MediaNews Newspaper chain to dominate Bay Area with more than 800,000 daily circulation, Hearst Corp.'s Chronicle to be a distant second; Union voices concerns and urges government antitrust probe
By Michael Stoll, http://www.Grade the News.org
April 26, 2006
[NOTE: On June 1st, join Media Alliance for a panel discussion on this development, featuring Linda Foley, national president of the The Newspaper Guild, the union representing the media workers. For more info, go to http://www.media-alliance.org/calendar.php ]
The San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times were sold by the McClatchy Co. to the MediaNews Group of Denver as part of a four-newspaper $1 billion deal announced Wednesday. The sale would lead to an unprecedented concentration of ownership in Bay Area newspapers.
The deal, which includes the planned transfer of the Monterey Herald and the St. Paul Pioneer Press to MediaNews in a complicated series of swaps with the Hearst Corp., would give MediaNews control of papers publishing more than 800,000 copies daily in the San Francisco Bay Area, when the free-circulation Daily News group is included.
The sale will give MediaNews dominance over the newspaper market in every county in the region but San Francisco. For a great visual representation, see the map here http://sjguild.org/Info/SingleTown.htm
The Alameda Newspaper Group includes nine Bay Area daily newspapers owned by MediaNews in the Bay Area, including the Oakland Tribune, the Daily Review in Hayward, the San Mateo County Times, the Fremont Argus, the Alameda Times-Star and the Tri-Valley Herald in Pleasanton. More peripherally the group includes the Marin Independent-Journal, the Vallejo Times-Herald and the Vacaville Reporter.
In addition to the Mercury News, the Times and the Monterey Herald, the deal would reportedly also transfer other smaller Bay Area papers to MediaNews, including the Palo Alto Daily News chain of free tabloids, a chain of weeklies called Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, and East Bay weeklies called the Hills Newspapers.
McClatchy acquired Knight Ridder Inc. in mid-March for $6.5 billion, including $2 billion in debt. McClatchy, whose papers include the Sacramento Bee and Minneapolis Star-Tribune, said it would divest 12 of the papers to reduce its debt load. The Mercury News, Times and Herald were among the papers McClatchy did not want to keep. Both rounds of sales have yet to be consummated.
Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper company, and another firm, the Stephens Company of Arkansas, would own minority stakes in the partnership that owns the papers changing hands.
In the McClatchy-MediaNews press release on the Mercury News Web site, MediaNews Chief Executive William Dean Singleton is quoted saying the transfer is an "asset" sale. One consequence of such a sale is that he will have more freedom in his dealings with unions.
Mr. Singleton said in that statement that he was "delighted to acquire these fine newspapers and expand our reach in California" as well as St. Paul. "These were the newspapers that excited us the most about Knight Ridder, and we are pleased to have the opportunity to acquire them from McClatchy," he said.
The New York Times reported in its Thursday edition that Mr. Singleton, whose company would become the fourth-largest newspaper chain in the country, told editors at a meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors that "t was time to start giving consumers what they want, which was more entertainment news and 'less long series that we love to do but our readers hate to read.'"
The Associated Press reports that Mr. Singleton "makes people nervous" because of his history of acquiring newspapers and slashing jobs. The AP report noted:
After acquiring the Oakland Tribune in 1992, Singleton reportedly cut most of the paper's 600 jobs. And after paying about $150 million for the Houston Post, Singleton closed it in 1995, putting more than 1,000 people out of work.
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer released a statement on April 19 saying that his office "may take action" to prevent harm to the state's economy "where competitive choices could be narrowed for both advertisers and readers."
The federal Department of Justice last month also said it was investigating whether the sale of the Knight Ridder properties would violate antitrust laws. Experts said they doubted that the government would intervene because the newspapers being consolidated are not located in the same cities, but spread out over several contiguous counties.
The San Jose Newspaper Guild and its community allies issued an alarmed response on a Web site called Save the Merc, saying the deal "creates great uncertainty for the newspapers' subscribers, advertisers and employees."
"One out-of-state publisher would now control all daily newspapers in the Bay Area outside of San Francisco, with the capability of restricting news content, limiting voices of expression and dictating terms for advertising leading to higher rates," the statement read.
"We haven't given up yet," Luther Jackson, executive officer for the San Jose Guild's local told the Associated Press. "All the people we talk to in these communities want more news, not less."
The union had been working with the Yucaipa Companies to arrange a "worker-friendly" buyout of some or all of the papers, a deal that would include an option for employee stock ownership.
One union representative, Griff Palmer, database editor at the Mercury News, told the Washington Post that a meeting Wednesday with Singleton in the newspaper's office eased some concerns among the staff.
