UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

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PUBLIC HEARING

ON

BROADCAST LOCALISM

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WEDNESDAY,

JULY 21, 2004

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THIRD FLOOR

STEINBECK FORUM

ONE PORTOLA PLAZA

MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA

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PRESENT:

KATHLEEN ABERNATHY, FCC Commissioner

MICHAEL COPPS, FCC Commissioner

JONATHAN ADELSTEIN, FCC Commissioner

C O N T E N T S

PAGE

Opening Remarks:

Commissioner Abernathy . . . . . . . . . . .3

Commissioner Copps . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Commissioner Adelstein . . . . . . . . . . 21

Welcome by Mayor Albert . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Presentation by Alex Zerago . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Presentation by Blanca Zarazua . . . . . . . . . 44

Presentation by Eduardo Dominguez . . . . . . . . 51

Presentation by Joseph W. Heston . . . . . . . . 57

Presentation by Joseph Salzman . . . . . . . . . 63

Presentation by Sean McLaughlin . . . . . . . . . 69

Presentation of Chuck Tweedle . . . . . . . . . . 76

Presentation of Harry J. Pappas . . . . . . . . . 95

Presentation of John Connolly . . . . . . . . . .102

Presentation of Kathy Baker . . . . . . . . . . .108

Presentation of Davy D. . . . . . . . . . . . . .114

Presentation of Delia Saldivar. . . . . . . . . .123

Presentation of Harry B. Robins . . . . . . . . .128

Presentation of Warren Trumbly. . . . . . . . . .133

Open Microphone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .146

Closing Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .292

P R O C E E D I N G S

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Wow! I love this gavel.

(Laughter from audience)

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the public hearing of
the Federal Communications Commission on localism and broadcasting.
We're so very, very pleased to be here; gracious hospitality of everyone
here. My name is Kathleen Abernathy, and I serve as a commissioner of
the Federal Communications Commission and I am joined by my two
distinguished colleagues, Commissioner Michael Copps and Commissioner
Jonathan Adelstein. And I am also joined by Ms. Belva Davis. She is a
long time Bay Area television personality (Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: and current host of "This Week in Northern
California" on KQED-TV. Ms. Davis has graciously agreed to moderate the
open microphone segment of our program tonight. So I want to thank her
for being willing to do that.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: We are also very pleased to have with us tonight
the Honorable Daniel Albert, Mayor of the city of Monterey, who will
present welcoming remarks in just a few moments.

I'm going to read a long list of dignitaries and then I think we should
give them all a round of applause. We are also pleased to be joined this
evening by the Honorable Ana Caballero, Mayor of the City of Salinas;
the Honorable Jerry Smith, Mayor of the City of Seaside; Alex Zerago,
who will present remarks on behalf of Congressman Sam Farr; Mike
Canolakis, Sheriff-Monterey County; Fred Cohn, Deputy City Manager, City
of Monterey; and Joy Messenger, Center for Missing and Exploited
Children. And if we could welcome all these people here tonight.

(Applause.)

And finally, last but not least, we are particularly indebted to the
City of Monterey, the Mayor and Mr. Cohn for their warm welcome and kind
assistance in making this hearing possible. If we didn't have their help
and their commitment, we wouldn't have been able to do this. So thank
you very much and to all the citizens in Monterey.

(Applause.)

As I think many of you probably know, last August FCC Chairman Michael
Powell created an initiative on broadcasting and localism to examine how
well radio and television stations are serving their communities of
license.

(Interruptions from audience.) (Speaking with an audience member.) Well
he's not here, he's not here. But we are here!

Now, I was going to save this part of my speech for later. But, I guess
I will start it now. I think a critical part of what defines us as
Americans is our ability to respect and defend the right of free speech
even when people say things that we may ultimately disagree with and I
have been concerned and I've seen this happen more in politics lately
that when someone says something that we disagree with, we vilify them
or we denigrate them and that's not what our country is about. Other
countries do that. I think our country has always been strong because we
welcome divergent opinions and so, but . . .

(Interruption from audience.)

Maybe I am wrong. I would hope I'm not. I think it's fair and right that
people get to speak their peace uninterrupted.

(Applause.)

So that's all I ask. I want to hear from everyone. I don't think anybody
has a monopoly on the truth and I want to be able to learn from everyone
and so that means we would have to be able to hear everyone. So with
that, what I wanted to talk about generally is that we want to look at
how radio and television stations are serving their communities of
license. I think we're all, most of us here are parents, we've got kids.
We know what a significant impact television and radio have on our
everyday lives, on our children, on our culture. And it's very, very
important that at the FCC we take our oversight role very seriously. So
we've had a number of hearings. The first was in Charlotte last October.
Our second was in San Antonio in Texas and our third in Rapid City,
South Dakota in May. And tonight we are holding our fourth hearing here
in California and we expect to hold two more hearings in the upcoming
months.

So what do we mean by localism and why does the FCC care about it? In
the broadest sense localism refers to the responsiveness of a broadcast
station to the needs and interests of its community of license. So
promoting localism is one of the principle reasons the FCC regulates
broadcast television and radio and when we give an entity a license, in
return, the licensee promises to serve the public through its use of the
license and a key part of that public interest is that the broadcaster
air programming that is responsive to the community of license and this
public interest obligation applies uniquely to broadcasters and it
really distinguishes them from cable and satellite channels because if
you think about cable and satellite, they're doing nationwide
programming, they're not looking at the particular needs of the
community. So we are here tonight because we need to further explore
whether we as government regulators, are we doing all that we can to
ensure that stations serve their listeners and their viewers? And I know
it's a relatively simple thing to say, government should be doing more.
But at the same time it ducks the hard questions \-- more what? I want
to hear about more oversight, more specific kinds of reports. We need to
move beyond just simple statements to specific proposals. And that's why
I am so pleased to be with you here tonight and listen and learn. I
suspect that everyone who is taking time out of their personal lives to
be here really cares about their local community and wants to better
understand what it means for a local broadcaster to serve the public
interest.

Now, I have heard some concerns that some broadcasters have abandoned
their public interest obligations. They're only interested in earnings.
I'm shocked. But, I have heard that and others have said that they are
very uncomfortable with some of the broadcast content. While you have
another group that says they're very concerned about the kinds of
content, but they're concerned about government intrusion on what is
said on the television and the radio, and at the same time I've heard
from some charitable organizations that survive and thrive thanks to
sponsorships from local broadcasters. So, we're receiving all of these
messages, and we need to know more.

So tonight we want to determine all over again the level and the
character of local broadcast service that's being provided today and to
consider what behavioral rules and policies the Commission might adopt
or what legislative changes, if it comes to that, that we would need to
recommend to Congress to promote and improve the local service of
broadcasters.

And I think the one constant in all of this is the obligation of
broadcasters to serve their local community. So these hearings are an
on-the-ground inspection of how the broadcast system is working for
local communities, and we have three main objectives. First, we want to
hear directly from all of you. We want to hear how you think local
broadcasters are doing, what you like, what you dislike, what you think
should be done differently.

Second, we want to hear from the broadcasters about their localism
efforts. I know many broadcasters are proud of the work for their local
community, and we need to hear from them and hear what they've been
doing to really address local community concerns.

And, third, we want to make sure that all of you know how to participate
at the FCC when a local station's license is up for renewal because we
need to hear about what's going on before we make certain
determinations.

So, I see these hearings as an opportunity to bring these license
renewals to life. I think it's one thing for us to sit in Washington and
read pieces of paper. But coming here is very important and coming to
the other hearings, it's very important for us to really learn about
what's going on, and we want to ensure that you know how to participate
in the government review of these license renewals.

So, the FCC staff has prepared a short book, really a primer on how to
participate in the license renewal process, and it is available in the
public packets that you got tonight, but it's also located on our
website, [www.fcc.gov/localism](http://www.fcc.gov/localism).

And then, finally, I want to touch on a recent court decision that
overturned the FCC's media ownership rules. When that decision was
adopted --

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: I'll send your warmest personal regards to the
court.

(Laughter.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: But to go back to that decision, when that
decision was adopted, I believed that we were faithfully following
directions given to us by Congress and a prior court.

