By Marc Fisher, Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 22, 2005
[Note from MA: This is hardly an exception, but in fact the rule, as far as Clear Channel's practice regarding community and public affairs.]
For 35 years, Jerry Phillips has been the voice of the community on the radio in Washington. This week, Clear Channel Communications, which owns eight D.C. stations, shut down its public affairs department and let Phillips go, eliminating what some local charities called their main link to the public.
"We're taking a new direction," said Bennett Zier, Clear Channel's regional vice president. "Jerry is moving on."
Zier said his stations, which currently have no news staff, will add "personality-based news for our morning shows," including some public affairs content.
As WHUR's morning host in the 1970s and '80s, Phillips was a beloved, if sometimes corny, daily reflection of the black Washington of green-and-white awnings and people who regarded anyone whose family had been here less than a century as out-of-towners. For the past 13 years at Clear Channel, Phillips "was the main voice for the downtrodden and for small local organizations, whether it was traffic safety, drug addiction or the homeless," said Lon Anderson, the AAA Potomac spokesman and a frequent guest on Phillips's "Metro Talk" on Big 100 (WBIG) and WTEM.
"For small nonprofits like us, this is how we got our message out," said Diane Charles, director of Stop Child Abuse Now in Alexandria and host of "Raising Children Today," a program Phillips produced on DC101 (WWDC).
A fifth-generation Washingtonian, Phillips, who is black, often criticized outsiders such as Louis Farrakhan or Jesse Jackson for stealing the spotlight on local issues. "Radio's changing," Phillips said. "Local concerns get left out. I studied to be a priest, so I guess this has been my priesthood, trying to help."
Phillips said his last show, a Christmas special he was producing to raise money for the Capital Area Food Bank, will not air.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/21/AR2005122102196.html
We present a seasonal lump of coal to the following media executives, politicians, commentators, and corporations for what they said and did in 2005...
Brought to you by Media Alliance and our friends at Common Cause!
Ken-Do Public Broadcasting: Kenneth Tomlinson, former chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, ended the year by writing the book on how not to run the CPB. He better hope that Santa forgets that he signed secret contracts to monitor Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio programs for "bias," pushed through his blatantly partisan choice for president of CPB and broke the rules by actively recruiting support for The Journal Editorial Report, showcasing the commentary of the writers of the extremely conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. Tomlinson's not even willing to tell Santa he's sorry. He called the findings of the CPB Inspector General "preconceived and unjustified," and predicted that they "will only help to maintain the status quo" and discourage other reformers. With "reformers" like Tomlinson, public broadcasting doesn't need enemies.
The Unkindest Cut: It was bad enough that Sinclair Broadcasting fired its Washington, DC bureau chief Jon Leiberman last year after he publicly criticized the media giant for its plans to air the highly partisan documentary Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, days before the 2004 presidential election. This year, Sinclair sued Leiberman for $17,000, charging the newsman with publicly disclosing confidential information about the company. Society of Professional Journalists President David Carlson minced no words in his reaction to the lawsuit: "It smells like an effort to punish a whistleblower."
No Journalist Left Behind: Commentator Armstrong Williams saw nothing wrong with his company taking $240,000 from the Department of Education for promoting the Administration's No Child Left Behind program at the same time he was extolling the program in his newspaper columns, and radio and TV shows. After the cozy arrangement made the headlines, Williams seems to have had a change of heart. "My judgment was not the best," he told The Chicago Tribune.
City Stickler: Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) does not think that local governments ought to have the right to set up municipal wireless networks and offer high-speed access to the Internet at low cost to their residents. He's authored a bill that would permit state and local governments to offer telecommunications services only to those areas not served by a private company. (Regardless of whether or not the private sector would charge much, much more for the same service.) If it passes, Sessions' bill would be a big win for telecom companies, including SBC Communications. According to Slate Magazine, Sessions is a former SBC executive who as recently as 2003 held SBC stock options worth at least half a million dollars.
