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Questions Linger Following Largest Investigation in FCC History
by Nashwa Gewaily (October 17, 2007)Earlier this month, the FCC wrapped up what it described as the largest investigation conducted in its history following allegations of suppressing a 2004 study titled "Do Local Owners Deliver More Localism? Some Evidence from Local Broadcast News", which suggested that greater media concentration has negatively affected local TV news coverage. In the FCC Inspector General's report released on October 5th, it was concluded that there was no evidence corroborating accusations that the study was ordered destroyed for political reasons.
The Study in Context
The “Localism Task Force" was launched by then FCC Chairman Michael Powell in 2003 with the intent of looking into the performance of broadcasters in serving local communities, with consideration given to the status of local TV news as “the most watched and most credible news medium, outranking networks and national newspapers with the public” (Maynard 88). To this end, economists and FCC researchers Keith Brown and Peter Alexander authored a working paper which found that “local ownership of television stations adds almost five and one-half minutes of local news and over three minutes of local on-location news" per half-hour. They suggested the findings “may have implications for broadcast ownership rules.”
The report was not released upon completion, and allegations by Adam Candeub, an attorney with the agency's Media Bureau at the time, maintained that “every last piece” was ordered destroyed by senior managers who abruptly halted the study. The report was made public following the 2006 Senate confirmation hearing for FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who was taken by surprise when Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) inquired about the anonymously obtained study and subsequentlycalled for an investigation.
The FCC Investigates
After a year-long probe, the FCC released its findings on October 5, 2007, issuing a press release which stated that “the evidence did not substantiate allegations” of suppression or destruction of the Local TV News Report. The Inspector General’s report offered alternative theories, pointing to issues of quality and insufficient revision, and “tensions between staff and management and staff and senior economists” that “may have exacerbated a difficult situation” as the most probable explanations for the failure to release the draft. Addressing claims that the study was stifled because it conflicted with the commission’s endorsement of further media deregulation in its 2003 rulings, it contended that “the evidence clearly indicates that agency management’s like or dislike of the results was not a factor.”
Findings Met with Skepticism
The controversy over the Local TV News Report coincided with the revelation of a second report that had never been made public, the FCC’s 2003 “Review of the Radio Industry” – which had also been brought to light by Senator Barbara Boxer in a separate statement. The failure to disclose this report, which analyzed radio consolidation and its effects on media diversity, was found by the Inspector General’s office to “in some ways” present “more troubling aspects. " The commission’s findings acknowledge former Media Bureau Chief Kenneth Ferree’s instructions not to issue the study in an e-mail message in which he stated that he was “not inclined to release this one unless the story can be told in a much more positive way”, continuing, “This is not the time to be stirring the ‘radio consolidation’ pot.” However, investigators ultimately concluded: “We do not feel that the evidence is strong enough to establish with certainty that any improper or illegal acts to conceal the Draft 2003 Radio Report took place and therefore this cannot be a matter for referral.”
This end result of the investigation prompted skeptical reactions from critics of growing media ownership concentration, such as Harold Feld, Director of the Media Access Project. In a telephone interview, he referred to the investigation into the Local TV News Report as “not terribly credible,” particularly considering that the FCC “really goes out of its way to try to exonerate” Ferree in the radio report probe. He continued: “Frankly, the fact that the IG [Inspector General] bends over backwards in such a way for the radio report makes me suspicious about the findings of this [local TV] report.” Danilo Yanich, a University of Delaware professor who created the digitized database of thousands of local TV news stories that were to become the basis of the Local TV News Report, voiced similar reservations about the FCC’s take on the allegations. He corroborated the researchers’ approach to the data in a telephone interview, saying that the “methodology was sound.” Citing the commission’s approaches to the study -- “that it doesn’t exist; then it was irrelevant; and now the IG report says it’s bad science” -- Yanich contends that it “speaks to an agency that has already made up its mind about what it wants to support its policy conclusion.”
Sources:
Feld, Harold. Telephone Interview. 16 October 2007.
Maynard, Nancy. Mega Media: How Market Forces Are Transforming News. Canada: Trafford
Publishing, 2000.
Yanich, Danilo. Telephone Interview. 16 October 2007.
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, Oct 23 2007, 3:33 AM EDT
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