But now a different court has sent the rules back to us, and it has
given us new instructions, and so that means at some point we will be
seeking further comment on our ownership rule, and we will also want to
hear from the public, from all of you, about your concerns and
experiences when it comes to those issues, the media ownership issues.

And so while tonight's hearing generally focuses on what we can do to
ensure that all licensees, whether they're small, large, or in between,
so that we can assure that all of them are serving the local community,
we will also listen, of course, to what you might have to say about
ownership limits.

So I want to thank the panelists for preparing testimony and joining us
tonight. The participation of the community and the local broadcasters
is critical if these hearings are to be meaningful, and I want to extend
a warm welcome and the Commission's thanks to the citizens of Monterey
County and other areas who are here in attendance, as well as anyone
who's watching on TV or listening via radio or on the FCC's audio
Webcast. We are very much looking forward to tonight's discussion.

And now I would like to acknowledge Commissioner Copps for an opening
statement, and after that Commissioner Adelstein.

COMMISSIONER COPPS: Thank you. Thank you all for coming, and thank you
to this community for the warm hospitality you have already shown us.
Tonight we continue a truly remarkable grassroots dialogue about the
future of America\'s media. Over the past year we have seen a cascading
national concern over what many Americans, me included, see as deeply
troubling trends in the media. Citizens from all over this country have
come together to express their concern, even their alarm. The discussion
focuses once again on the decision by the FCC to relax the media
consolidation rules with people asking how many or, maybe better, how
few companies should be allowed to control our media.

For what purposes are stations granted

licenses and how does the public interest fare in a

consolidated environment?

Concerned parents and creative artists,

religious leaders, civil rights activists, labor organizations, young
people, old people, independent broadcasters and many, many others came
together, worked together and made a difference together.

Their representatives in Congress answered the call. The United States
Senate has voted twice now to overturn the FCC decision on ownership
caps in its entirety, and over 200 members of the House of
Representatives have asked the House leadership for permission to vote
on the same resolution of disapproval. So far they have been denied that
vote. Wouldn\'t it be nice if the members of the House of
Representatives had a right to vote on this issue?

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER COPPS: The court responded,

too. Just last month, as Commissioner Abernathy pointed out, the Third
Circuit ruled that the FCC\'s media concentration plan was legally, and
procedurally, and deeply flawed.

So we have now heard from the court. We\'ve heard from the Congress.
We\'ve heard from the

American people that the FCC got it wrong when it tried to unleash even
more consolidation. It should be clear that we need to reassess our
approach and start protecting the people\'s interest in the people\'s
airwaves.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER COPPS: But let me point out that it is no slam dunk that
this is going to happen because, while it\'s really good news that the
court sent those rules back to the Commission, they sent it

back to the very same Commission that gave you those

rules in the first place.

(Laughter.)

COMMISSIONER COPPS: So, an entirely plausible outcome of all of this
could be ruled every bit as bad as the ones sent back to us, and throw
in the fact that big media will be right there lobbying for everything
they\'re worth ‑‑ and that\'s a bunch \-- and I think you can see that
the battle ahead of us is going to be long and hard.

Let\'s begin at the beginning tonight reminding ourselves that it\'s all
of us who own the airwaves, and that corporations are given the
privilege of using this public asset and even to profit from its use in
exchange from their commitment to serve the public interest.

Broadcasters have been given very special privileges, but they have very
special responsibilities to serve their local communities. This is a
special interest in serving the public interest, it's supposed to be its
loadstar each day, every day, every hour.

I\'m pleased that tonight we will hear from some local broadcasters with
roots in their communities. We need to recognize and reaffirm the proud
heritage of local broadcasters, many of whom still are committed to
serving their communities well.

My concern is that the increasing media concentration out there
threatens the very survival of these local broadcasters. During the
hearings on media ownership that my colleague, Commissioner Adelstein
and I have held across this country, we have heard time and again from
local broadcasters what a direct and detrimental impact consolidation
has brought upon them.

These days station owners are less and less captains of their own fate
and more and more captives of unforgiving Wall Street and Madison Avenue
financial expectations.

Some tell us the answer is to rely more on the marketplace forces as a
guarantor of the public interest. These people trust that the public
interest will somehow magically trump the urge to build power and
profit, and that localism will, thereby somehow survive and thrive. I
don\'t think we can afford to rely on any kind of magic here, the
marketplace or any other kind of magic, and the people who bring us
reality TV ‑‑

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER COPPS: ‑‑ the people who bring us reality TV shouldn\'t
expect us to be so naive. In fact, we need to explain to them that the
ultimate reality show is not how many bugs someone can eat on a deserted
island. The ultimate reality show is this fight on media democracy and
over the future of the public airwaves.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER COPPS: Since the 1980s, fundamental protections of the
public interest have been tossed overboard. Requirements like
broadcasters having to meet with members of the community to determine
the needs and interests of local citizens or teeing up controversial
issues and antagonistic points of view for listeners and viewers, for
providing viewpoint and program diversity, to name just a few of the
obligations that once we had and we have no more.

In addition, we've pared back the license renewal process from one
wherein the Commission used to look every three years at how stations
were serving the public, with a very explicit list of things that
stations were supposed to do, to a process now where once every eight
years basically the broadcaster sends in a postcard, and it\'s a form or
two more than that, but it\'s not called \"postcard renewal\" for
nothing, and it\'s pretty much a slam dunk that the license will be
renewed. That is not what public interest protections are all about.

It\'s so ludicrous as to be almost funny, but this erosion of public
interest protection comes at high and dangerous cost to the American
people. Some call my concern excessive, but I believe in my bones that
few priorities our country confronts have such long‑term importance to
our democracy as how America communicates and converses with itself and
how this process has been allowed to deteriorate in recent years.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER COPPS: So we come to Monterey to talk directly with members
of this community and this region and to tap your local expertise to get
a look, both broad and deep, at what is going on here.

Are stations adding to the civic dialogue? In this election year, are
they covering the important issues that confront you or are they just
focusing on the polls and handicapping the horse race? Are they covering
the local issues in local campaigns? Are they encouraging local talent,
local creativity, local musicians? Are they reaching out to minority
groups within the community?

Important questions and all questions the

Commission refused to tackle before we voted on media consolidation, but
now good fortune in the form of the court has smiled a little bit upon
us and we can hopefully use the record we compile tonight as we consider
the rules that have been sent back to us.

I also want to use the record we compile tonight in this license renewal
process that I mentioned a moment ago. Every license in the country,
television and radio, will be renewed over the course of the next few
years. We need to make that a serious process once again, and we need to
rely on you to make that happen.

And as Commissioner Abernathy says, there are various ways you can do
this. You can file a formal objection. I don\'t recommend that to
anybody but the really stout of heart. It\'s expensive and time
consuming, but you can also file an informal complaint at the Commission
and we are obligated to look at that informal complaint.

This is the fourth of our localism hearings. We have already heard from
the good people of the Carolinas and Texas and the Dakotas about the
importance they attach to their local media. Once in a while we get a
little sidetracked on this score, however, and I want to point this out
tonight.

Some of our broadcaster panelists and commenters seem to confuse
sometimes such things as conducting blood drives and fundraising for
charities with the sum total of their public interest responsibilities.
Now, please do not get me wrong here because these fundraising
activities are tremendously commendable activities. I welcome them. I
salute them, and this is as American as apple pie for corporations in
every line of business participate in that kind of community self‑help,
and we should all be proud of it and all applaud it.

But that is only part of a broadcaster\'s responsibility to the
community, and the question on the table tonight is how well this very
special industry is serving its much broader obligations to use the
airwaves to benefit all of us.

So I hope that our panelists and commenters tonight will resist the
temptation just to catalogue all of these non‑broadcast activities and
focus instead on the even more important problems that we\'ve
identified.

Again, let me thank our panelists, my two colleagues here with me
tonight, and most of all, you in the audience who gave up an evening
when you could be doing lots of other things to be here with us tonight.

In the end this really all comes down to you. It doesn\'t come down to
the courts or the Congress. It comes down to the American people, and I
think what I see going around this country and everywhere we go on a
night like this you\'ll see four or five, 600 people turn out; I think
the people of the United States want to wrap their arms around this
issue of how many or how few companies are going to control our media
future and settle it.

