Future of Media and Information
Needs of Communities Workshop
As I sat in the workshop, I was disappointed that I was one of a handful of African Americans in attendance. "The Future of Media and Information Needs" is a vital concern for all Americans especially minorities, females, and people of color. In a time where the law is regulated to favor a dominant "white male" ownership of the media I do not understand why a stronger African American presence was not at this workshop. It could be misconstrued that African Americans do not care about the media and accept the present state of the media as is. When African American need to make a strong showing of visibility and concern about media. African Americans are somewhere else. We cannot depend on others to fight for justice for us. We must stand up for our own concerns. Otherwise people will think that African American don't care and do as they wish.
The ability to own stations and transmit messages created for and designed by African Americans through audio,video, and print from the perspective of an African American is paramount to the culture of African Americans. Ownership of media and the right/ability to transmit messages should be at the forefront of the civil right organizations. The broadcast media is simply unjust too few own too many. I know that some would argue that it does not make a difference the "ethnicity" of the owner and I could agree with that if the corporate owners allowed the managers to manage then the ethnicity of th eowner doesn't make a difference but under the marketplace ideology decision making is out of the local programmers hand. In the corporate workplace you'll this "Corporate says we must do it this way!"
This workshop as with most others featured the typical debate between the marketplace ideology and the public trustee model of broadcasting. Let me say that I am on the side of the public trustee model because I have not seen the benefits of the marketplace ideology of broadcasting in terms of jobs, ownership, local news and information. I have witnessed losses in jobs, ownership, local news and information under the marketplace ideology.
As a matter of fact, the full enactment of deregulation(I mean changing the rules to favor a few) through the 1996 Telecommunications Act has many of my former broadcasting colleagues out of the industry or working in another career. As for ownership, African American owners are being crushed as media corporations dominate local markets and those African American owners that are surviving are imitators of the business model of the dominant white male ownership. There is a huge disconnect between Black Radio and Black People even when the owners of are African American. Syndication employed by African American owners is the worst thing to happen in Black Radio and localism but African American owners must employ the practice(syndication) in order to survive. Radio historically connected African American people and communities. A rising number of African Americans do not bother to listen to radio anymore.
O
n the positive side Commissioner Coops a warrior for the public interest did not hold back anything in his remarks. I suggest that you go to http://www.fcc.gov and download his remarks and read his statement in its entirety.Finally, a stunning moment occurred when the minority and people of color media ownership question surfaced and no one the panel was a person of color who could actually address the question. There was glaring moment of silence until Andrew Schartzman of the Media Access Project offered remarks. I asked the FCC Senior Advisor to Chairman were there any people of color invited to the panel and he stated that the invited persons canceled. I did not ask who was invited and took him at his word however the entire world witnessed as Commissioner Coops remarked about the "sins of the commission's omission" in terms of minorities, females and people of color, where a workshop was held and only one person of color was present out of three panels. How change seems to be the same.
Peace