Cyber Scrooge: You can say one thing about Ed Whitacre, CEO of SBC Communications - he doesn't mince words. Whitacre recently told Business Week that Internet firms like Google, Yahoo and Vonage should have to pay him to reach web users. "Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that," Whitacre said. Whitacre apparently believes that it's not enough that SBC Communications makes a profit by charging subscribers for access to the Internet. His company also wants to make a buck by charging web sites and other web services for the privilege of providing SBC with the content that makes SBC customers want to use the Internet in the first place. Critics have compared that to paying to send a package by United Parcel Service, and then giving UPS the right to charge the person who gets the package, too.
Kick Them When They're Down: New Orleans is struggling to regain its population base and rebuild its ravaged city. But don't expect a lot of compassion from BellSouth. BellSouth executives reportedly withdrew their offer of a building to serve as police headquarters in Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. The reason for the abrupt about-face? The New Orleans city government had announced plans to build a municipal wireless network as a way to help the city get back on its feet. Miffed by the Big Easy's plans, BellSouth, according to city officials, halted its plans to hand over the building, with 250,000 square feet of usable space, which would have housed the city's police force, now scattered in hotels, local precincts, and other disparate sites. (BellSouth says that talks about the building are continuing.) Deputy Mayor Greg Meffert told The Washington Post he was disappointed at BellSouth's reaction to the city's wireless plans. "It's a once in a century opportunity to truly show the entire world what can be, instead of just what is, and help write future history in the process. It's a damn shame they [BellSouth officials] don't see that."
Taking Candy from a Baby: Last year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unanimously approved new rules requiring broadcasters to provide three hours a week of children's programming on their new digital TV channels, and imposing some restrictions on how broadcasters draw kids to web sites heavy on ads. Children's TV advocates praised the FCC for its work, and considered the new rules a big step forward in advancing the cause of quality kids' programming. Broadcasters, however, felt differently. This year, network executives decided they could not live with the new rules, set to take effect next January. Viacom, which owns CBS and Nickelodeon, challenged the kids' rules in court, claiming that the new rules violate the company's First Amendment rights. Other major broadcast networks were also in full lobby mode, saying the rules ruined their online marketing plans for kids programming, or interfered with their sports schedules. Only a last-minute, just-before-Christmas settlement with children's TV advocates seems to have saved the kids' rules from a litigation limbo. Even so, the rules will be delayed at least a few months because of the legal skirmishes.
How Do You Spell Chutzpah? Clear Channel: It isn't enough that Clear Channel Communications is the 800-pound gorilla of commercial radio, with about 1,200 stations throughout the country. Or that it frequently dominates what you hear in your local community. To listen to Mark Mays, Clear Channel's CEO, the media behemoth is actually a frail flower about to be stomped on by satellite radio. Mays is actually asking the FCC to raise the limits on how many radio stations a company can own in the largest media markets from eight to 12 stations. It's all about "making the playing field level," Mays told the Progress and Freedom Foundation on Oct. 4. He managed to keep a straight face.
Oops, I Did It Again: Some SONY BMG Music Entertainment employees made a habit of using cash, trips and lavish gifts to radio station personnel to ensure greater airplay for their artists. The payola scandal was uncovered by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who settled with SONY for $10 million, and disclosed damaging e-mails from SONY executives that documented the pay-for-play schemes. Spitzer called payola "pervasive" in the music industry. "It would have been good if the FCC had looked at this," Spitzer said.
Dangerous Liaisons: Media giants Comcast and Time Warner, the country's two largest cable systems, are awaiting final approval for a $17.6 billion acquisition of Adelphia Communications, the country's fifth largest cable operator. That merger, if approved, would increase Comcast's subscribers by 2 million, from 21.5 million cable homes to 23.5 million. The merger gives Comcast and Time Warner even greater power to control cable content and to exercise monopoly power. Critics of the merger charge that independent programmers will have virtually no chance of getting cable carriage, and local citizens likely will see less choice, and higher prices. We recommend no wedding gifts for this alliance.
New Texas law trial run for Federal legislation
by Laura Jesse, San Antonio Express-News, Dec 1 2005
With the looming expiration of Time Warner Cable's franchise agreement with the city [of San Antonio] and a new law requiring state-issued franchise agreements, the city is facing the possibility of contracting production services for public, education and government access channels at the first of the year.
Senate Bill 5, passed in the [Texas] Legislature's second special session this year, replaces local cable franchise agreements with state-issued deals between cable and video providers and the Public Utility Commission.