And I think if we all pull together, at the other side of this process
that we\'re involved in now, and I hope it won\'t take months and months
and months; I think we need to do this relatively quickly in the next
few months, and if we do it right, we will end up with airwaves of, by
and for the American people. Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you very much, Commissioner Copps, and I
think everyone knows his commitment to this issue. So thank you again.

And now I\'d like to introduce Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein for his
opening remarks.

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Thank you, Commissioner Abernathy.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Thank you.

Well, it\'s a real breath of fresh air to get out of Washington, D.C.
Let me tell you.

(Laughter.)

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: It\'s a bit of a swamp there in more ways than
one, and to get that fresh ocean breeze coming when I went to Monterey
was just so refreshing, and it always is refreshing to get outside of
the Beltway and hear from the wisdom of the American people because by
all accounts, I think there is a lot more out there than there is inside
where we come from.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: And I learn so much each time I come and listen
to you. I, of course, love it out here. I spent a couple of summers
right down the Pacific Coast Highway in Big Sur. It\'s not on my resume,
but I was actually a dishwasher at Epison.

(Laughter and applause.)

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: There were many days at the FCC when I wish I
had just taken up residence here.

(Laughter.)

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Well, the focus today is on how well
broadcasters are serving their local communities as we\'ve heard, but
tonight comes in the middle of this larger struggle we\'ve talked about
the overall ownership of the public\'s airwaves. It\'s a fight for media
democracy, and it\'s a struggle we simply can\'t afford to lose.

Last year I came out here to San Francisco for an unofficial hearing
without all of the great staff assistance and everything, but we did it
on a shoestring at City Hall in San Francisco, and we had hundreds of
people stand in line for hours to get in there. It was a reflection even
before the ownership decision of the deep concern in this part of the
country about the state of the airwaves.

Everywhere we went Commissioner Copps and I heard from people a
groundswell of concern about letting giant media companies grow even
bigger. A lot of citizens spoke about how they think consolidation
homogenizes programming, cuts independent and minority voices, and guts
the coverage of local issues in local communities.

So I came back to D.C. from these hearings, including the one in San
Francisco, and I warned my colleagues that people here in California
weren\'t satisfied with their media, and they weren\'t interested in any
more consolidation.

Well, this is, as I learned, Citizen Kane country right down the highway
there, right down Highway 1, but the new rules that went through would
have allowed new media moguls to rise up that make Citizen Kane look
like an underachiever.

(Laughter.)

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: But what a difference a year can make.
Incredible the amount of education, the amount of thought and energy and
activism and concern and studies that went into this.

Now, the American people have spoken.

Congress and the courts have spoken, and they\'ve all condemned the
FCC\'s wrong‑headed decision. The same week just a couple of weeks ago
that the Senate voted 99 to one to put the FCC\'s damaging rule changes
from last summer on hold, a federal court as we have heard rendered a
decisive verdict against more media consolidation. That was a huge
victory for the American people.

That was probably the biggest victory in the history of the media
democracy movement, and it was a tribute to everyone who spoke up,
including many people in this room. Congratulations to all of you.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: The court reaffirmed that the airwaves belonged
to you. What you told us time and again at every hearing I heard it
again and again: \"the airwaves belong to us. Why can\'t we have more
control over them? Why can\'t we have any say in them?\"

Well, the court spoke loudly and clearly that the FCC\'s job is to
protect you, to protect the public. It blasted the FCC for using
inconsistent and incoherent reasoning that didn\'t reflect the real
world.

Perhaps that\'s because the FCC didn\'t take the time to reach out to
the public last year, as I pleaded with my colleagues to do and I know
Commissioner Copps did. We only held one official hearing as a group,
and we didn\'t put an outline of the rules out for public comment, and
if we had, I think a lot of the flaws that the court found in the
decision could have been addressed before we made them final, and we
wouldn\'t have had that decision the way we did.

And we shouldn\'t have dismissed the views of three million people with
a single passing paragraph.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Well, thanks to all of the effort and concern
that went into it, I don\'t think the FCC will be able to do that again.
As a matter of fact, I\'m confident in it.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: The court gave us the opportunity to reclaim the
public airwaves for the people, and we can get it right this time, but
as

Commissioner Copps said, it\'s going to take a lot of hard work. It\'s
not easy. We didn\'t get it handed to us on a platter. It was just an
opportunity that we have to work for and make happen ourselves.

Now, Commissioner Copps and I have already called for more public
participation and more public hearings this time around, and frankly,
the court asked for the same thing in a stunning statement. They
actually footnoted the road trip that we took around the country in this
court decision. It was remarkable.

We should commission independent studies to really examine the effects
of media concentration and the effects on localism. We should study the
effect of concentration on children, on minorities, on workers, on small
businesses, on independent programming, on local creative artists and
talent, on the coverage of local political issues and elections, and on
the disability community.

Everyone in America is affected by how the media operates, including
issues of localism and media consolidation as well, and the FCC simply
must do a more thorough review this time.

So tonight is your turn to weigh in. We\'re here tonight directly to
hear from your experiences with TV and radio, and we want your
perspective on how well broadcasters are doing in serving the needs of
your community right here in the Central Coast.

We want to know are you getting enough coverage of local issues of
concern to you, including local elections. Do you have enough news from
different sources? Are they providing balanced coverage of every segment
of the community? Are they providing enough family friendly programming?
Are you hearing local artists played on the radio?

We\'re here to talk about localism. Broadcast radio and television are
so distinct and so unique and broadcasters are proud of their legacy.
They\'re required by law to serve the public interest, as we\'ve heard.
It\'s part of the bargain that they have with the government.

My view, localism doesn\'t mean just giving promotional air time and
money to charitable organizations, as commendable as that is. What it
has always meant for us is providing real opportunities for local
self‑expression. It means reaching out, developing it, promoting local
performing artists, musicians and other talent. It means dedicating the
resources to discover and address the needs of the community. It means
being accessible, sending reporters and cameras out to all parts of the
community.

It means making programming decisions that truly reflect the make‑up of
the community, such as this region\'s large Hispanic population.

Now, a lot of broadcasters have a deep commitment to their communities,
and they can really serve as a sounding board for their communities.
These broadcasters should be proud of the coverage that they provide of
local issues, and I\'m pleased that we have some excellent broadcasters
here this evening, including this man right here and a lot more.

We want to hear more about the positive aspects of what\'s happening in
the local media, as well as the issues that need more work. We want to
learn how the FCC can encourage all stations, every single station,
every licensee to put the needs of the local community first.

Over the years, the FCC has tried to promote localism in different ways
with direct requirements to air certain kinds of programming or
obligations on broadcasters to conduct formal ascertainment interviews
with community leaders so that they learn what\'s happening in the
community.

I remember that you told me that any broadcaster worth his salt would
reach out to the public, and that would be a matter of course. That\'s
what a good broadcaster does as a part of their business.

But a lot of these requirements have been eroded or eliminated over the
years. Still local broadcasters continue to be the main source of local
news, weather, public affairs programming and emergency information.
That\'s where people go. All of our studies show that. They play a key
part in making our democracy function at its best.

I want to hear directly from you about how well you think your local
broadcasters are doing. That\'s what we\'re here for.

So I really welcome each of you here tonight. I do appreciate your
coming out and all of the effort that went into that. You own the
airwaves, and you deserve the final say in how your airwaves are
regulated.

We\'re here tonight because we heard your voices ring out last year. You
made a difference and the bipartisan coalition gave strength to the
battle for the public interest.

So as the FCC goes back to the drawing board to re-do the rules, we need
to hear from you again. So keep tuning in and taking names. We need to
hear from more than three million this time.

Commissioner Copps talked about reality TV. It\'s interesting to think
about at the dawn of the new media movement. It\'s really about the
ultimate reality show of all, which is our democracy. Let\'s make sure
that our democracy isn\'t voted off the island.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: I thank you. Commissioner Copps and I are ready
to ride again in the spirit of Paul Revere. We\'ll go back out all
across the country, and we hope all of our colleagues will join us. And
we\'re thrilled to begin right here in Monterey. So thanks for having
us.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you,

Commissioner Adelstein. In addition to being a passionate advocate on
these issues, he\'s also an excellent musician if any of you have the
opportunity to ever hear him play.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: At this point I would like to recognize the City
of Monterey, Mayor Daniel Albert, for some opening remarks. Mayor
Albert. He's over to my right.