"He was not presenting himself as a slash and burn farmer," Palmer told the Post. "In many respects, he just sounded like a hard-nosed businessman."
COPE-ing Very Nicely, Thank You...
By Harold Feld, from http:///www.wetmachine.com
Throughout the public interest community, one can find much wailing and gnashing of teeth over today's Commerce Committee mark up of the Communications Opportunity Enhancement Act of 2006 (COPE). “A Bad Day for Media Democracy” reads the headline at Save Access.
Well, I'm not happy with COPE so far, but I think it turned into a good day for democracy, with better days to come. Because if you thought today was grim, you weren't here for the absolute spanking net neutrality got in subcommittee in the beginning of April.
In the week since the SavetheInternet campaign got underway, four democrats switched their votes on Net Neutrality from “anti” to “pro.” The day before mark up, the Republican chair of the House Subcommittee on Antitrust in the Judiciary Committee and their new task force on telecom declared all out war against the Commerce Committee effort to eliminate a free and open internet. The telcos, who earlier this month boasted they could get the bill past both houses and signed into law before the election recess, don't sound nearly as confident despite today's win.
What changed? Until the Subcommittee Spanking, folks let the tech companies do the heavy lifting and fought by the standard lobbying play book. Hill meetings, inside the beltway briefings, insider baseball, blah blah blah. Google v. Verizon, people said, and tuned out. And while the tech lobbyists worked with us public interest folks, one could not help but detect a certain — how shall I put it? — condescension and cluelessness as to how this “public interest” stuff really works. It kinda felt like posing for photo ops, while the “real” decisions about spending money on messaging and what strategies to persue and the ever-important smoke filled room meetings never involved anything as messy as the public.
And, as usual, the tech folks got spanked. Spanked real good. The kinda spanking you usually have to pay good money for if you fancy that kind of thing. Because despite having more money than the telcos and cable cos combined, the tech cos can never win using telco and cable co rules. Because the telcos and cable cos wrote the goddam rules and have played this game by this rulebook for a longer than most tech CEOs have been alive. As a result, the telcos and cable cos are very, very good at it.
Meanwhile, as my friend and fellow traveller Jeff Chester at Center for Digital Democracy observed, the tech companies still can't figure out how to play this game, or what they want to get out of it if they could figure it out. Or maybe they just like getting spanked, and miss the days when the intellectual property mafia would toast their little bottoms for them with legislation like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
So, while still working with the tech lobbyists etc., the folks in the public interest community finally said “Screw this. You guys may be into getting spanked, but we prefer winning. And the way you win in democracy is by busting open the process, getting people to see what's at stake, and reminding elected officials that their job is to do what's best for their constituents not to referee industry food fights.”
And thus, through the work of Free Press, Common Cause, Media Alliance, Moveon and a host of others, was the SavetheInternet campaign born. And when the mainstream media refused to cover the story as too technical or boring or against the interest of their parent mega-companies, 500 bloggers took up the cry. And all this free speech stuff, that the telcos and the cable cos and the memebrs of Congress ignored because it doesn't have a trade group and you can't quantify it in dollar terms, really worked. And more and more people are writing letters and calling members and reminding them that there's an election this fall.
There's a lesson here; one backed up by the utter triumph of the pro-munibroadband forces against proposed amendments to outlaw munibroadband, or even to grandfather existing state-level bans. YOU CAN'T OUTSOURCE CITIZENSHIP. You can't let “the tech companies” or even “the consumer advocates” or anyone speak for you.
Citizenship carries responsibilities that go beyond the ritual of voting every two years. But when citizens wake up and speak up, and speak to each other, they find — to their surprise — they are strong. They find they have power. And they find that being a citizen may take hard work, but it is so, so, SO much better and more satisfying than being a couch potato. As the great Jewish sage Hillel said: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, who am I? If not me then who? If not now, when?”
Don't get me wrong. I'm glad the tech companies are on our side. They have a lot to offer, lots of resources, and, if they decide they are tired of of playing by the old rules and getting spanked, can really help push this effort over the top. But if we as citizens let this degenerate to a fight with Google, Microsoft and Silicon Valley venture capitalists who like tech start ups on one side v. AT&T, Comcast and Wall Street analysts who like monopolies on the other, with Congress brokering a deal between the two, then we citizens lose no matter which side wins. We can, we must, speak for ourselves.
When Ben Franklin left the Constitutional Convention someone shouted to him from the crowd “Mr. Franklin, what have you given us?” He answered “A republic — IF YOU CAN KEEP IT.”
