Be The Media

Media Lag on Hiring African-Americans -NAACP

From Reuters:

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. news and entertainment media may put African-Americans on camera but they lag in hiring and promoting minorities in critical behind-the-scenes jobs, the NAACP civil rights group reported on Tuesday.

Despite some progress in the last year in hiring by some television networks, notably CBS and Fox, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said there was scant progress for blacks and other racial minorities in decision-making media positions.

"Although there appear to be small gains in on-air roles, there is practically no representation of people of color in the top echelon of production, which is the nucleus of the industry," Mfume said at a news conference to release the NAACP's report on the film and television industry.

He specifically criticized the movie business for failing to employ minority workers except in "token" jobs.

"The industry, and particularly its Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (news - web sites), have virtually held themselves exempt over the last 50 years from charges of discrimination and bias," Mfume said.

"Instead, what has been offered has been no more than token gestures of opportunity to small numbers of racially diverse actors, writers and directors instead of real employment opportunities that are noteworthy when measured against the past."

NAACP TV Diversity Report Yields Mixed Results On Networks Performance

From NAACP News:

"Washington, DC -- Kweisi Mfume, President and CEO, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) reported today that while the four major television networks have made incremental increases in the hiring of African Americans for on-air television roles, similar progress has not been made behind the camera in the hiring and promotion of writers, producers, directors, and executives."

"Mfume’s comments came during a press conference releasing the NAACP’s 2003 TV Diversity Report, of the television and motion picture industry. All four major networks voluntarily provided information. The results cover the period of 2000 - 2003 and the networks’ efforts or lack thereof to implement diversity and industry opportunities for African American, Latinos, Asian and Native Americans.

“Although there appear to be small gains in on-air roles, there is practically no representation of people of color in the top echelon of production, which is the nucleus of the industry,” Mfume said.

"Behind the camera, the picture is astoundingly different. In the area of writing, producing and directing, the problem of not including people of color is widespread and pervasive.

With respect to directing, the information submitted was discouraging. In the last season surveyed, ABC employed just eight minority directors and CBS employed only 10. At NBC, the network reported that 10 percent of its episodes last season were directed by minorities, but did not provide the number of minority directors employed. Fox reported that in the 2002-2003 season, it employed 27 directors of color who directed 81 primetime episodes. However, because no information was provided as to the total number of directors employed, or the total number of primetime episodes directed, it is hard to conclude whether these numbers should be seen as either great or encouraging.

CBS has made no recent identifiable progress in the area of writing. In the 2000-2001 season, it reported that it employed only nine minority writers, and last season, that number remained the same. Notably, CBS is however the only network that employs a minority in the lead creative position of show runner, Pam Veasey, an African American female, on The District.

ABC fared a little better in writing, but still far from great. In the 2000-2001 season, ABC reported that it employed 12 minority writers; and in the 2002-2003 season, that number increased to 19. Similarly, at NBC, in the 2000-2001 season, the network reported that it employed less than 18 minority writers. Last season, that number rose to 24. Fox was the only network that provided information that gave a clearer picture in the area of writing. In 1999, only five percent of the writers employed by Fox on its primetime schedule were minority. In 2002, that number rose to 24.4 percent. In terms of relative progress, it can be safely presumed that Fox is the leader in the area of diversity among writing staffs.

When reflecting on television and cable news, Mfume said: “Sadly, when it comes to news, news specials, television news magazines and the Sunday talking heads shows, none of the broadcast networks or the cable news operations (i.e. FOX News Channel, CNN or MSNBC) are doing exceedingly well with diversity or equal opportunity either in front of or behind the camera. In fact this area has showed the least amount of progress or change. Show anchors, guests, reporters and so called ‘experts on the subject’ continue to be overwhelmingly white.”

Mfume said, “Regulatory oversight, legal challenges, congressional legislation and consumer boycotts may be the only ways to bring about change in news operations that continue to only give lip service to the concept of equal opportunity.”