MAYOR ALBERT: Thank you very much, and certainly we want to extend a
warm Monterey welcome to all of you of the Commission Task Force, and we
certainly would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you out there
and want to make sure that you enjoy the City of Monterey.

We\'re quite proud of our history and what it\'s all about, and we would
urge you before you leave this evening that you spend some time in our
restaurants.

(Laughter and Applause.)

MAYOR ALBERT: We need some kind of a commercial here, and I thought we
would start off that way.

(Laughter.)

MAYOR ALBERT: This is an important policy area for us, and I know that
it is generating considerable discussion across the country. And we
thank you for reaching out to hear the public. I would like to share
with you two messages this evening. The first is that the commercial
broadcast media have a history of serving this community well. We work
with, watch, and listen to our local media outlets on a regular basis.

I\'m a retired educator and school teacher, and generally the report
card is a good one.

We also work with our local broadcasters during times of emergency when
we need to just make vital and public information during earthquakes,
fire, floods, and hazardous material accidents. Again, good marks.

Lastly, we have had many opportunities to collaborate with local
broadcasters as they wear their corporate citizens' hat while
participating in a number of community enrichment initiatives. Frankly,
this community wouldn\'t be the same without them.

But I would caution the Task Force, however, not to be too quick to
generalize my beliefs to other markets. I think that our size market
makes our relationship with broadcasters somewhat unique. I don\'t think
the same thing can be said in other communities, especially the larger
ones, and I know this adds a lot of meaning to your proceeding tonight
in this smaller community.

As an example, and I need to state this because these are some things
that are happening to us as a city and as a region. As an example of
success we have had locally, I would like to share with you an
unprecedented success story involving Clear Channel Communications and
its predecessor, the Ackley Group. Our community media nonprofit access,
Monterey Peninsula, had just incorporated and was looking for a home
when Ackley began operations under a local marketing agreement that
moved a CBS affiliate out of Monterey to locate with a Fox affiliate in
Salinas.

To make a long story short, Ackley made the vacant facilities in
Monterey available to AMP at a very below market rent. In essence, when
a substantial debate was taking place about turning two commercial
editorial voices into one, Ackley enabled an amazing number of community
voices by making its facilities available to the community.

As a major partner of AMP, the city is proud of our relationship with
Ackley and now Clear Channel, and we look forward to that relationship
continuing for a long time.

My comments to you and my second message are briefer -- simply, although
your proceedings are looking at commercial broadcast media, I heartily
encourage you to look to your community media and PEG access to the
cable system as vehicles to meet community needs and interests. These
solutions can, in fact, help mitigate many of the concerns you are
hearing in this media consolidation debate.

As an example, AMP and the city have collaborated to use our
institutional network and community media center cable class, this
hearing locally, and Webcast it across the county. PEG access and
institutional networks are at risk. However, because of the growing
erosion of local governments, cable financing authorization by
legislatures and regulators is a subject that we care very deeply about,
and we would welcome the opportunity to discuss it with you in greater
detail.

What we\'re trying to say is that we\'ve had good collaboration here in
this particular region, and it has been a real benefit to the community
and to the City of Monterey, but regional in nature.

Again, we thank you for being here in Monterey, and we know that this is
going to be a very eager crowd to express ‑‑ we know. We have heard them
‑‑ a very eager crowd to express their thoughts to you and what they\'re
thinking.

So thanks again for being in Monterey. We appreciate it. Thank you.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you, Mayor Albert, for your warm welcome
to all of us and for your insights.

And now I would like to recognize Alex Zerago for a presentation on
behalf of Congressman Sam Farr. Alex.

(Applause.)

MR. ZERAGO: Members of the Commission, I am here on behalf of
Congressman Farr, and I want to read a short letter from him, and I\'ll
just start with that.

\"Welcome to Monterey. I want to applaud your choice of the Central
Coast as a venue for this session and hope that in addition to hearing
and acting on the concerns of the community expressed here tonight that
you are able to\" \-- and this is an echo of the mayor \-- \"to enjoy
the offerings of our local tourism economy.

\"I regret that with Congress in session tonight I cannot participate in
this hearing. However, I have prepared written testimony that I ask for
your staff to place in the record.\" And I have extra copies with me, if
folks want that.

\"In addition, today I have joined my fellow Democratic House Members
from California in writing to the FCC Localism Task Force. I ask that
the Task Force include this letter in the record as well.

\"Both my testimony and the delegation letter highlight the widespread
concern over media consolidation and its effect on the public discourse.
I urge the Federal Communications Commission to work with the public to
enact stricter licensing and ownership standards. I hope that this
series of Localism Task Force hearings will begin a reinvigorated
dialogue that will truly achieve media diversity.

\"The hearings thus far must have given you a sense of the intense
interest that this issue of media consolidation has generated across the
spectrum of the American public.\"

And in addition, what I\'d like to do is read the text of the letter
that was sent from the California delegation. It\'s short, and it is
signed by 22 members of Congress.

It begins, \"In light of the recent decision by the U.S. Third Circuit
Court of Appeals rejecting several FCC media ownership rules, we urge
the FCC to renew the efforts to work with the public to enact stricter
licensing and ownership standards. Hopefully this Localism Task Force
hearing can begin a reinvigorated dialogue and debate that will truly
achieve media diversity.

\"One of our country\'s finest hallmarks is the promise of a free press
that supports and encourages a wide variety of diverse voices.
Unfortunately, consolidation within the media markets can and is
effectively co‑opting this promise. Media consolidation concentrates
ownership of television**,** print and radio stations in the hands of a
few conglomerates and transforms the control of the airwaves from the
public to the investors of the select corporations.

\"Media conglomerates that own multiple stations within single markets
promote standardization of programming in order to reduce cost and
maximize profits. This limits the ability of stations to cover local
news, events and political needs because their corporate owners restrict
their programming for stability.

\"The result of corporate ownership is uniformity in local stations'
issue coverage, which results in limiting discussion of presenting
pressing local matters and stagnating public debate. When only a handful
of owners control what a community hears, sees, and reads, local
stations are unable to serve their diverse viewing public effectively.

\"We must continue to safeguard a free and diverse media that is
relevant to our communities. Allowing corporate companies, corporations,
to control our media markets is the wrong way to achieve these goals.

\"We encourage the FCC to act in the public interest and limit media
consolidation.\"

And it is signed by the following members of Congress: Sam Farr, Nancy
Pelosi, Diane Watson, Barbara Lee, Lois Capps, Robert Matsui, Henry
Waxman, Bob Filner, Maxine Waters, Tom Lantos, Lynn Woolsey, Mike Honda,
Ellen Tauscher, Hilda Solis, Pete Stark, Mike Thompson, Javier Becerra,
Linda Sanchez, Anna Eshoo, Dennis Cardoza, Loretta Sanchez, Howard
Berman, and Grace Napolitano.\"

Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you very much, Mr. Zerago, for sharing the
statement from Congressman Sam Farr, as well as the letter, with us. And
of course, it will be placed into the record.

At this point I\'d like to announce the commencement of our first panel,
and request that Secretary Dortch from the FCC announce the hearing
agenda. She\'ll introduce the panelists and the procedures for panel
presentations, including the time keeping rule so that we will be sure
and have plenty of time for comments from the audience tonight.

SECRETARY DORTCH: Thank you, Commissioner Abernathy. Good evening to
you, Commissioner Copps, Commissioner Adelstein, panelists, special
guests and citizens.

This evening\'s hearing will consist of two segments separated by a
break. The first segment features two panel presentations for the seven
different speakers on each panel. Each speaker will have five minutes to
make remarks. I will use a time machine to maintain these time limits
\-- located in front of Commissioner Abernathy.

I will display a yellow light when there is one minute remaining for
presentation, and each panelist should begin to sum up at that time.

I will display a red light when a panelist\'s time has expired, and each
panelist must conclude his or her remarks.