This means the providers are no longer responsible for supplying production services for public, education and government access channels and are now responsible only for transmitting and distributing the signals for those three channels.
Time Warner has managed the public access channel and has provided limited production assistance for the education channel and partial production assistance for the government channel, which airs City Council meetings and other public programming. The company's franchise agreement with the city expires Dec. 31.
In the short term, the city could discontinue the channels, maintain the same level of programming through an agreement with Time Warner or a production company, or modify the level of programming with the use of a production company.
To continue airing the City Council meetings, public utilities director Ben Gorzell said, the city could contract with a production company from January through March until the city's external relations staff could acquire the proper equipment to take over the production.
Through informal inquiries with local production companies, Gorzell estimated it would cost $324,307 to continue programming on the government channel.
Councilmen Kevin Wolff and Richard Perez said temporarily discontinuing the channels may be necessary to ensure that the city makes the right decision, given that the council must decide on something by Dec. 15, its last meeting of the year.
The city could then lose the channels and have to reapply for them, without the guarantee they would be reinstated on the basic tier of channels, Gorzell said.
Perez said he wanted to focus on strengthening the government access channel, where residents can watch city department programs, "Our Part of Town" talent shows and the council members' district shows.
City Manager Sheryl Sculley said she had "reservations to just cut off the channels."
"I anticipate you would regret that and the community would regret it," she said.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/tv/stories/MYSA1201.05B.NZ.State.City_Cable.12bd35ef.html
By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press Writer
Sunday Dec 11, 2005
Call it a municipal status symbol in the digital age: a city blanketed by a wireless Internet network, accessible at competitive prices throughout the town's homes, cafes, offices and parks.
Tempe, the Phoenix suburb that is home to Arizona State University, is due to have wireless Internet available for all of its 160,000 residents in February, becoming the first city of its size in the United States to have Wi-Fi throughout.
Tempe officials hope that by making high-speed Internet as accessible as water or electricity across its 40 square miles, it will attract more technology and biotech companies — and the young, upwardly mobile employees they bring.
An increasing number of the nation's cities are looking at using Internet access as an economic development tool. Few cities have gotten as far as installing systems, "but most cities are realizing that it may be something that they want to do," said Cheryl Leanza, legislative counsel for the National League of Cities.
Philadelphia is developing a citywide high-speed system with EarthLink Inc. Unlike Philly or Tempe, New Orleans is building a free system, though the network speed will be limited.
The Tempe network is being installed by NeoReach Wireless, a subsidiary of Bethesda, Md.-based MobilePro Corp. Roughly 400 antenna boxes mounted on light poles throughout the city will be used to stitch together the network, to which NeoReach will sell access, primarily through other providers.
The network uses a so-called "mesh" setup, meaning it passes wireless signals from pole to pole and automatically reroutes transmissions if one of the transmitters breaks down.
Speeds will vary depending on the number of users logged into the same access point.
The network is strong enough only to be picked up outdoors or through one wall, meaning those who want service in their businesses or homes will need a box that serves as a signal booster and router.
The city of Tempe gave the company access to its light poles in exchange for use of the network in transmitting data to and from city offices and vehicles, said Karrie Rockwell, a spokeswoman for NeoReach.
Two hours of free access each day also will be available for Internet users on the Arizona State campus or the nearby Mill Avenue retail district, where the network began a year ago as a pilot project and has proven popular.
Robert Jenkins, 50, sits at a coffee house on Mill Avenue a couple of times a week with his laptop, downloading larger files that take too long at home when he uses his mobile phone to access the Internet.
NeoReach will directly sell service to outdoor users for $3.95 per hour or $29.95 per month. The resellers of NeoReach access have not yet announced pricing, but Rockwell said it will be cheaper than DSL or cable Internet access. Cable operator Cox Communications Inc. charges $49.95 per month for customers who don't get Cox phone or TV service. Qwest Communications International Inc. charges $44.99 and $54.99 per month, depending on the speed.
Tempe signed a contract with NeoReach after asking for bids — which prevented it from having to start its own utility and probably quelled potential objections to the city's involvement in a Wi-Fi network.
