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," he says. 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. "Every single person in this room spent $600 to bail out AIG," he asserted.
He also proposes passage of a bypartisan local community broadcasting radio act.
Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps talks
Now Michael J. Copps, acting Federal Communications Commission chairman, is talking ... he calls it a shining, golden time . . . but reform is "never on autopilot."
"Today, strenghtening democracy means building media democracy," he says at the close of his talk.
He praises FreePress for the "Changing Media" book out today. "I've already read mine and dog-earred it," he says. "But I commend it not just to the Free Press faithful but to those who may be diametrically opposed to the recommendations it makes."
His points:
- It's all about democracy and a democracy runs on information and is how we "hold the powerful accountable," he says. We have deprived people of information and you deprive people of the ability to govern themselves. COPPS: "We are in trouble on this score. Two decades of mindless de-regulation ... topped off by a veritable tsunami of consolidation ... have succeeded in bringing our democracy how ... we are skating perilously close to depriving our citizens ... of the information the need to make decisions about the future of our country." He adds: "We may not just be losing journalists, we may be losing journalism." Precious things get lost when journalism is subservient to commercialism, he says.
Copps doesn't think a restored economy will solve the problem. He warns: "As soon as our economy starts turning around we will find another urge to merge, to buy, to find those ever elusive economies of scale." He says Wall Street priorities pulled journalism to places it didn't want to go.
- "The Fairness Doctrine is long gone, it is not coming back, as much as every conspiracy theorist sees it lurking behind every corner." He said the FCC will not lose the opportunity to make real progress on diversity and media reform because some people suggest a straw man of the return of the Fairness Doctrine, he said.
- Old media is not going away, Copps says. New media does not compete with old media on investigative journalism or local report. "Traditional media remains critically important and it is something we have to deal with." If old media is going to be with us, what are the implications: 1) Get serious about defining broadcasters' public-interest obligations. (2) "It is time to say good-bye to post-card license renewal every eight years" and hello to three-year renewals with a public-interest test, Copps said. It was the first time the audience clapping in mid-discussion. (3) Make sure sins of old media are not imposed on new media. He said he will be working on the principle of non-discrimination of a hallmark of FCC regulation.
- "How do we get information out about real issues of public concern?" Copps now asks. You can do something with licensing in the old-media world to enforce public-service behavior, but what about the Internet, where there is no licensing? "I wish I had an answer to those questions. I don't. But I do know we need to begin a serious national dialog." He suggests a high-level commmission to study it. "Certainly we need more regulation than the country has had in the last few years, but regulation isn't always the answer." He suggests one possibility is "a PBS system on steroids."
- "Remember how we got here -- a lot of grass-routes organizing?" asks Copps. "Don't let anyone thing it's over ... change has come to Washington but Washington has not been conquered." He hopes the FCC "can become the agent for positive change -- and what a change that is." (Here there is some light applause).
Susan Crawford, National Economic Council (White House)
Post-lunch speaker is Susan Crawford of the National Economic Council in the White House.idea.
"It seems as if networks of newspapers may be necessary," she says. "Steve Brill and some others are working on that idea."
She describes her summer internship at The New York Times and her belief that President Obama is supportive of the problems the news media is facing. She thinks there is something positive about Twitter and Facebook. She recites a litany of statistics showing the nation lagging behind on the speed, and socio-economic penetration of broadband. “I assure you the administration, at the highest levels is interested in a national broadband plan," she says. "OUr president is so great at moving us, challenging us to think about issues that are broader than ourselves."
Ubiquitous broadband might allow an entirely new method of diagnosing cardiac disease, or enable distance learning -- such as a University of Texas program that allows the children of migrant workers graduate from high school by logging into classes from anywhere. "There are many programs like this across the country," says Crawford, a former New York University law professor.
Panel: How did we get to where we are?
Now there's a panel talking about how we got to where we are:
- Ray Suarez, the News Hour
- Reed Hundt, former FCC chairman
- Michael Powell, former FCC chairman
- Jessica Rosenworcel, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
- Ben Scott, Free Press
- Ram Shriram, Sherpalo Ventures (venture capitalist)
Reed Hunt: "We need a a healthnet, we need an electric net, we need a democracy net and we need a public safety net. ... how do we get there?"
Ben Scott: "The 100-year-accident" of monopoly newspapers and advertising is coming to an end and yielding to a cacophony. "In many ways, we are back to where we were 200 years ago." The postal system created subsidies for publishers. The Internet is a fantastic postal service and publishing system. He says to approach the problem from the point of view of what have we always wanted to have.
Powell: Spectrum reform is the key -- getting electronics in the home that use it more economically.
Scott: It's time to think of broadband not as something for entertainment but as a a fundamental public infrastructure.