After all speakers on the first panel have presented their opening
remarks, there will be a brief period for the Commissioners to ask
panelists questions and for panelists to respond.

We will then begin the second panel presentations. It will involve the
same format and procedures as the first panel.

A fifteen minute break will follow the question and answer period for
the second panel. After the break, we will begin the public
participation session of the hearing.

Ms. Melva Davis will moderate that session and provide details about the
format and procedures after the break.

Finally, we would like to remind you to turn off your cell phones and
pagers. We will now begin the first panel presentation. In order of
presentation, the speakers are Blanca Zarazua, Esquire. Ms. Zarazua has
her own law practice in Monterey County and is Of Counsel to the law
firm of Noland, Hamerly, Etienne and Hoss. Ms. Zarazua is also the
Chair, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Monterey County and Honorary
Consul to Mexico for Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties, Salinas,
California.

Eduardo Dominguez, Vice President and General Manager, KSTS‑TV,
Telemundo, San Jose, California.

Patti Miller was scheduled to be with us this evening. She\'s from
Children & the Media Program, Children Now, Oakland, California.
Unfortunately, Ms. Miller was in an automobile accident and will not be
able to be with us this evening.

Joseph W. Heston, President and General Manager, KSBW‑TV, Hearst‑Argyle
Television, Salinas, California.

Joseph Salzman, Associate Dean, Annenberg School for Communication at
the University of Southern California. Dean Salzman will present the
testimony of Martin Kaplan, who is also an Associate Dean at the School
for Communication. Mr. Kaplan could not join us this evening due to a
family emergency.

Sean McLaughlin, President and CEO, Akaku, Maui Community Television,
Kahului, Hawaii.

Chuck Tweedle, Senior Regional Vice President, Bonneville
International\'s San Francisco and St. Louis Divisions, General Manager,
KOIT‑AM/FM, San Francisco, California.

Thank you. Commissioner Abernathy.

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you very much, Secretary Dortch.

And so let\'s start right away with Ms. Zarazua, but just so you know,
we have been in contact with Patti Miller and we have talked to her. So
it\'s not serious, but it was serious enough that she couldn\'t get here
tonight. So for anyone who\'s worried, just so you know.

Ms. Zarazua.

MS. ZARAZUA: Yes, thank you.

Good evening, honorable members of the Federal Communications
Commission, and good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the audience. It
is an honor to be here this evening, and I thank Ms. Royce Sherlock and
the entire Localism Task Force for having extended this invitation to
me.

Given the limited time available, I will be brief and direct with my
comments, which are hereby respectfully submitted for your review and
consideration. I also apologize for my rush speaking manner in making
this presentation as I will be trying to keep within the five-minute
designated time allotment.

My focus this evening will be to provide comment with respect to the
Commission\'s concern that broadcasters serve the needs and interests of
all significant segments of their communities, including the Spanish
speaking communities.

I believe the term \"significant segments\" as used in the Commission\'s
Notice of Inquiry adopted on June 7th, 2004, refers to segments of
individuals whom I have the honor of serving in my various roles. As a
lawyer, I represent many Spanish speakers who find the U.S. legal system
difficult to understand. As Honorary Consul, I address the many issues
facing immigrants from Mexico who live and work on California\'s Central
Coast, and as Chair of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, I see firsthand
the challenges faced by many small, Hispanic owned businesses.

These significant segments do not belong to a homogeneous group. Indeed,
there is much diversity within diversity: language of preference,
immigration status, economic level, level of formal education, etc. will
all vary from individual to individual and from community to community.

Given this multifaceted context, the mission of localism and its
implementation require extensive research and careful evaluation. If a
person is unable to read English and English is the most commonly used
language, that person will rely on visual and audio sources of
information. If a person reads neither English nor Spanish, reliance on
visual and audio sources of information is heightened.

Broadcasters are trustees of the public airways, and they must use the
medium to serve the public interest. I would urge you to adopt a broad
definition of public to include Spanish speakers, immigrants from
abroad, individuals who are illiterate, etc., because to deny these
individuals the benefits of this public resource is a disservice to
everyone in the community, not just to those directly affected by such a
decision.

This Commission has stated that the free flow of information is, quote,
the life blood of democracy. As many can understand public information
only if it is delivered in Spanish, do we truly have this free flow of
information and do we truly protect democracy if Spanish is not used to
deliver this public information?

The public\'s airwaves are akin to sort of international currency
because people from all over the world use them. I would urge the
Commission to manage this international currency using strict standards
of accountability.

I have some specific recommendations, and my hope is that these
recommendations will assist the Commission in complying with the Third
District Court of Appeals\' mandate that a, quote, rational and reasoned
analysis be applied in formulating any proposed rule changes.

I believe a different vocabulary must be emphasized instead of referring
so often to corporations, conglomerates, and consolidation, let us begin
using words such as commitment, compassion, and community conscience.

(Applause.)

MS. ZARAZUA: (Laughing) Stop the Clock. To contribute to localism,
broadcast programming must highlight heroes and success stories from
within the significant segments already referenced so that community
pride may be fostered.

With respect to non-programming factors, I urge the Commission to
undertake the following: Urge main studios to be located within the
local communities so that the local studios are, quote, part of the
neighborhood.

(Applause.)

MS. ZARAZUA: Encourage contests for the leadership in the local
community groups so that licensees have a pulse on community priorities.

Define locally oriented programming as programming of interest to the
local community, regardless of the source.

Incorporate individuals with sensitivity to these underserved
communities in the decision- making process.

Reward licensees who seek opportunities to educate underserved
communities. For example, with respect to local and national elections,
licensees have the ability to educate communities about the importance
of participating in the political process.

(Applause.)

MS. ZARAZUA: Licensees must explain why understanding and participating
in the political process is important and how politics affect the daily
lives of many individuals residing in underserved communities.

Currently many individuals in these communities consider politics as a
low priority item because the daily challenge of basic economic survival
continues to be the top priority.

With respect to regulations, I believe qualitative features need to be
introduced. For example, if a licensee demonstrates strong community
commitment, the initial term of the license could be automatically
extended.

I\'m going to conclude now and request a few seconds additional because
of the applause. I thank you for that additional time.

(Laughter.)

MS. ZARAZUA: In conclusion, as Commissioner Adelstein has stated,
localism means providing opportunities for local self‑expression. To
deny individuals the opportunity for self‑expression is to deny them
their personal growth, self‑respect, and dignity.

With your permission, Commissioners, I would like to conclude with a few
words in Spanish.

(Speaking Spanish.)

I just stated the following: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I just
wanted to thank you for participating in this event. Your participation
this evening confirms your interest in the future well‑being of our
community.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you, Ms. Zarazua. Not only are you
articulate, but you nailed the time. So we\'re very, very pleased.

(Laughter.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Now I\'d like to introduce Mr. Dominguez for his
presentation.

MR. DOMINGUEZ: *Buenos* *noches*. Good evening, Commissioners, ladies
and gentlemen, co‑ panelists. I\'m Eduardo Dominguez, the Vice President
and General Manager of KSTS, Telemundo owned and operated station
serving the San Jose and surrounding areas.

I\'m pleased to be here tonight speaking about broadcaster service to
local communities in Northern California. I\'m pleased because Telemundo
and its owned and operated stations consider service to the local
community to be essential to our business and to our role as local
broadcasters.

I have spent many years in broadcast media, with a particular emphasis
on California\'s Spanish language television stations. Immediately prior
to my current role, I was a station manager of Telemundo\'s owned and
operated station, KDEA, in Los Angeles, and before that for KWHY, Los
Angeles, a local, independent, Spanish language television station.

All of that experience has taught me three principles essential to a TV
station: local attention, local action, and local accountability.

Local attention means that a station must focus on events and issues
that matter to all its audience. In Spanish language programming, that
sometimes means covering a news story about Mexico or El Salvador that
would not make the national news but is important locally.