The Sausage Factory of democracy is a messy business, but it's worth it. We can either let other folks make the sausage and eat whatever shit they put in, or we can wade in and make sure it comes out alright. We lost today's battle. But we are turning the tide in the war. And if we keep growing and going like we have in the last week, we will win.
Stay tuned . . . .
Privacy Concerns Surround San Francisco Wireless Project
By David Hatch, National Journal
April 10, 2006
Excerpt:
Media Alliance, a nonprofit based in Oakland, Calif., wants both providers to establish a "digital inclusion fund" to pay for computers and tech training in low-income neighborhoods. EarthLink has agreed to such funding as part of a separate broadband accord with Philadelphia."
Without the fund, Alliance spokesman Sydney Levy said, "what you have is not a wireless cloud; it's a wireless club." He contended Google is not giving away Internet access. "It may sound free to the consumer," but "they're going to be making a business out of this."
The Media Alliance wants assurances that San Francisco can exert control over the city's contract with Google and EarthLink in case the companies fall short of their promises. It also wants the free version "indexed" to the faster one so the transmission speeds of both services rise in tandem.
Otherwise, the group fears that only the premium tier would be upgraded, widening the gulf between the users of the two offerings.
Read the full article: http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-GBDG1144779098924.html
Let phone and cable firms compete for TV viewers:
Internet Video is good for marketplace, but service must be availbale to all
San Jose Mercury News Editorial
Friday April 07, 2006
[NOTE: This Op-Ed is in line with MA's concerns on redlining/equal buildout to all communities, but is not as supportive of local franchising control as we would like.]
When telephone companies upgrade their aging networks so they can deliver super-fast Internet access and television-quality video, consumers stand to benefit. Consider what happened when Verizon launched its TV service in Keller, Texas: The local cable company slashed its TV and broadband package from $100 a month to $50.
So it makes sense for state and federal lawmakers to want to help more consumers enjoy this kind of competition. Two bills -- one introduced by Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez on Thursday and another approved by a key committee in the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday -- take steps in that direction. Both would allow phone companies such as AT&T and Verizon to get into the television business without having to go city by city to secure local franchises.
This is a good idea in principle. Local franchising can be slow and litigious. San Jose and Comcast, for instance, have been wrangling over a renewal of their franchise agreement for six years.
By allowing phone companies to instead sign a single statewide or nationwide franchise, the bills would speed up both network upgrades and the deployment of the new services. They would also ensure that cities continue to receive a share of revenues from television services and support for local public-access channels.
Unfortunately, both bills would allow phone companies to deploy their services only in affluent cities and neighborhoods. Instead of everyone benefiting from lower prices and better service, it's possible that only a few would -- and they'd be the ones least in need of lower prices. The gap between digital haves and have-nots would grow wider. And cable firms, which are under stricter requirements to serve entire communities, would be at an unfair disadvantage.
Phone companies insist they will not engage in such discrimination, which they claim is illegal. What's more, they say many of the best potential customers are in ethnically diverse urban areas rather than well-to-do suburbs.
But without enforceable requirements to the contrary, it would be only natural for phone companies to go after the most lucrative customers. And communities left behind could do little more than complain about it.
Both the state and federal bills should be amended to make sure the benefits of this promising new form of competition are spread equitably across California and the United States."
Documents are sought from Clear Channel, CBS, Entercom and Citadel, sources say. The agency's step comes after settlement talks stall.
[NOTE: This action comes just weeks after Media Alliance members flooded the FCC with email urging them not to settle with Clear Channel and instead, to launch a full investigation with real consequences.]
By Charles Duhigg, L.A. Times Staff Writer
April 20, 2006
The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday launched formal investigations into pay-for-play practices at four of the nation's largest radio corporations, the biggest federal inquiry into radio bribery since the congressional payola hearings of 1960.
Two FCC officials with direct knowledge of the matter confirmed that the agency had requested documents from Clear Channel Communications Inc., CBS Radio Inc., Entercom Communications Corp. and Citadel Broadcasting Corp. over allegations that radio programmers had received cash, checks, clothing and other gifts in exchange for playing certain songs without revealing the deals to listeners, a violation of federal rules.
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The FCC requests, known formally as "letters of inquiry," are the first step in investigations that could result in sanctions ranging from financial penalties to the revocation of stations' licenses.
An FCC spokeswoman declined to comment. Representatives of the four radio companies could not be reached for comment.
In the past, radio executives at firms including Clear Channel, the nation's largest station owner, have said that company policies prohibit accepting gifts for airplay and that internal probes have not revealed widespread wrongdoing.
