Nonprofit Takes on Big Media
From the March 7th, 2007 edition of the Wall Street Journal,
By Amy Schatz
Hundreds of liberal activists are expected to pack the pews tonight at the Broad Street Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Ohio, to protest a Bush administration plan. It has nothing to do with Iraq. It is about rules governing how many properties media companies should be allowed to own in local markets.
Kevin Martin, the Republican chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, wants to loosen existing ownership limits on newspapers and broadcasters to allow them to own both in most markets. But his efforts have stalled, the result of a surprisingly energetic grass-roots opposition campaign guided by Free Press, a nonprofit with offices in Washington and Northampton, Mass.
“Such changes could have a serious impact on the diversity of viewpoints and coverage of local issues in every community,” the group argues in fliers and an Internet site under its “STOP BIG MEDIA” campaign.
For a relatively low-profile organization, Free Press is on a roll. Four years ago, it used old-fashioned grassroots organizing, along with basic Internet tools, to help derail the FCC’s years-long effort to relax media ownership rules. Last year, the group thwarted a multi-million dollar lobbying effort by the Baby Bells to rewrite the nation’s telecom laws over “net neutrality,” the idea that Internet providers can’t discriminate against any Internet traffic.
Progressive, left-leaning grass-roots activists have gotten more attention for their opposition against the Iraq war, but their bigger impact may have been on national media regulations and telecom policies. By mobilizing the progressive left to focus on media and telecom issues, Free Press has effectively blocked some of the most-wanted issues on corporate wish-lists.
The Free Press success is all the more remarkable, given the array of big-name media companies pushing for change. Technology has changed the competitive landscape, said a coalition of media firms — including Belo Corp., CBS Corp., News Corp.’s Fox Entertainment Group and NBC Universal Inc. — in a December letter lobbying the FCC to ease the rules. The FCC “should modernize its local ownership rules to reflect these dynamic changes in the media marketplace,” they say.
Media reformers have been working on these issues for years, but “they’ve never had traction among grass-roots America before,” says Mike McCurry, former press secretary for President Clinton. Mr. McCurry drew scorn from left-leaning bloggers last year after he helped launch a public-relations effort on behalf of phone companies hoping to kill net-neutrality rules.
Free Press, which launched in 2003, has 300,000 members, about two dozen full-time employees and an annual budget of roughly $2.5 million. Last year, it raised more than $5 million in funding, mostly from liberal-leaning private foundations, including George Soros’s Open Society Institute. In 2005, almost half of its funding — $755,000 — came from the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, which at the time was overseen by its president, journalist Bill Moyers. This year, the group is hoping to raise $4.5 million and wants to hire more grass-roots organizers.
It is raising its ambitions as well. After stymieing efforts to loosen media rules, Free Press members believe they may be on the verge of changing the terms of the debate — to tightening regulations again.
“We’re going to use this opportunity to move the goal posts,” says Josh Silver, Free Press co-founder and executive director.
Unlike other watchdog groups that have focused on telecom and media-reform issues in the past, Free Press has successfully tapped into the grass-roots network dominated by MoveOn.org.
“We just have to remind them to talk about media reform, not the war,” says Amanda Ballantyne, Free Press’s field organizer who is in charge of getting people to show up tonight for the Columbus hearing, the 11th on the subject in the past two years. She helps coordinate similar events around the country, rounding up locals and tutoring them on the basics of media-ownership limits.
Recently, Ms. Ballantyne holed up at a Nashville Best Western for a week, trying to convince locals to attend an official FCC media-ownership hearing. With the help of local organizers, nearly 400 people showed up. Even with a strictly enforced two-minute time limit, it took seven hours for the FCC commissioners to listen to everyone.
In February, the group attracted more than 3,000 activists and bloggers to Memphis for three days of workshops and speeches from progressive and liberal heroes, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Mr. Moyers.
“If you watch TV news, it’s all car crashes, shootings and Brangelina. If we can’t create more hard-hitting journalism, then we have a real problem,” says Mr. Silver, a political activist who says he decided to form the group after becoming mad one night when a local newscast led with a story about the rising price of lobster. Local ownership of stations or newspapers leads to more accountability to citizens and better journalism, he says.
With the help of University of Illinois professor and media critic Robert McChesney, Mr. Silver soon launched a nonprofit group dedicated to media reform.
The current FCC chairman, Mr. Martin, had hoped to propose easing rules this year which would allow media companies to own newspapers and broadcast stations in most markets. But that proposal will have to wait until next year at least, FCC officials say. The agency will hold at least three more public hearings around the country and is awaiting 10 studies it commissioned on media-ownership issues, which have already cost more than $550,000.