Sometimes it means addressing the fundamentals, such as how to open a
checking account or what immunizations are needed for a child before
starting school. Local action means that the station must involve itself
with its community in ways that advance the community, whether it\'s by
sponsoring the San Jose Americas Festival earlier this month to benefit
emergency housing and shelter, or by broadcasting the San Francisco
Carnival Parade to benefit mission neighborhood centers\' Head Start
programs, or by reaching out to the community at large by sponsoring and
hosting a weekly Foros de Inmigracion (Immigration Forums), to address
immigration concerns.

What matters is that Telemundo\'s establishment commitment in our
community of license goes beyond programming. In addition to the strong
relationship we have with nonprofit community and cultural agencies
serving the Latino population throughout the coverage area, KSTS
maintains a solid relationship with the local business leaders through
the 15 Hispanic Chambers throughout Northern California, from Sonoma
County in the North to Concord and Alameda Counties in the East, and
here at Monterey County in the South, by sponsoring and participating in
an array of local programs and initiatives.

And local accountability requires our community to be able to rely on us
to cover what it needs to know in a timely and appropriate fashion. We
measure that accountability not just by ratings or specific feedback,
but by our sense of whether the community knows more today than
yesterday.

KSTS serves, if you will, as a bridge for the Spanish speaking immigrant
community to life in the U.S., covering issues of health, education, and
immigration. Our audience has told us in survey after survey that they
want and need more of this kind of information so that they can live a
better life here in the United States.

We struggle every day to meet these unique community needs and interest
and thereby to earn the trust and loyalty of our audience. For us, these
principles are not optional. This is not a matter of regulation. It is a
matter of survival. We are the local face and local presence of our
network in each one of the communities we serve.

In a world where cable boasts hundreds of national channels, a
television station that does not live by these principles will fail,
regardless of who owns that station or what regulation requires.

Upholding these localism principles is fundamental to any broadcaster\'s
success, and Telemundo is committed to them. When General Electric
acquired Telemundo several years ago, Telemundo did not de‑emphasize
these three key principles, but reinvigorated them at the station and
network level.

At the station level, Telemundo has strengthened its local newscast at
six and 11. Our news team has more resources, thanks to the ability to
share the resources of our sister station KNTV, NBC\'s San Jose owned
and operated station.

KSTS serves both the San Francisco and Monterey markets, and working
with NBC\'s local news team, we have been able to cover more live news
events by use of their live trucks and helicopter for major breaking
stories.

But it goes beyond having access to better technical resources. In fact,
the benefits of our commitment to our local Hispanic American community
flow to KNTV as well. On numerous occasions Telemundo has helped NBC
cover stories where our reporters have access to Spanish speakers and
covering news events, thus enabling KNTV to broaden its coverage of
issues that affect us all.

My point is this: local attention, local action, local accountability
are not motivated by threat of sanctions. They are fundamental to our
business. When Telemundo invests the tens to hundreds of millions of
dollars necessary to acquire and operate a television station, we hardly
intend to jeopardize that investment by airing programming that offends
the viewers or does not appeal to our local community.

Indeed, because we want to expand our local audience, Telemundo is
willing to spend more in order to continue to produce truly locally
oriented programming, to fund community activities, and to sponsor
events that improve the social well‑being of the communities we serve.
These are the hallmarks of a successful television station.

Local attention, local action, and local accountability are essential to
KSTS' past and future success. These are the three principles that will
continue to guide our strategy.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you, Mr. Dominguez. Also nailed the time.
This is great because we want to make sure we\'ve got plenty of time for
questions.

I\'d like to move directly to Mr. Heston.

MR. HESTON: Thank you, Commissioner Abernathy and Commissioners.

Good evening. I\'m Joe Heston, and I\'m President and General Manager of
KSBW‑TV and serving Monterey, Salinas, Santa Cruz, and many other
communities here on California\'s Central Coast. For the past 50 years,
more Central Coast viewers have received their local news and
information from KSBW‑TV than any other local television station.

We didn\'t become a top rated local TV station by accident. Our success
stems directly from our overriding commitment to localism. Our duty as
stewards of the public broadcast spectrum is to provide programming
responsive to the specific needs and interests of the Central Coast
communities we serve.

Unlike our major market neighbors to the North and South, we serve a
small population spread over a very large geographic area. We must go
the extra mile, literally, to cover the news in every corner of our
market, whether it\'s a downtown redevelopment scandal in King City two
hours to our South, a meth lab bust in Hollister and Howard to our East,
or a garlic festival in Gilroy an hour to our North.

To cover these grounds, we\'ve invested in three full news bureaus, one
in Salinas, one in Monterey, and one in Santa Cruz.

We use three live vans and three separate ENG receive sites for
extensive on‑the‑spot coverage of events as they occur. When an
earthquake rocked Pasa Robles (phonetic) last year, we provided live, on
the spot coverage. During the Fall, we cover every local high school
football games.

We enhanced our local news with customized regional and national
coverage tailored to issues of importance to our local viewers. Our
Hearst‑Argyle sister station KCRA in Sacramento provides interviews with
our local Senators and assembly representatives on issues such as local
water control and the impact of proposed budget cuts.

And our Hearst‑Argyle Washington News Bureau provides us with similar
localized coverage through regular interviews with our congressmen, and
just recently produced an exclusive profile of a local Salinas soldier
selected for President Reagan\'s Honor Guard.

Our station has made enormous public service investments in our local
communities. We provide \$2.6 million dollars for local charities each
year through television fundraising initiatives and public service
announcements.

Our historic partnership with two local United Way chapters promotes
Success by Six, an early childhood development initiative that uses
informational television spots and special news reports to focus on
children from birth to six years old.

We also take an entire day of programming each December to assist the
Salvation Army\'s "Share Your Holiday" charity drive.

We engage our viewers with public affairs at local, state, and national
level. Our "Feedback at Five" program broadcasts each Sunday at 5:00
p.m. before the NBC national news tackles issues such as local gang
violence, earthquake disaster preparation and child abuse.

Our station editorial board prepares, and we broadcast, weekly
editorials on hotly contested local topics. We invite, encourage, and
when we receive significant interest, we broadcast responses from our
viewers.

But no matter how much money or personnel we invest to serve our local
communities, we can\'t do it alone. Our corporate parent, Hearst‑Argyle
Television, has been an excellent partner in our commitment to localism.
Hearst‑Argyle enables and encourages us to share news gathering
resources with our sister stations to improve the quality and depth of
our local news coverage.

Consistent with our corporate commitment to facilitating and promoting
issues and candidate- centered discourse, all of our stations provide a
minimum of five minutes of free broadcast time each night during the
election season.

For our political coverage, Hearst‑Argyle stations, including KSBW,
received the Walter Cronkite award from the Annenberg School at USC.

Most important, Hearst‑Argyle recognizes that local managers of local
stations know their local communities best. Our company gives us broad
discretion to make programming decisions that reflect the specific needs
and interest of the local communities we serve.

We also need cooperation from Washington. Our viewers cannot reap the
benefits of our top-rated local programming unless they can receive our
full 19.4 digital signal. Right now we\'re carrying a live broadcast of
this important hearing on KSBW‑SD, adjacent to KSBW‑DT. Unfortunately,
only viewers watching us over the air on a digital TV can receive the
signal because local cable companies and satellite carriers do not carry
our digital signal.

The FCC should require cable operators and satellite carriers to carry
our full digital signal.

(Applause.)

MR. HESTON: We also need the FCC to clarify the ground rules governing
indecent broadcasts, particularly as they apply to news coverage.

Finally, we need clarity on the right of local affiliates to reject
national network programs.

Our commitment to localism at KSBW is the hallmark of our success. No
basic cable station, no public access channel, no community access, no
premium pay TV, no satellite delivery company, no local or national
website has been as steady or successful at addressing in the FCC\'s own
words \"the problems, needs, and interests\" of our Central Coast
communities.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you very much, Mr. Heston.

And now we\'ll turn to Dean Salzman, Associate Dean, Annenberg School
for Communications.

Thank you for joining us tonight.

DEAN SALZMAN: Thank you.