"Equal opportunity in front of and behind the camera oddly lags even further behind in the motion picture industry.

Mfume went on to say “considering the almost 100-year history of the film industry and the patronage of large numbers of diverse movie-goers, critical to a movies’ success or failure, particularly in the first several weeks after release, one would think that the large motion picture studios would be particularly sensitive. Ironically, television entertainment divisions have made more progress toward diversity than the movie industry.”

Mfume said that while over 30 percent of movie audiences are African American, Latino or Asian American, “the motion picture industry has forever been a closed-door society generally looking the other way when the topic of diversity and employment opportunity arises.” Moreover, he said: “The industry, and particularly its Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, has virtually held themselves exempt over the last 50 years from charges of discrimination and bias. What has been offered has been no more than token gestures of opportunity to small numbers of racially diverse actors, writers and directors, instead of real employment opportunities that are noteworthy when measured against the past.”

Mfume said: “What cannot be questioned, however, is the power of the African American dollar. According to Target Market News’ annual report, African Americans spend $2.3 billion on entertainment, which includes television and movies. And no small part of that is spent on movies. When combined with Latino and Asian American spending power movie studios run the risk of alienating an ever-enlightened base of consumers to whom diversity and job opportunities are important. As large of minorities continue to seek information, validation and affirmation in these subjective and impressionable forms of media, we must demand that American entertainment in the form of film and television reflects the true diversity of the American people by making sure that equal opportunity is more than a slogan or a sound bite.”

SUPERCOMMONS: The end of spectrum

Kevin Werbach argues in "The End of Spectrum" that new technologies call for fundamental reforms. He posted a draft law review article that details his thoughts on spectrum reform. He argues that:

"We should no longer treat spectrum as a concrete physical resource, because new communications technologies don't require exclusive control of frequencies. The implications are profound. There is an emerging communications space, the "supercommons," that represents a vast opportunity to enhance capacity and open up access to the airwaves. To exploit it, a universal entry privilege should be the policy baseline. In other words, anyone could transmit anywhere, at any time, in any way, so long as they did not excessively burden others. To resolve interference disputes, we could use backstops and safe harbors drawn from tort and intellectual property law.

If you're interested, the draft (warning, it's 92 pages long) is available below:
http://werbach.com/research/supercommons.pdf
http://werbach.com/research/supercommons.html

If you want something shorter, "The End of Spectrum" is a condensed version of the argument in an article for The Feature: http://www.thefeature.com/article?articleid=100112

It's a world of media plenty. Why limit ownership?

Stephen Labaton wrote for the New York Times:

"Free Press Editor's Note: FCC Chairman Powell's concluding comment -"The suggestion that the old rules produced [our media's] abundance is fanciful" - is a new favorite spin of those who stand much to gain from the loosening of media ownership regulations.

Those who seek to retain the new rules are trying to spread far and wide a powerful meme: that those who oppose these new rules simply desire a return to the rules as they stood before June 2. Even if a full rollback occurs, that only returns the clock to a time when massive consolidation was already sweeping the globe and the FCC was simply providing exemptions for companies who exceeded inconvenient media ownership caps. (See this article for some examples.)

No, we who oppose the new rule changes do not oppose them to maintain the media order as it existed pre-June 2. We oppose the new rules to prevent the media order from getting worse. Once further consolidation occurs, facilitated by Powell and the FCC's actions, there is no turning back: no one will be able to "un-consolidate" in the public interest if things turn out poorly in the future.

Our fight for media democracy is only beginning if we turn back the new rules, not ending. The reason for Powell's and industry's continued disingenuities is that they realize this is so. -RN

WASHINGTON — With consumers being bombarded by choices that were unthinkable a generation ago, a debate in Congress and the courts over new rules permitting the largest media conglomerates to grow bigger might seem academic.

After all, supporters of the changes say, the explosion of choices has emerged in a period of rapid media consolidation, so what is the harm in allowing companies to continue to grow?"

