet is not the entire solution for robust Twenty-first century journalism. It’s tougher than that, and I, for one, don’t believe we’ll get there absent some positive public policy solutions.”
Related: FCC media report shows how interest in government subsidies for local journalism fizzled
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