Only a great tragedy would have kept Marty Kaplan from being here today,
and that was the death of his mother, and I stepped in to read his
statement as he has written it, and I think it\'s an important
statement. He says:

"My colleagues and I have been studying the political coverage on local
TV news since 1998. In 2002, we analyzed more than 10,000 news
broadcasts that aired during the last seven weeks of the campaign. They
were a scientific sample of top-rated early and late evening half hours
of news on 122 stations in the top 50 markets, and here is some of what
we found. Only 44 percent of those broadcasts contained any campaign
coverage at all. Almost six out of ten top-rated news broadcasts contain
no campaign coverage whatsoever. Most of the campaign stories that did
air came during the last two weeks of the campaign. Nearly half of the
stories were about horse race or strategy and not about issues. The
average campaign story lasted less than 90 seconds.

Fewer than three out of ten campaign stories that aired included
candidates speaking, and when they did speak, the average candidate\'s
sound bite was 12 seconds long.

Campaign ads outnumbered campaign stories by nearly four to one. Of the
campaign stories that did air, what kind of races were covered? Sixty
percent were about statewide races like governor and the U.S. Senate and
not about local campaigns.

By contrast, races for the House of Representatives made up only seven
percent of the stories. Races for the state senate or assembly, three
percent. Regional, county or city offices, four percent. So even if you
count a House race as a local election, only 15 percent of all the
campaign stories in our national sample focused on local races.

Here in California, the 11 stations in our sample did markedly worse
than the national average on covering local elections. Only nine percent
of the campaign stories on top-rated California local news were about
local races.

Size of station ownership group appears to make a difference. The 45
stations in our sample that are owned by large owners, with over 20
percent audience reach, carried less local campaign news than the
national average, while stations owned by small and mid‑sized owners
beat the national average.

I want to single out Hearst‑Argyle. There were ten Hearst‑Argyle
stations in our national sample. On average, 40 percent of their
campaign stories were about local races. On that measure, Hearst‑Argyle
did more than two and a half times better than the national average and
more than four times better than the California average. Why?

The reason, I think, is management commitment. Hearst‑Argyle has decided
that quality campaign coverage and localism are good for their
communities. Now, they can also be good for business.

But Hearst‑Argyle is the exception, not the rule. The campaign coverage
Americans get on the airwaves they own should not depend on good luck or
goodwill. Voluntary standards were proposed by the Gore Commission in
1998. Five minutes of candidate- centered discourse a night in the month
before the election.

How did it work? In the 2000 election, the average station ran 74
seconds a night. What should be done about the lack of political
coverage and the lack of localism?

First, we need explicit standards of performance by local news. Stations
promise to fulfill a public interest obligation in order to get their
license. This nation needs to spell out what those obligations are in
law and in regulation.

There are several responsible proposals ‑‑

(Applause.)

DEAN SALZMAN: ‑‑ for doing so, including the "Public Interest, Public
Airwaves" petition, the Minow‑Geller petition and the "Our Democracy,
Our Airways" Act supported by John McCain.

Second, we need to know if stations actually meet these obligations. The
public inspection files that the FCC requires are useless for these
purposes. It is not an onerous burden to require that stations record
their public affairs programming and achieve the rundowns of their news
programs.

I applaud the challenge to all local broadcast stations issued on June
14th by Chairman Powell and Senator McCain to insure they are providing
local communities with significant information on the political issues
facing the community.

But who will know if stations rise to that challenge or ignore it? There
is no monitoring process in place to answer that question. Nonprofit
funds to support independent studies like the Lear Centers come and go.
Why shouldn\'t the industry or the public pay for the data needed for
oversight and compliance?

(Applause.)

DEAN SALZMAN: Third, we need to link stations\' performance on the
public interest obligation with the renewal of their licenses. The
current postcard renewal system is a joke. We believe stations must live
up to the public interest promises they make. We must hold them
accountable if they break them.

Last month when the FCC issued a Notice of Inquiry that gave rise to
these localism issues, Commissioner Copps said this about enhancing
political and civic discourse. \"Here is an issue that demands action
now. Study after Study depicts a bleak and depressing picture. We have
studies; we have comments. We don\'t have action. The better part of
good government here is to move ahead and act.\"

I could not agree more.

Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you, Dean

Salzman.

Those were very, very sobering facts that we need to have in place, but
you didn\'t just come to us with raw data. You gave us the facts and
then you gave us some recommendations that we need to look at seriously.
So thank you very much for your presentation. It was tremendously
helpful.

Now I\'d like to hear from Mr. McLaughlin who came all the way from
Hawaii to be with us tonight because we couldn\'t really justify a
hearing in Hawaii, but I was ready to go.

(Laughter.)

MR. McLAUGHLIN: Please do, please do.

*Aloha*, *buenos noches*, and good evening, Commissioners Abernathy,
Adelstein, and Copps, FCC staff, and members of the public here.

My name is Sean McLaughlin, and I am President and CEO of Akaku, Maui
Community Television, sharing these remarks on behalf of myself and the
Hawaii Localism Coalition, which includes professional journalists,
independent producers, academic leaders, and other supporters of diverse
local media in Hawaii.

Being here now, I want to say to the people of Watsonville on behalf of
the people of Hawaii, we apologize for the loss of your community based
radio station to a private interest ‑‑

(Applause.)

MR. McLAUGHLIN: ‑‑ that will be airing Hawaiian music. In the values of
Hawaii, this is not pono (phonetic), not right.

(Applause.)

MR. McLAUGHLIN: As we know, commercial media alone do not adequately
serve local community needs and interests, and consolidated ownership
exacerbates the problem. To maximize profits, commercial media minimized
local programming. With distant owners controlling management decisions
local commercial media increasingly become victims to the corrosive
impacts of the profit-making imperative.

The needs and interests of distinct local communities, especially lower
income and minority groups who lack buying power are ignored or
misrepresented as a result. Local public interests are at risk as
Congress and the FCC reshape the regulatory landscape for media.

The current system to ensure localism is broken. The FCC and your
Localism Task Force must address the changing relationships between
local broadcast, satellite, cable, and broadband media operators.
Commercial interests will continue to shape the marketplace and game the
regulatory framework to suit their private interest, not the public
interest of a healthy democracy.

The best way to promote locally oriented programming is to ensure local
and diverse ownership and to set aside bandwidth with adequate operating
support for noncommercial public service media in every local community.

(Applause.)

MR. McLAUGHLIN: The commercial media marketplace does not and will not
adequately support public interests, especially noncommercial speech.
Consolidated ownership of media further reduces local content through
the elimination of expensive local programming in favor of lower cost
regional or national syndicated programming.

Development of robust local and noncommercial media is the most
effective way to address shortcomings in the commercial marketplace.

(Applause.)

MR. McLAUGHLIN: Mandatory set‑asides to provide local media resources
should be required as compensation for private use of public assets.

(Applause.)

MR. McLAUGHLIN: Okay. I hope I get a little extra time because of that.

(Laughter.)

MR. McLAUGHLIN: Public assets like land and spectrum. We need some
electronic green space in the strip mall of commercial media.

(Applause.)

MR. McLAUGHLIN: Community access media provide a model for localism that
could be used for broadcast, satellite, and IP-enabled media.
Noncommercial public education and government access channels across
this country provide over a million hours of original local TV
programming each year. Cable access channels are generally provided
through local government franchise authorities, like the City of
Monterey, who collect compensation for the private commercial use of
public rights‑of‑way by media corporations. These local media resources
are, therefore, accountable to local government jurisdictions.

A policy approach similar to local franchising of cable TV should be
considered for broadcast, satellite, and IP-enabled media. Local
governments could be given local oversight and compensation for use of
public spectrum rights‑of‑way and other public resources used by
commercial media to serve their constituents.

Through a locally accountable process, broadcast, broadband wireline,
and satellite transmission capacity could be set aside to benefit local
communities. Local regulation and local governance over public service
media resources are essential principles of the community access media
model.

As a cautionary note, cable franchise situations, such as the terrible
situation in the City of San Jose is experiencing with a change in
ownership undermining community obligations that were negotiated by a
previous owner, need to be proactively addressed.

State and local governments in communities across America must have
meaningful and well-defined roles to adequately protect media consumers
and to effectively advocate for local needs and interests to be met.

Federal regulation is a centralized ‑‑

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: You have about a minute.

MR. McLAUGHLIN: Oh, thank you. I\'ve got a minute? Great.