The four broadcasters have been negotiating with the FCC for weeks to forestall a federal inquiry by offering to discontinue certain practices and pay limited fines. But those talks stalled last month over the issue of how much the broadcasters should pay.
Clear Channel proposed a fine of about $1 million, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations. Some commissioners were pushing for as much as $10 million, those sources said.
"We were in the process of trying to reach settlements, but when talks were inconclusive, we decided we needed more information," said an FCC official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing. "We will continue to speak with the parties and to hold those who have violated commission rules accountable."
The FCC requires that radio listeners be informed anytime there is an exchange of items of value for airplay of specific songs.
The FCC's action comes amid New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer's pay-for-play probe, launched in 2004, which has alleged wrongdoing by both music and radio companies. In February, Spitzer sued Entercom, alleging that high-ranking executives had implemented scams to trade cash for airplay of songs by such artists as Avril Lavigne, Liz Phair and Jessica Simpson.
Entercom has denied the allegations.
The other three radio companies are also under investigation by Spitzer, who has shared his evidence with the FCC.
Radio programmers at stations around the country say that fear of regulatory scrutiny has scared them into airing fewer new songs. Instead, many stations are sticking to less diverse playlists.
Bryan Tramont, who served as chief of staff to former FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell and is now an attorney in private practice, said the inquiry appeared to be more than a fishing expedition.
"The FCC would only launch a formal investigation if they had information leading them to believe possible violations have occurred," he said.
Other FCC insiders said this new stage of investigation could put broadcasters more at risk of previously undiscovered evidence of wrongdoing being found. The investigation could give the FCC access to millions of previously unexamined documents. It could also expand to include stations and radio executives across the nation.
"Until now, we've been limited to the evidence Spitzer gave us, but a formal investigation will compel the radio companies to answer certain questions, which are usually pretty exhaustive," said another current FCC official familiar with the inquiry. "It will all be on the record now, and once we start demanding documents, we can keep on going until we're convinced we've found everything."
Spitzer has been critical of the FCC's negotiations with radio companies, saying that if the federal government allowed stations to settle it would undercut his efforts to force tougher sanctions and rules on the industry.
"Unfortunately the FCC, contrary to good public policy, has not pursued an investigation of the underlying facts," Spitzer said in April. His representative could not be reached for comment.
The last time the FCC took action on pay-for-play allegations was in 2000, when it fined two stations in Texas and Michigan $4,000 each for not disclosing payments received from A&M Records in exchange for playing songs by Bryan Adams.
But the investigation launched Wednesday was evidence of the FCC's vigilance, said federal officials.
"The chairman has always taken these allegations seriously," said one FCC official, referring to FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin. "We're not worried about criticisms."
The FCC's new investigation is the largest federal radio bribery inquiry since Congress opened hearings on pay-for-play in 1960. Those inquiries resulted in the first federal "payola" laws and killed the career of famed disc jockey Alan Freed, who pleaded guilty to two counts of commercial bribery and was fined $300.
By Michael Hiltzik
April 17, 2006
I have a simple rule of thumb for determining whether my cable TV service is overpriced: Is it a monopoly? Then it's overpriced.
And let's face it: Virtually every cable TV operation in the country is a monopoly.
In principle, therefore, we should welcome the efforts of the phone companies Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. to offer cable-style video services to the home in competition with the Comcasts and Time Warner Cables of the world. The record shows that when a genuine rival enters a cable TV market, subscription rates plummet. (Satellite TV doesn't have as marked an effect, because dish TV has its own inadequacies and can't provide broadband Internet service as conveniently as cable or DSL.)
But the question raised by a bill in the state Assembly is whether it's necessary to wipe out all local regulation of cable services in order to achieve the nirvana of video competition. AB 2987, sponsored by Democratic Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez and Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), chairman of the Utilities and Commerce Committee, would do just that.
The bill would replace our current regime of local regulation with a statewide system endowed with scarcely a dime's worth of enforcement authority. Local officials have reacted predictably to this threat to their only leverage against the big companies — leverage that has allowed them to demand benefits such as public access channels and free video and Internet connections for government buildings, schools and libraries, as well as enforceable guarantees of service to underserved neighborhoods and communities.
"This bill is not good public policy for California," says Lori Panzino-Tillery, division chief of the franchise program for San Bernardino County and president of the National Assn. of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors. "It would harm technology to schools, it doesn't provide for advanced services for those who don't have it and it doesn't enhance broadband deployment."
Levine says it's wrong to regard his bill as deregulation. "We're not removing regulation," he says, "we're regulating differently."
