First FCC Vote of 2017 Impairs the Public’s Ability to Hold Broadcasters Accountable

This is exactly the time that the public is looking to build trust with the media, fostering a productive dialogue that supports accurate coverage representative of diverse voices, and we are disappointed that the first FCC vote of 2017 deprives Americans of meaningful information about the scope of their community’s feedback. In allowing stations to eliminate the only publicly accessible means to understand how audiences across the country are responding to commercial broadcast coverage, the FCC does a tremendous disservice to all who seek to support journalism that fulfills the public interest obligation it holds.

We are very concerned that continuing the current practice of putting letters and emails from the public in a file has been deemed too burdensome a task in the face of the urgent need for media accountability. Contrary to arguments submitted by FCC commissioners and industry representatives, the use of social media to find or report issues is not an adequate replacement for viewing the full breadth of input to commercial broadcast stations that are often mailed or emailed. This insufficient reply is especially more concerning when a full third of Americans–disproportionately Latinos and other people of color, lower-income and rural Americans–lack home broadband to submit feedback or view the extent of concerns submitted by their neighbors online.