November 27, 2007
Kevin J. Martin
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th St.
SW Washington DC, 20554
Dear Mr. Martin,
After reading the Tuesday, Nov. 13 FCC press release detailing your proposed Newspaper/Broadcast Cross Ownership Rule, a.k.a. Docket 06-121, I felt a surge of disappointment and disgust. For more than seven hours on the previous Friday (Nov. 9), you sat with the other FCC commissioners and listened to my fellow Seattleites tell you that we do not want you to approve this rule, but your proceeding as if the public hearing never happened.
People from the entire political spectrum across the country are demanding you drop the proposal, despite your cheap parlor tricks of trying to short-change the public opinion gathering process by hastily arranging these latest hearings: a one-week notice sent out to the public for our chance to speak with the full commission about Docket 06-121? That was incredibly disrespectful. Shame on you!
You and your fellow commissioners have a responsibility to ensure the people of the United States are served by a media world that embraces, according to one of the FCC's guiding statements, "competition, localism and diversity."
How does giving the massive media corporations that own our country's daily newspapers permission to bully their way in a market and buy up smaller, often independent, radio and television stations foster "competition, localism and diversity"? It doesn't, but you knew this already, didn't you? The FCC has studied the dynamics of media consolidation and found that markets with cross-owned media outlets provide less news as a whole.
Serve the interests you were appointed to serve - the American people - not the handful of ultra-rich media conglomerates you seem to want to help so badly. Kill Docket 06-121.
Sincerely,
Erik Hansen
Editor, Beacon Hill News & South District Journal
4000 Aurora Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98103
(206) 461-1311; editor@sdistrictjournal.com
CC: Commissioners Michael Copps, Jonathan Adelstein, Deborah Taylor Tate, and Robert McDowell