Still, from the companies' standpoint, one undoubtedly gratifying feature of the bill is the ease of obtaining a statewide franchise. The procedure would require a video provider merely to file an application with the state Department of Corporations essentially bearing its name and address and identifying the boundary lines and socioeconomic characteristics of the region it wishes to serve. It must also pledge to observe local laws, to avoid redlining underprivileged neighborhoods and to provide a certain number of public-access hours. But the bill doesn't require the provision of separate public-access channels, known as PEG, or "public, educational and government," channels. Once the application is complete, the department would be required to award the franchise within 14 days.
No public hearings. No vote by elected officials. What if the company later violates its pledges? Tough. The Department of Corporations has no authority to revoke the franchise. The only path of enforcement is litigation by a municipality, a district attorney or the attorney general. (As if they don't have enough to do besides wrangling in court with nationwide phone and cable giants for a few years.) The phone companies would be awarded the free ride immediately; cable providers as early as 2008 or whenever their existing local franchise agreements expire.
AT&T and Verizon, which are vocal in the bill's praise, complain that reaching franchise agreements with more than 500 cities and counties in California is an arduous process that only delays the rollout of advanced technologies and the marvels of competition to downtrodden consumers. Both companies say the local franchise system is a relic of the past, when cable meant a one-way coaxial pipeline carrying TV channels into the home, unlike today's interactive digital fiber optics with high-speed Internet service and video on demand. But they haven't made the case that the old system is unable to cope with the new world, only that they'd rather do without it.
Tim McCallion, region president of Verizon California, told me that two years of negotiations with 30 municipalities have yielded his company only five agreements thus far. "There are always a lot of bureaucratic reasons and rationales for slowing the process down," he says. Ken McNeely, president of AT&T California, illustrates the obstacles thrown up by local officials by observing that Oakland has been negotiating its franchise agreement with Comcast for three years and San Jose for six.
As blanket condemnations of municipal regulation, these arguments fall under the category of spin. Local officials say the phone companies try to manhandle them by swanking into City Hall with take-it-or-leave-it contracts and dragging their feet in negotiating when told that won't do. "I have cities that have said they've sat at the table for only four hours over a six-month period," says Panzino-Tillery.
As for Oakland and San Jose, Comcast is a full partner in those delays. In Oakland, it's balking at a city law facilitating union organizing of its workforce; in San Jose, the sticking point is the city's demand for additional public access channels. Both demands are arguably public benefices; Comcast just doesn't want to pay the price. While the negotiations drag on, it has continued to serve its customers unimpeded, collecting its customary profit.
We shouldn't forget that this state's row over TV regulation is merely a skirmish in an epochal war. The cable providers and phone companies are invading each other's turfs with bundled TV, Internet and phone deals, and at every turn each side gripes that the other is favored by incumbency and outdated regulatory procedures. Rather than confronting these claims head-on, the Federal Communications Commission and state regulators have made themselves scarce.
Will the entire country gain evenly from deregulated telecommunications? Doubtful. Affluent suburban neighborhoods will get the best service first; low-income, rural and inner-city communities, which need advanced telecommunications as much as anybody, will get the dregs eventually, if ever.
In rural San Bernardino County, Panzino-Tillery observes, there are communities that haven't yet been touched by cable TV, much less broadband Internet. "There are people out there who don't have this stuff," she says, "and the way federal and state legislation is going, they never will be."
The cable and phone companies keep talking about their desire to face each other on a level playing field, but who's keeping it level for the consumer?
By Rinku Sen, from TomPaine.com
April 10, 2006
Last month, hundreds of thousands of immigrants marched to protest Rep. James F. Sensenbrenner’s, R-Wis., punitive immigration bill. Five hundred thousand marched in Los Angeles, 100,000 in Chicago, and 50,000 in Denver. Similar numbers are expected today . The protests have touched many more than even those numbers imply. Millions of people—at kitchen tables, in bars, at the bowling alley—are now debating the rights of immigrants, particularly Latinos, to assert themselves as Americans while holding to their original identities. These developments appear to have killed the House bill. Whether or not a better bill passes this year, there’s no question that the immigration policy debate has shifted.
These events offer important lessons for advocates and policymakers. Strategically, the protests have exposed the true nature of the immigration debate, which is far more cultural and racial than our economic arguments have accounted for. Tactically, they teach us that social networks and media have to be integrated with our political strategy, even though they cannot, by their very nature, be fully predicted or controlled.
The immigration debate has largely pitted two images of undocumented immigrants against each other. On the political right, they are lawbreakers. On the left, they are hard workers. Conservatives are careful not to appear racist by focusing on legal technicalities. Progressives have also been silent on race because they fear that immigrants don’t see themselves as people of color, or because they want to pander to Americans who can’t stomach the idea that their nation is growing browner with every passing year.
