November 2016

[Commentary] Over the last 25 years, daily newspapers have shed as many as 25,000 newsroom jobs. The United States has just under half the number of local newspaper journalists working today as it did in 1990. Jobs in local broadcast radio and television have suffered in similar ways as many owners have responded to a changing market by downsizing newsrooms and requiring the remaining reporters to cover more beats. There’s hope we can fix this before the next national election.

Right now we have a tremendous opportunity to ensure that both existing local newsrooms and startups have the money they need to do the reporting that supports civic life. In June the Federal Communications Commission began a long-awaited auction that will involve a major redistribution of the public airwaves. The FCC is urging broadcasters, including dozens of public television stations, to abandon their channels or move elsewhere on the dial to free up bandwidth for data-hungry users of mobile services like AT&T and Verizon. This is potentially the most important development for local news and information since President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which helped establish NPR, PBS and their many local affiliates and programs.

[Timothy Karr is the senior director of strategy for Free Press]

The American Cable Association has asked the Federal Communications Commission to deny the request by Nexstar and Media General for a waiver of the FCC's Prohibited Communications rule, a rule that so far has blocked FCC action on Nexstar's proposed purchase of Media General. Because Media General had indicated it would be participating in the auction—it was allowed by the FCC to signal, and did signal, that it was applying to be eligible—FCC action on the transfer could provide more specific information about the auction, which is why the FCC decided it would not act on any transfers involving such stations that were filed after a January 2016 deadline.

Nexstar and Media General sought a waiver of that Prohibited Communications rule in hopes the deal approval would not have to wait until the end of the auction for a decision. The FCC has yet to act, but there has been buzz that the FCC's Media Bureau could be weighing in any time with a decision on the waiver and perhaps contemporaneously a conditioned approval of the deal. ACA says the Media Bureau should not be making that decision, that it should be made by a vote of the commissioners rather than the bureau, and that if it is made by a bureau it can't be the Media Bureau, which it says does not have the delegated authority to waive the spectrum auction rules. That would be the Wireless Bureau, says ACA. Finally, whoever is reviewing it should deny the waiver, says ACA, because the broadcasters "have not met their burden to show why the extraordinary relief contemplated by the waiver is justified."

[Commentary] Journalists in the US are never off-limits for criticism. But what we’re seeing right now goes too far. We must fight back. We must fight a president-elect who obsessively attacks the press on Twitter, fight death threats toward reporters and editors, fight unrelenting anti semitism on social media, fight the resurrection of the Nazi-Germany term “Lugenpresse.” It’s an affront to our national heritage. And if the American people don’t remember or understand this, we need to remind them. Often.

So as we prepare to embark on a Donald Trump presidency, I offer a mini manifesto to share with press-hating friends, family, co-workers, and strangers. You can call yourself many things while you foment hatred toward reporters, but “all-American” is not one of them. Journalism is our original—and enduring—national anthem.

[Philip Eil is a freelance journalist based in Providence (RI)]