Elsewhere in the nation, cities have run into heavy resistance from telecom companies, which argue that the free market should dictate the cost and availability of service.
At least 14 states have passed laws limiting municipal Internet service, and other states are expected to consider similar limits, Leanza said. Arizona does not have such a law.
By Robert Parry
December 9, 2005
One year ago, reporter Gary Webb – his life in ruins – killed himself with a handgun. The tragedy made him the final victim of a long-running cover-up protecting the Reagan-Bush administration’s tolerance of drug trafficking by its client army, the Nicaraguan contras.
But Webb’s death also could be blamed on the fecklessness of modern American journalism. The nation’s leading newspapers had driven the 49-year-old father of three to his desperate act rather than admit that they had bungled one of the biggest stories of the Reagan-Bush era – the contra-cocaine scandal.
Webb might be alive today if the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times had shown the decency to explain the importance of what the Central Intelligence Agency’s inspector general acknowledged in a two-volume report in 1998.
In that investigation – sparked by Webb’s “Dark Alliance” series for the San Jose Mercury-News in 1996 – CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz found that the spy agency hid evidence of contra-cocaine trafficking in the 1980s, even disrupting federal investigations that threatened to expose the secret.
Though insisting that the CIA didn’t authorize the contra-cocaine trafficking, Hitz’s report revealed that the criminality was even more pervasive than Webb believed (his series had focused on only one contra-cocaine pipeline into California). Hitz’s investigation found more than 50 contras and contra entities implicated in the drug trade.
Hitz also was told by CIA officers that the motive for the cover-up was that they put their mission of overthrowing Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government ahead of law enforcement that might have disrupted or discredited the contra operation.
A careful explication of the CIA’s extraordinary admissions in 1998 would have largely vindicated Webb, who had been driven out of the Mercury-News after the Big Three newspapers and other national publications ganged up on Webb and his story.
Revisiting the scandal in a serious way also would have recognized the brave work on the issue by Sen. John Kerry in the latter half of the 1980s – and corroborated the initial contra-cocaine article that I co-wrote with Brian Barger for the Associated Press in 1985.
Turf Wars
Yet, even as the CIA was – more or less – coming clean in 1998, the Big Three newspapers were determined to protect their turf and spare themselves from criticism for having rebuffed the contra-cocaine story in the 1980s and mocked it again after Webb’s series surfaced a decade later.
In 1998, with public attention riveted on Bill Clinton’s possible impeachment over his sexual dalliance with Monica Lewinsky, the Big Three either kissed off the CIA findings with superficial stories – as the New York Times and the Washington Post did – or ignored the CIA’s final report entirely, the course chosen by the Los Angeles Times.
Those journalistic decisions denied the American people a truthful understanding of their recent history and consigned Webb to a professional netherworld where he couldn’t find decent-paying work as a reporter.
With his career shattered, his marriage fell apart. By fall 2004, he found himself living in a rental property on the verge of eviction. On the night of Dec. 9, he typed out four suicide notes for his family, laid out a certificate for his cremation, put a note on the door suggesting a call to 911, and removed his father’s handgun from a box.
Webb then shot himself in the head, though the first shot was not lethal, so he fired once more. His body was found the next day after movers arrived and followed the instructions from the note on the door.
Webb’s suicide offered the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times one more opportunity to set matters right, to revisit the CIA’s admissions in 1998 and to exact some accountability on the Reagan-Bush officials implicated in protecting the contra crimes.
But all that followed Gary Webb’s death was more trashing of Gary Webb. The Los Angeles Times ran a graceless obituary that treated Webb like a low-life criminal, rather than a journalist who took on a tough story and paid a high price. The Times obituary was republished in other newspapers, including the Washington Post.
Later, on March 16, 2005, Los Angeles Times writer Tina Daunt produced a lengthy feature piece about Webb’s death, covering three pages. But again the tone was derisive of Webb personally and dismissive of his work.
While going into detail about Webb’s suicide and into criticism of Webb’s career, the article showed no indication that Daunt had read either the CIA’s two-volume report or another report by the Justice Department’s inspector general. Both reports took swings at Webb, but contained stunning disclosures about both the government’s knowledge of contra-cocaine trafficking and obstructions of drug investigations.