For many years, the right and left have been talking in codes around the real issue. Americans, whether corporate leader or working mother, are perfectly fine having brown people from other countries provide cheap labor. But they draw the line at letting those people bring or build families here, and at letting them speak other languages or marry their children.
The look and feel of the demonstrations indicates that these racial and cultural dynamics has driven the debate into the streets. A New America Media poll reveals that the vast majority of legal immigrants are alarmed by the racism embedded in the debate. This is an uprising of people, not just of workers, who are social beings rather than economic objects.
Hundreds of thousands of marchers are now telling America what its leaders have kept quiet: you can’t have our labor without changing the color of the country. Immigrants, legal or not, will change the complexion and culture of the United States within the next 50 years.
The controversy over protestors carrying Mexican and Central American flags proves the point. The criticism from conservative ideologues and liberal tacticians isn’t going to change the reality of a multiracial, multilingual, multinational America. It’s because of the racial identity base of the protestors that these marches have so much focus—the kind of focus that similarly massive anti-war protests, which have included everything from Palestine to global warming, have lacked.
This explosive movement has been driven by social, rather than by political, networks. In fact, every U.S. social movement has reached its apex when the political and social elements came together, when they had the political base, used the mass media creatively and effectively, and activated friendship, spiritual and family networks.
While immigrant rights organizations have worked for years to generate mass action on a range of anti-immigrant ballot measures in California, the convergence of distinct cultural trends has made all the difference.
Young people are moving their friends through cell phones and MySpace, Spanish-language radio DJs (in the corporate media, by the way) are talking to their listeners, and church leaders, both lay and ordained, are getting to their parishioners.
Certainly, unions and immigrant rights groups are also activating their members, but let’s face it, these kinds of numbers are generated virally and many thousands of people who show up to these protests will never join an organization. The activity is decentralized. No single organization or coalition owns it. Therefore, it can’t be fully directed and it’s a bit unpredictable. The organized chaos of social movements often frightens advocates who spend most of their time trying to get legislative cooperation.
This doesn’t mean that organizations and policies are irrelevant to movement building. Movements rise from the foundation of organizing, policy development and community leadership so that when the public eye moves around looking for the truth, there’s somewhere for it to land.
While this mobilization has been driven by a web of intimate associations it is the political organizing across generations that has pushed politicians to take up the immigration debate. Without this kind of persistent political activity, there would be no immigration policy to challenge; and no alternative to the increasingly punitive immigration policies.
People tend to rise up over specific threats that represent a larger system—someone has to agitate anger over that threat and raise the public’s expectations for better policy. That’s what immigrant rights organizations and their allies have been doing over the last 15 years.
Today’s events show us again how focused mass movement emerges from social networks and media, then changes public opinion, which then puts new pressure on policy makers. Innovative organizations equip themselves to deal with social networks and the media, not just when something big needs to happen, but all the time. As a friend said to me over dinner after organizing 100,000 marchers in D.C., “You work on immigration for 10 years, and then all of a sudden your moment comes. It almost killed us, but we were ready.” The only way to get ready is to build social activity and media work into our programs and products.
Progressive funders, however, constantly ask advocates and organizations to prove that our work results in policy change. They’d like us to draw a straight line between our activities and the change we seek, year after year, and they’d like us to walk down that line quickly. The fact that social movements that feed truly large scale policy change doesn’t work that way wouldn’t be so unfortunate if progressive elites weren’t so attached to that idea, forcing the flow of resources into very narrow channels.
Something important is happening today. It’s showing us that we have to talk about race because that is what the policy debate—and the reality of peoples’ lives—is really about. It’s also showing us that we have to lay the foundation to ride a spontaneous movement when it does arrive. In these high moments, we also have to remember that no individual movement is successful forever, that all victories generate a backlash. So it’s important not to over-exceptionalize the immigrant rights movement, to recognize that its real strength will be in its broader lessons for advocates and in its broader moral resonance for all people of color, and indeed, for all Americans.
Rinku Sen is the publisher of ColorLines magazine and communications director of the Applied Research Center (ARC), in Oakland.
Clear Channel offers to settle payola case with FCC
Web Posted: 04/05/2006
By Sanford Nowlin, San Antonio Express-News
San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications Inc. has offered to pay $1 million to settle a Federal Communications Commission probe into recording-industry payola, a company official said Tuesday.
Andrew Levin, Clear Channel's chief legal officer, said the company is talking to the commission to settle an eight-month-old investigation into whether radio broadcasters took illegal contributions from record companies to increase their play of specific songs.
