FCC Fields Media Ownership Questions At Stanford Workshop

On May 21, the Federal Communications Commission got an earful on media ownership issues at a workshop at Stanford.

There was a heavy emphasis by panelists on the role of new media as spur and partner and competitor to traditional media. There were also several shots taken from the public microphone at the proposed Comcast/NBCU deal. Representatives from Hearst and Tribune stations (and newspapers) said they were trying to leverage as many new platforms as possible to get their local news and information to a public looking for it on their own timetables and platforms. That was the problem for a number of members of the public who got a turn at the microphone after the panel. They argued that the vaunted proliferation of voices was coming from the same handful of media companies, companies that one critic called "stenographers for the powerful voices in Washington."