"The new media ownership rules followed heavy lobbying by many of the largest and most influential television and newspaper companies, including The New York Times Company, which urged the elimination of the rule that had restricted a single company from owning a broadcaster and newspaper in the same city."

"The hundreds of channels now available to cable and satellite subscribers, combined with the virtually limitless offerings of the Internet, prove to supporters of the new regulations that the older restrictions were outdated products of an era of limited choices and less diversity. The supporters also say that the largest companies continue to have fundamental market incentives to continue to provide diverse programming.

"Today's media marketplace is marked by abundance," Michael K. Powell, the chairman of the F.C.C., has said in speeches and Congressional testimony as he has gone about trying to justify the new rules, which he shepherded through the agency a few months ago.

"We learned that in 1960, the golden age of television, and as late as 1980, if you missed the half-hour evening newscast, you were out of luck. But today, news and public affairs programming — the fuel of our democratic society — is overflowing."

But critics say the choices that viewers think they see when they surf TV channels or the Web are largely illusory. They maintain that a small handful of large companies dominate both the Internet and television and that independent producers have largely been excluded from broadcasting with the elimination of financial syndication rules. Those rules had restricted a company from owning both the networks and the production units that produced their programming.

"Ninety percent of the top 50 cable TV stations are owned by the giants that own the TV networks and the cable systems," said Michael J. Copps, one of the two Democratic commissioners who dissented in the vote over the new rules. "The top 20 Internet news sites are dominated by these same media conglomerates as well, or merely recycle news from existing non-Internet sources rather than providing more competition or diversity. Having more channels that are all owned by the same few people does not necessarily mean having more diversity of editorial opinion and definitely does not mean more competition. Plus, most cable does not offer local news."

As the same companies are both producing the programming and controlling the pipes that deliver it, critics say, there is the danger that the few large companies could shut out diverse or competitive voices.

To Mr. Copps and other critics, the experience of the radio industry is particularly telling. They say that after the government loosened ownership rules beginning in the 1990's, most of the independent and local stations were gobbled up by conglomerates, led by Clear Channel.

That has created a homogenized industry, critics say, noting that while there appear to be many stations on the dial, much of their programming is indistinguishable. The stations are often inaccessible to independent artists and do not encourage local news programming.

"Radio deregulation gives us powerful and relevant lessons," Mr. Copps said. "When Congress and the commission removed radio concentration protections, we experienced massive, and largely unforeseen, consolidation. We saw a 34 percent reduction in the number of radio station owners. Diversity of programming suffered." He added, "This experience should terrify us."

"The suggestion that the old rules produced the abundance is fanciful," Mr. Powell said. "Abundance has blossomed in new media like cable, satellite, Internet that are largely unaffected by the broadcast rules."

US FCC to hit road to hear about radio, tv

From Reuters:

"WASHINGTON, Oct 1 (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell said on Wednesday that the agency will soon hit the road to take the nation's pulse on how radio and television stations are doing on presenting local issues to the public.

Powell, who has been criticized over recently relaxing ownership limits for television and radio stations, had promised the agency would review concerns expressed during the ownership debate that localism in the media was shrinking."

"The FCC in June eased its rules to permit media conglomerates to own more local stations, reaching up to 45 percent of the national audience, up from 35 percent. The agency also agreed to allow a company to own a newspaper, television station and some radio outlets in a single market.

The FCC held one public hearing about what new ownership rules to adopt but Powell was criticized for holding it in Richmond, Va., close enough for most Washington lobbyists to attend.

Powell said a plane ticket would be necessary for him and other commissioners to attend some of the upcoming hearings.

The new rules sparked outcries from consumer groups, political organizations and lawmakers who argued that further consolidation in the industry would make it more difficult for varying viewpoints to be heard and reduce local reporting.

A federal appeals court has put the new regulations on hold pending judicial review. Efforts are underway in Congress to roll back the rules but at this stage, the only one under imminent threat is the national television cap."