"We're willing to pay a reasonable amount to put this matter behind us," Levin said. "We want to go back to focusing on our business and not on ancient history."
Clear Channel, CBS Radio, Entercom Communications and Citadel Broadcasting Corp., four of the nation's largest radio broadcasters, are in talks with the FCC to settle its probe, said people familiar with the discussions who asked not to be named.
However, those people also said at least one FCC commissioner, Democrat Jonathan Adelstein, isn't satisfied with the companies' settlement offers and wants them to pay stiffer financial penalties. A spokesman for Adelstein was unavailable for comment.
Officials of CBS Radio and Entercom declined to comment on the FCC probe, while Citadel officials were not available at press time Tuesday.
News of the talks comes as New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer conducts a separate payola investigation.
Both the FCC and Spitzer are looking into concerns that radio stations may have taken cash and goods in exchange for increased spins of particular songs, a practice that's been illegal since the late 1950s.
Clear Channel's Levin said his company has cooperated with both probes, having turned over thousands of pages of documents.
The company two years ago cut ties with independent promoters that music labels hire to boost radio exposure so it could "avoid the appearance of impropriety." In October, it completed an internal payola investigation, firing and penalizing several employees for violating pay-for-play rules.
However, Levin said authorities have sought information predating its internal efforts to crack down on payola.
"Just because we're the largest radio company doesn't mean we have the largest violations," Levin said. "We have been a model for the industry in terms of trying to put a stop to this practice."
The FCC last fined a broadcaster for engaging in payola in 2000 when it fined Clear Channel $8,000 for not disclosing payments it received to boost airplay of a Bryan Adams song.
Spitzer has blasted the FCC for negotiating settlements with the broadcasters, on Monday saying that the move would undercut his case.
Record companies Sony BMG and Warner Music Group together have paid $15 million to settle with Spitzer, and his office last month filed a lawsuit against Entercom alleging it accepted improper payments in exchange for airplay.
Previously, Spitzer had criticized the FCC for acting too slowly on the matter.
"Any time Spitzer can get $5 million and $10 million from these record companies in his investigation, you have to wonder why the FCC would let Clear Channel pay $1 million," said Paul Porter, whose activist group Industry Ears has criticized Clear Channel and other broadcasters.
But radio-industry analysts said they're not particularly concerned about the probe or a potential settlement, adding that Clear Channel, which owns 1,200 stations, faces much larger challenges as it faces competition from satellite radio and other entertainment sources.
Settling the investigation, they add, may just be a routine part of doing business.
"In the whole scheme of Clear Channel issues, this one is at the bottom of the list," said Michael Nathanson, who follows the company for Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York. "For you and me, $1 million is a lot of money, but not for them."
snowlin@express-news.net
The FCC's negotiations with four radio chains about alleged payola may hurt the New York official's bid for tougher rules.
By Charles Duhigg, L.A. Times Staff Writer
April 4, 2006
New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer said Monday that federal regulators were negotiating behind his back with radio station groups to settle allegations of illegal payments for airplay, potentially helping the companies avoid serious punishment.
In an interview, Spitzer said the talks between the Federal Communications Commission and four radio conglomerates, which Spitzer said would result in modest fines and reforms, could undercut his efforts to force tougher sanctions and rules on the industry.
"The radio conglomerates want to settle on the cheap with the Feds and unfortunately the FCC, contrary to good public policy, has not pursued an investigation of the underlying facts," he said. "We have made repeated overtures to work with them. I'm still waiting to hear back."
FCC spokesman David Fiske said the agency would like to work with Spitzer, who is running for governor of New York.
"For many months we have been actively pursuing allegations of payola on the part of radio broadcasters," Fiske said. "We appreciate cooperation with the New York attorney general's office and look forward to working with the New York attorney general in the future."
At least one FCC commissioner, Democrat Jonathan S. Adelstein, has urged tougher penalties and fines that could exceed $10 million per company.
At least nine chains of radio stations are under scrutiny by Spitzer for allegedly accepting gifts and other incentives to air songs. Federal regulations require broadcasters to disclose paid promotions to listeners.
Last month, Spitzer sued the nation's fourth-largest radio broadcaster, Entercom Communications Corp., after the company rebuffed a proposed settlement that would have included a $20-million fine. Entercom has denied the allegations.
Some FCC officials have indicated they favor fines of less than $3 million per company. Depending on how they are worded, the settlements could prevent Spitzer from forcing companies to adopt certain reforms.