No evaluation of Webb’s work could be complete – or fair – without explaining the CIA’s findings.
For instance, if Daunt had cited the CIA’s conclusion that scores of contra operatives and drug lords had exploited their cozy relationship with the Reagan-Bush administration to smuggle cocaine into the United States, then carping about details of Webb’s original series would seem absurd and even offensive.
Or, if Daunt wanted to mount a serious critique of Webb’s work, she still would have needed to evaluate what was in the government reports, particularly the most exhaustive part known as Volume II of the CIA’s contra-cocaine investigation.
Instead, Daunt devoted just one paragraph to the CIA report and then misrepresented the findings. She wrote: “Almost as a postscript, the CIA concluded a 17-month investigation in 1998, stating that it found no evidence that the U.S.-supported Nicaraguan rebels of the 1980s received significant financial support from drug traffickers.”
So, with that inaccurate description of the CIA’s own admissions, the Los Angeles Times pulled a final curtain around Gary Webb’s work and life. But the curtain was just as much a way to conceal an ugly chapter of modern American history and of the Big Three’s failure to fulfill their duty to the public.
Link for for the rest of this story:
www.consortiumnews.com/2005/120905.html
By John McManus, Grade the News.org
Nov. 29, 2005
It's come to this: A single wealthy investor is able to threaten the civic vitality of 32 American metropolitan areas by forcing the sale of their newspapers to new owners in order to satisfy his demand for larger profits.
Because those higher returns almost certainly will come at the expense of investigative reporting, independence from advertisers and adequately staffed and skilled newsrooms, the readers of Knight Ridder newspapers ought to rise up in opposition to the planned sale or dismemberment of the company.
After a decade of shrinking its news staffs, the nation's second-largest newspaper company no longer commands the respect it earned winning 84 Pulitzer Prizes in 79 years. But papers such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, Charlotte Observer, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Kansas City Star, St. Paul Pioneer Press and San Jose Mercury News are still too essential to the civic life of their cities to be auctioned off like so many pork bellies.
For the full article visit:
http://www.gradethenews.org/commentaries/boycott.htm
For Action Steps, see the above site and stay tuned to MA's e-Action listserve.
Angry BellSouth Withdrew Donation, New Orleans Says
By Jonathan Krim, Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 3, 2005
Hours after New Orleans officials announced Tuesday that they would deploy a city-owned, wireless Internet network in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, regional phone giant BellSouth Corp. withdrew an offer to donate one of its damaged buildings that would have housed new police headquarters, city officials said yesterday.
According to the officials, the head of BellSouth's Louisiana operations, Bill Oliver, angrily rescinded the offer of the building in a conversation with New Orleans homeland security director Terry Ebbert, who oversees the roughly 1,650-member police force.
City officials said BellSouth was upset about the plan to bring high-speed Internet access for free to homes and businesses to help stimulate resettlement and relocation to the devastated city. Around the country, large telephone companies have aggressively lobbied against localities launching their own Internet networks, arguing that they amount to taxpayer-funded competition. Some states have laws prohibiting them.
BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher disputed the city's version of events.
"Our willingness to work with the mayor and the city is still on the table," Battcher said. "We've been working for over two months on this building . . . we are a little surprised by these comments."
Battcher said Oliver spoke directly with the mayor on Tuesday after the WiFi announcement and told him they needed to continue to work through issues regarding the building. He said BellSouth is awaiting the mayor's response.
The police have been scattered in hotels, precinct stations and other makeshift locations since the headquarters was ruined in the hurricane and had been preparing to move to the building after months of discussions with the phone company, city officials said.
The building suffered basement flooding and needs some repairs but has 250,000 usable square feet of space.
Greg Meffert, the city's chief technology officer and a deputy mayor, said he is saddened that BellSouth finds the city's network so objectionable.
"It's a once-in-a-century opportunity to truly show the entire world what can be, instead of just what is, and help write future history in the process," Meffert said. "It's a damn shame they don't see that."
The wireless network covers the central business district and the French Quarter, and the city plans to expand it as the people return.
The network also is used by law enforcement and other city agencies to help speed recovery. Eventually, the city intends to outsource operation of the network's business and consumer services to a private firm, officials said.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
December 3, 2005
The Los Angeles Times published Media Alliance's letter to the editor on Friday (below). Unfortunately they trimmed it quite a bit and didn’t include the names of the many California and national coalition partners who signed-on.
