The media reform movement claims that stronger ownership restrictions will give ordinary people more power in news decisions.

Skeptics call this regulation, not reform, that fails to recognize the diversity today's myriad information outlets provide.

Experts debated these views at a Columbia Journalism School conference Feb. 8 pondering whether media reform is good for journalism.

FCC commissioner Michael Copps was one of many speakers who contended that media ownership carries special civic responsibilities.

He and other reformers believe new laws are needed to preserve an independent media environment. He said the FCC should block telecommunication industry attempts to raise limits on the number of media outlets one company can own.

He and other speakers charged station owners with ignoring the requirement for their government-granted licenses -- to serve the public interest. "Let's get away from the pro and anti-business [arguments]," he said. "It's the people's business."

But Ben Compaine, author of "Who Owns the Media?", said that in an age of vast information diversity, the media monopoly argument is outmoded. He said the largest media groups have virtually nothing to do with newspapers and that the total news viewership of all broadcast and cable networks is less than the 60 to 70 percent of viewers that ABC, CBS and NBC drew a generation ago. He added that today's technology lets news selection be "our choice. It gives the power to us."

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, shared his view, noting that those once-dominant three networks were a much stronger news "oligarchy" than anything that exists in today's diverse media universe.

And he made a point many speakers echoed -- that vision, not size, determines the quality of a media organization's news products.

"You can't legislate intention," he said. If owners see papers "as a dying industry, they'll squeeze them" for every dollar they can by cutting staff. "If they see it as an industry in transition, they'll invest more in news." His hope: "In the long view, quality tends to prevail."

Seattle Times editor-at-large Michael Fancher had a similar view, saying a newspaper's best business strategy is public service. "Readers don't have to see it as broccoli. They want us to be a watchdog. They don't want us to dumb down the news."

Fancher and Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen, a longtime local-ownership advocate, embraced a key media reform tenant -- mainstream media must extend its reach into the communities it serves.

Blethen said veteran journalists "have to get used to the fact that we share journalistic responsibility with those we serve." If "you can't legislate intent," he said, "you can influence outcomes," suggesting tax incentives for owners who hire more new staffers or provide more public service airtime. "If we're seen as just money makers, the public won't side with us on issues like access to public records, and protection of confidential sources."

Fancher said he and community media veteran Deepa Fernandes share the goals of being newsy, accurate and more open to grassroots voices. Fernandes, a WBAI radio host and founder of the People's Production House, said such reporting needn't be just "advocacy, citizen journalism, low-quality." Instead, she stressed, it can air the views of people who tend to be overlooked. As an example, she mentioned mainstream media coverage of the introduction of a longer school day. Teachers and parents were quoted, but not students.

She agreed with Slate editor-at-large Jack Shafer, who said that big media companies have used regulations to block new telecommunications owners and that a stronger license renewal process is needed.

Shafer, however, has doubts about the media reform movement, urging a definition of just what "reform" is -- in three hours, he never got one.

He claimed reformers want to dictate content under the mask of public interest, which he warned would give the government more power to decide who can speak and what they can say.

Although he said cross-ownership should be encouraged, not discouraged, he said the FCC is too conservative on spectrum use and shouldn't continue to be the "captive of license holders" that block, for example, low-powered FM stations.

Amid complaints about declining professional standards and over-emphasis on fluffy features, Shafer asserted, that "there's never been a higher demand for and consumption of quality journalism," citing the number of hits on the Web sites of mainstream news organizations like The New York Times, Washington Post and BBC. "And there's always been a huge appetite for entertainment; it's been part and parcel of newspapers for a hundred years."

Columbia Journalism School dean Nicholas Lemann, who organized the conference, opened it by saying, "I don't know what I think" about media reform. Closing the discussions, he said, "I'm not sold" on the belief that de-concentration of media ownership will necessarily produce reformers' goals of increasing independent newsgathering and editorial independence.

Blethen's closing comment about the media reform movement: "It's strong, emotional and will burn out, [but] thank God they're out there advocating and creating a lot of light and fire on this [issue]."