Urban Unrest

24 June 2006 | Business | Ernesto Aguilar

Statement of Prometheus Radio Project on the Resumption of the Media Ownership Proceeding

In June of 2004, Prometheus Radio Project won its lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission, when the FCC attempted to deregulate corporate media ownership in the United States.

"Prometheus Radio Project is a grassroots organization that helps small neighborhood groups to start radio stations. Many of these people became so frustrated with the ham-fisted powermongering of the media owners that they decided that they needed to build their own media institutions.  On the lunch line in grade school, we all learned that everyone should get "firsts" before anyone gets "seconds." And yet these corporations want to gobble up hundreds of channels, while neighborhood groups who want to start radio stations are told there is nothing left for them. We are told we should be satisfied to put up flyers on the street corner, or, at best, take snapshots for a MySpace page.

Prometheus is building a station this summer with the Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN) — a group that turned to community radio when they experienced censorship first hand. This farmworker labor union, PCUN, used to buy time for a weekly show on a local AM station for $250 an hour.  But when the owner of the strawberry fields learned that PCUN was using its show to organize for workers' rights, he persuaded the radio station to cancel their contract with PCUN. Now, fifteen voiceless years later, PCUN is launching a low power station in Woodburn, Oregon on August 20th.

We sued the FCC over the media ownership rules in 2004 because people we know have experienced first hand the inordinate media influence of powerful economic interests. Our lawsuit proved that Michael Powell's proposed rules were empirically indefensible, and the court ordered the FCC to take a step back and listen to the public before tampering with protections upon which Americans have long relied.  We hope that Chairman Kevin Martin will:

1) Consider all the proposed ownership rule changes as a single interrelated proceeding so their cumulative impact can be considered rationally

2) Allow substantial public input through hearing and comments, and not rush the process.

3) Pledge that for every hour he has spent listening to industry arguments, he will get outside the beltway and listen to ordinary Americans just as much.

Our hundreds of low power stations are mostly volunteer operations where hundreds of local people at each station, pouring their good intentions and their time into doing something good for their communities. As their representatives, it was terrifying for us to challenge the FCC on rules that the former Chairman wanted so badly: with one stroke of a pen, an angry FCC Chairman can make choices that destroy the hopes and dreams of the people that are making low power radio happen in their communities. In fact, there is a proceeding sitting before the FCC right now where even through mere inaction, the FCC can suffocate the future of LPFM. While those potential stations waited five years or more for the commission to give them access to their own airwaves, they watched their potential frequencies get given away to those who already dominate every market. Even though it puts the tiny 100 watt slice of the media pie that we have won in jeopardy, low power FMs feel that the fate of the American media is too important to leave it in the hands of a gaggle of corporations. When the rules are reworked this time, let's do it the right way.

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