The FCC is in talks with Clear Channel Communications Inc., CBS Radio Inc., Entercom and Citadel Broadcasting Corp. over allegations that broadcasters received flat-screen TVs and cash in exchange for airplay and on-air plugs of albums and concerts.
Some radio executives involved in negotiations with the FCC said the agency had proposed that stations abide by a compliance plan similar to the terms Spitzer set forth in settlements with record companies last year, but with less onerous oversight provisions and fewer prohibited activities.
The FCC began negotiations with some radio companies in February, but has yet to formally launch an investigation by serving letters of inquiry that would compel stations to hand over documents. Spitzer has collected hundreds of thousands of documents related to alleged radio payola in the course of his investigation, some of which have been shared with the FCC.
"I would wonder why the FCC thinks they have the basis for a settlement without investigating the underlying facts," Spitzer said.
His office, he added, has not handed over all of its evidence. In the past, Spitzer's investigators have refused to share documents because they were frustrated by the FCC's slow pace.
Source: Los Angeles Times, April 4, 2006
By JOHN NICHOLS
The Nation Magazine, April 17, issue
"What's needed is a new model for old-media ownership, and it's just possible that one could come out of the Knight Ridder debacle."
While most mainstream media outlets earned the scorn that has been heaped upon them for their stenographic reporting of the Bush Administration's prewar claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, one newspaper chain's Washington bureau was consistently--and, it turns out, correctly--skeptical of the White House.
Before the war began, Knight Ridder's small but able team of reporters was the exception to a bad rule, producing a steady stream of now widely praised articles with headlines that referred to the "Failure to find weapons in Iraq" and "Troubling questions over justification for war in Iraq."
But the war that might have been averted by more skeptical reporting from the rest of the media will outlast Knight Ridder. Pressed by investors who grumbled about the company's putting too much money into journalism and returning too little profit, Knight Ridder sold out to the California-based McClatchy chain, which paid $4.5 billion and then announced it would auction off, by summer, a dozen Knight Ridder papers, including eight represented by the Newspaper Guild.
The end of Knight Ridder, whose thirty-two newspapers--including the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Akron Beacon Journal and the San Jose Mercury News--had earned a combined eighty-four Pulitzer Prizes, illustrates the peril of practicing the craft of journalism in times like these. No conspiracy took Knight Ridder down; it was Wall Street's line that profit margins of 19 or 20 percent--which the chain posted in recent years--no longer suffice.
Though McClatchy officials weren't saying as much, the decision to sell off newly acquired papers in Philadelphia and San Jose, which are rated among the best in the country, was an admission that doing journalism right in some of the nation's most diverse cities costs more than the new owners are ready to spend.
That makes this a scary moment for anyone who recognizes the role that strong daily newspapers still play in gathering news, promoting debate and--in the case of most of the editorial pages of Knight Ridder's dailies that are for sale--challenging the new orthodoxies of the right. Who buys these papers will matter, not just to the communities where they are located but to the political and social fabric of the states where they publish and to the national discourse.
There may come a time when new media begin to produce a steady flow of quality reporting, but as of now, according to the latest report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, while the number of media outlets is growing, fewer stories are being covered and in less depth.
"The worry is not the wondrous addition of citizen media, but the decline of full-time, professional monitoring of powerful institutions," the report argues. As the Project's director, Tom Rosenstiel, warns, "The content has to come from somewhere, and as older news-gathering media decline, some of the strengths they offer in monitoring the powerful and verifying the facts may be weakening as well."
What's needed is a new model for old-media ownership, and it's just possible that one could come out of the Knight Ridder debacle. A union-friendly private-equity firm, Yucaipa Companies, is bidding against several of the country's more unsavory chains for the twelve papers, most of which are unionized. If it succeeds, newspaper employees could over time buy ownership of a new corporation set up to run the papers.
"It will start off 100 percent owned by Yucaipa and then more and more by employees," explains Newspaper Guild president Linda Foley. "We would like it to be majority-owned by employees, eventually 100 percent."
McClatchy has erected barriers to the bid from Yucaipa, a firm run by billionaire Ronald Burkle. And even if Yucaipa overcomes those obstacles and buys all or most of the dailies, the papers will still have to struggle with the shifting realities of a newspaper business where circulation rates and advertising revenues are generally in decline, and where the costs of paying reporters, maintaining news bureaus and pursuing investigations keep going up. Even a model that frees newspapers from the pressures imposed by the greediest investors will not necessarily usher in an era of journalistic freedom and excellence.
But the Yucaipa bid offers some hope that, while the Project for Excellence in Journalism is right that "the news industry is beginning to move into the next era," newspaper journalists may still be able to earn a fair wage for asking tough questions of those in power.