by Alyssa Taylor
Contributing Writer

A good question rose by www. reclaimthemedia.org and at the Town Hall meeting held in Seattle on November 9, pitting local ownership of media, localism, versus the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) support of media consolidation.

The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934. It regulates communications by TV, radio, cable, satellite and wire. They hope to limit how many local media outlets a company could own. Their support of media consolidation could jeopardize locally owned stations such as KONG, KEXP and Latin station KCPN.

“Consolidation has gone too far, and out of 30 of the largest radio stations 80% are nationally owned companies.” Said KVI-AM talk show host of KVI-AM John Carlson, “How does smothering competition help the public?”

The energy in the hall was passionate and intense. While commissioners spoke, booing and hissing filled the hall along with remarks of “sit down, go home!”

“In my five years on Commission, I have never seen a public meeting scheduled on such short notice,” stated commissioner Jonathan Aidelstein. The FCC gave the Seattle public a five-day notice, which gave the FCC an advantage and did not allow proper time for the opposition movement to gather support.

Even so, over 200 people signed up to speak at the hearing and hundreds more were present. T h o u s a n d s would have attended the hearing if proper notice had been given sooner. In fact, Senator Maria Cantwell had asked for a four-week notice, and that did not happen.

Reporter Geov Parish for “Eat the State,” a Seattle-based paper, was present. This paper and “Washington Free Press” are local free press papers available to Seattleites.

Mark Emmert, the President of the University of Washington, admitted that he was not a scholar of cross-media ownership, but instead he was educated on communication and education that relies on media, a process he said was essential for democracy. There are three principles he believes essential for this process: Explore, Understand, and then Transmit. Once he finished, the panel then began with their statements.

Ray Heacox, the GM of King Br o a d c a s t i n g S e a t t l e r e p r e s e n t e d KONG, their independent news station that services the greater Seattle area providing other news options for viewers.

“Only in variety is our freedom,” claimed Frank Blethen, publisher and CEO of the Seattle Times. “Free press is made of many newspapers dependent on the community, and that localism has been abandoned by the FCC. Conglomerate media owners will tell you that they need more consolidation, when really it doesn’t promote a healthy democracy.”

He ended his statement by saying, “The FCC needs to become part of the solution, and stop being the problem.”

The panel also included Erubiel Valladares-Carranzo and Oscar Morales representing the Latin radio station 96.3 KPCN, pleading, “Don’t shut down our voices!”

The majority of the voices heard at the FCC hearing were for localization and against media-consolidation. Many of the younger attendees last night were dressed as zombies portraying that one could become a zombie if their voice was not heard.

We as consumers deserve good music and news when we want it, and how we want it. Why does the FCC continue to fight and take away what we the consumers want? The FCC was created to regulate the media we use, so shouldn’t it be our call? After all, Aidelstein remarked, “This goes against the American Spirit.”