Freepress-dc
Running notes from the FreePress.net Washington DC Summit, May 13, 2009
Author: Bill Densmore (densmore@mediagiraffe.org)
Today's event (http://www.freepress.net/summit) has drawn about 600 people, according to organizers, to the seventh floor of the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue. Key sponsor is the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Twitter tag: #fpdc / Flickr Tag: #fpsummit
The program was set up as podium-style presentations in the morning and small-group breakouts in the afternoon. Starting lineup with Alberto Ibarguen, head of the Knight Foundation, and Josh Silver, executive director of Northampton, Mass.-based Free Press.
BOOK: "Changing Media: Public Interest Policies for the Digital Age"
The event coincides with release of a 284-page, paperback book, "Changing Media: Public Interest Policies for the Digital Age," published by FreePress to push its policy agenda.
In one talk, Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner blames the Federal Communications Commission for mishandling open-access provisions in the 1990s which have resulted in America's broadband infrastructure being slower and less ubiquitous than some other developed countries. The jist of his talk is that FCC policies enshrined a telecom "duopoly," stiffling innovation, driving out small competitors and allowing AT&T, Verizon and other carriers to earn what Turner called "obscene" profits on residential landlines. "I think most of us can agree that this record of abject failure must end now," he says.
Recommendations (there were six; I'll fill in later):
- FCC should do everything it can to enshrine open-access on the Internet, and put non-communications in the Communications Act.
- The telecom Universal Service Fund should be used to fund Internet broadband buildout.
Part 2: Journalism and Public Media
Next up is Craig Aaron, senior program director for FreePress. He says by one count 24,000 journalism jobs have been lost since 2008. "Many of the news-industry's wounds are self-inflicted," he says. Instead of investing in their futures, media companies instead purchased more properties with more debt. "But here is the dirty secret about newspapers -- newspapers are still profitable," Aaron says, some continuing to earn 20% operating-profit margins. The industry asks for more concentration and consolidation, he says.
Four core principles needed, Aaron says:
- Protect First Amendment
- Push for quality local coverage and adversarial perspectives
- Promote public accountability; journalism as public service, not commodity
- Prioritize innovation; utilize new tools to get journalism to broadest range of people
Journalism has always been subsidized, says Aaron, by advertising or preferential postal rates or other government policies or business practices. "I hate to break it to some of you, but the government is going to have to be involved," he says.
Sueing bloggers and "mandatory micropayments" do not count as promising policies, he says. He advocates these policies:
- New ownership models. Try no profit and low profit (L3c) options. He pushes Sen. Ben Cardin's non-profit newspaper bill but says its language will exclude community media and ethnic media. He suggests the low-profit, limited liability service.
- Develop menu of options to encourage media conglomerates to sell of their properties to new owners under a structure like an L3C. Also a way for employees to take over the media organizations. "Bankruptcy could be an opportunity in disguise," he says.
- Journalism jobs program -- A program to train or retrain journalists. Take a few thousand AmeriCorps jobs and give them to journalism organizations. Or put laid-off journalist to work teaching news-literacy in colleges.
"Those are the short-term fixes we propose in the book," says Aaron. Longer term, there needs to be a "government seeded investment fund that invests in new journalism models." It would focus on new technology and start-up initiatives. In addition, he says it is time to rebuild the U.S. public-broadcasting infrastructure. U.S. now spends $400 million a year on public media - $1.35 a person. By comparison, Canada spends $22, England $80 and some Scandinavian countries over $100 per person.