Municipal Broadband Service is Worthwhile
Your Nov. 23 editorial "Making connections" characterized municipal broadband Internet service as a "utopian-sounding promise" and implied that local governments are unfit to provide such services. High-speed broadband is not a utopian dream. In Belgium, Canada, Finland, South Korea and Taiwan, high-speed broadband already far exceeds the United States in penetration and speed, and often at half the price or less.
Broadband service makes the new economy possible, creating new high-wage jobs, educational opportunity and investment galore.
The notion that municipal broadband fiber networks are busts is an urban myth. Detailed studies commissioned by the Consumer Federation of America and public interest groups Free Press and Media Access Project in April demonstrate that municipal fiber networks spur economic development and new tax revenues.
Congress is debating substantial changes to our telecommunications laws. We need policies that help bridge the digital divide and promote economic competitiveness through affordable Internet access for all Americans.
CELIA WEXLER
Common Cause, Washington
JEFF PERLSTEIN
Media Alliance, Oakland
Officials Unanimously Pass Media Alliance Resolution on KNEW 910AM License Renewal
San Francisco - November 22, 2005
The resolution below was introduced by Supervisor Daly and approved unanimously by the SF Board of Supervisors:
A Resolution urging the Federal Communications Commission to closely examine radio station KNEW 910 AM’s license renewal application in light of a public petition from Media Alliance, the Youth Media Council and Accion Latina to deny KNEW’s application for breach of “the public interest”.
WHEREAS, The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has a mandate to ensure that broadcasting using the public airwaves is conducted “in the public interest”; and
WHEREAS, the FCC is currently in the midst of the once-every-eight years process of reviewing California Radio Stations’ applications for license renewal based on their fulfillment of the FCC‘s public interest mandate; and
WHEREAS, “Localism” is a key criterion for the FCC’s evaluation of whether broadcasters have served the public interest; and
WHEREAS, KNEW 910 AM, whose business offices reside at 340 Townsend in San Francisco, is licensed by the FCC to use the publicly-owned frequency 910 AM in accordance with this mandate; and
WHEREAS, KNEW 910 AM is a Clear Channel-owned and affiliated station that broadcasts locally with a majority of nationally syndicated programming; and
WHEREAS, The San Antonio-based Clear Channel Corporation is a controversial multi-national corporation known for pro war, anti-peace, monopolistic, anti-union practices, including sponsoring pro-war rallies and censoring music promoting peace, and
WHEREAS, in August, Media Alliance, a Bay Area media watch group conducted a study monitoring for three weeks two KNEW 910 AM hosts – Michael Savage and Jeff Katz; and
WHEREAS, The Media Alliance study found KNEW 910 AM hosts regularly incite violence against communities of color, immigrant communities, Muslims, and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community in gross violation of the FCC public interest mandate; and
WHEREAS, Radio show host Bill O’Reilly’s radio show, “The Radio Factor” is a nationally, syndicated, Clear Channel-distributed show broadcast on KNEW 910 AM; and
WHEREAS, On November 8th, radio host Bill O’Reilly used radio show “The Radio Factor” to condone violence against San Francisco residents and visitors alike; and
WHEREAS, Numerous Bay Area organizations, including Media Alliance, Accion Latina and the Youth Media Council, recently filed a formal Petition to Deny the license renewal of KNEW 910 AM with documentation illustrating a pattern of violations of the public interest, including frequent incitement to violence by hosts and a lack of significant local programming; and
WHEREAS, The House and Senate Commerce Committees have oversight of the FCC;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED,
That the San Francisco Board of Supervisors urges the FCC to closely examine KNEW 910 AM’s license renewal application, as well as the numerous Petitions to Deny the station’s license based on documented violations of the public interest filed by the above mentioned organizations and other organization with appropriate standing;
and, be it FURTHER RESOLVED,
That the San Francisco Board of Supervisors urges our local Congressional Representatives, especially Senator Barbara Boxer who sits on the Senate Commerce Committee and Representative Nancy Pelosi, to ensure that the FCC takes such action.