Federal regulation is a centralized, opaque process favoring very
powerful corporate interests who privately gain from ineffective local
regulation in the public interest.

I\'m still going to abbreviate here.

Consolidated media ownership favors private commercial interests that
are detached from local communities and driven by non‑local profit
motives. To minimize harm from this imbalance of market power, local
governments and communities must have authority to regulate and develop
local media solutions that meet people\'s needs.

The FCC needs a media localism policy of home rule.

(Applause.)

MR. McLAUGHLIN: Local franchising authorities for cable and telecom are
the appropriate jurisdictions to oversee community needs, ascertainment
and related public service obligations. Local and state jurisdictions
need meaningful, appropriate oversight authority to protect consumers,
uphold First Amendment principles, and properly represent local public
interest.

Almost done.

(Laughter.)

MR. McLAUGHLIN: Local communities require their own voices. Congress and
the FCC must protect local media and uphold the public interest.

Please keep in mind that broadcast media are not free market industries,
and regulatory barriers, such as duopoly and cross‑ownership rules, were
created to protect the public interest requirements. Local broadcasters
receive their FCC license with little or no compensation to the public,
even though the spectrum bandwidth used by these broadcasters is a
public resource.

Essentially, we have a situation where private interests have bought and
sold a public license ‑‑

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Do you know what?

We\'re pushing the edge of the envelope.

MR. McLAUGHLIN: Okay. I\'m wrapping up now because I have to.

Thank you.

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you very

much.

MR. McLAUGHLIN: Aloha.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you very much, Mr. McLaughlin, for
traveling so far and for sharing your concerns and your insights with
us.

And now I\'d like to introduce Mr. Tweedle, who\'s with Bonneville.

MR. TWEEDLE: Thank you, Commissioners and members of the public.

I\'m a Senior VP with Bonneville, and part of my responsibilities is to
oversee our three FM stations in San Francisco.

Bonneville has a longstanding company‑wide commitment to serving the
communities in which we operate. Our three local stations, KOIT, KDFC,
and KZBR, are 100 percent locally programmed. In addition, all
programming decisions are made locally and all on‑air personalities are
local residents.

We also pay close attention to local issues. Last year our three
stations combined spent more than \$290,000 researching the concerns and
needs and wants of Bay Area residents.

We\'re a moderately sized company, at best. Yet, last year our stations
aired more than, company‑ wide, 215,000 minutes of public affairs
programming, PSAs, and other community service projects worth \$50
million dollars, all of it tailored to the local needs of the community.

Add to that another \$1.2 million dollars in employee volunteer hours,
and it\'s evidence that Bonneville\'s actions back up its stated
corporate philosophy.

We do it with enthusiasm since we are part of those communities. We want
to invest in them because that\'s where we work and our families live.

And reflecting yet another significant corporate commitment to serving
our communities, Bonneville provides each of our full‑time employees 40
paid hours a year to go out and work with local community groups.

(Applause.)

MR. TWEEDLE: In the San Francisco area, KDFC is the only one of the
remaining only 30 commercial classical stations left in America that
actually has grown both in listeners and revenue over the last few
years.

(Applause.)

MR. TWEEDLE: Our other four nets include KOIT, a light rock station, and
KZBR, which last year became a country station. Significantly over the
past five years, each station has won the National Association of
Broadcasters Crystal Award for excellence in community service.

Last year KOIT and KDFC also received the NAB Marconi Awards for adult
contemporary station of the year and classical music stations of the
year, respectively.

We produce and air three local public affairs programs each week,
"Positive Parenting," which is a weekly programming addressing family
and parenting issues.

"Today\'s World" is a program in which our news director interviews
experts on timely Bay Area issues, and incidentally, we excerpt part of
that program and run it each day at noon Monday through Friday on KOIT,
which is that station\'s highest-rated time period, and frequently that
station is actually one of the top-rated stations in San Francisco.

And the "Commonwealth Club" is a local public affairs forum that
features nationally known speakers on a wide variety of topics.

Our three stations also broadcast more than four hours a week, and
they\'re all music stations of locally produced news. We broadcast many
public service announcements since they are a key element of localism
and, frankly, a lot of the organizations couldn\'t survive, let alone
prosper, without that media support.

The total value of the air time we contributed in 2003 to the Bay area
was more than \$15,700,000 dollars. Last year alone, KOIT helped 22
different nonprofit organizations, including Volunteer Match. We helped
this organization pair one million volunteers with nonprofit activities.

This type of outreach to the broad community is something that local
broadcasting is uniquely positioned and qualified to deliver. Our
stations provide enormous efforts to helping community groups.

What may be unique, however, is that we also have created public service
announcement workshops in which we teach local nonprofit organizations
how to market themselves to the media.

As the primary source of classical music programming in San Francisco,
KDFC actively supports music education, last year airing 78 hours of
music education programs, and its annual Charity Sampler CD this year
will top \$100,000 dollars in donations to childrens' program in Bay
Area homeless shelters.

With more than 20 percent of the Bay Area population being Asian, KOIT
this past May aired a month long campaign honoring Asian Heritage Month.
Reflecting the diversity of the Bay Area, KOIT.com can be read in
Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Italian.

Commissioners, we succeed in the Bay area and as a broadcasting company
because our listeners know that we are truly part of their community.
It\'s the only way I know how to operate a radio station. Localism is
alive and well, at least with Bonneville.

Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you very much, Mr. Tweedle, and you\'ve
given us some very good insights in some of the things that you do that
could be done by some of the other broadcast licensees.

So at this point I\'d like to offer Commissioner Copps an opportunity to
ask questions.

And just so you know, I know we\'re running late. I think all of the
Commissioners are committed to staying and making sure that you get at
least the two hours of open mic time that\'s in the agenda, and more if
necessary. So I just wanted to make sure that was clear.

Commissioner Copps.

COMMISSIONER COPPS: I\'ll just ask one question because I think the most
valuable part of this dialogue is going to be the public microphone
part.

But, several of you mentioned digital television, and we are engaged in
a transition to a digital TV, and one of the things that DTV will bring
with it, of course, is the ability of stations to multi‑cast so that the
station that has one channel may have six program streams, and somebody
who owns two stations that command these is going to have the ability to
broadcast maybe 12 different program streams.

It obviously has huge effects on competition and power in communities
and everything else, but I\'m thinking in terms of the localism and the
diversity.

You know, if this is done right, this transition, it has a wonderful
opportunity to enhance localism and to enhance diversity, but I guess
there's already 217 stations in the United States that are
multi‑casting.

My question is: is there anybody on this panel, on this side who has
already testified who thinks that we can get there and develop that
localism and diversity and potential DTV without a strong set of
explicit public interest responsibilities . . . rather than just letting
the magic of the marketplace or voluntary action resolve this?

MR. HESTON: For our success as broadcasters, we\'ve said it up here.
Localism is what sells tickets, and the reasons we have KSBW‑DT and the
reason that we have this programming on tonight and that we are looking
at other opportunities for programming on those side channels, not the
HD programming that we need to move forward for people to buy digital
television, it absolutely is an opportunity.

But to have it regulated, what you\'ve heard up here is the most
successful operators do this because that\'s what comes back to you. If
you do the right thing and if you do it well ‑‑

COMMISSIONER COPPS: Well, I didn\'t hear that in Professor Kaplan\'s
comments for example.

DEAN SALZMAN: I can\'t speak for Marty, but I can speak for myself.
Unless you do something about it, if you leave it up to the marketplace
and leave it up to the people who own this, you see what happens.
Nothing is going to change.

(Applause.)

DEAN SALZMAN: I have lived through all kinds of different technology.
When I started in broadcasting, we shot black and white and converted it
from negative to positive on the air. That\'s how old I am.

But the point is that it doesn\'t matter what the technology is. The
people who own the media will continue to do whatever they want to do to
make the most profit, and unless you do something about it, it won\'t
change.

(Applause.)

MR. HESTON: But ultimately the people decide what they want to watch and
what they want to see.

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: No.

MR. HESTON: And the best operators -- the best operators, the best
operators doing the best job will, indeed, attract that audience and
serve that audience to the best of their ability.

COMMISSIONER COPPS: Well, I think you\'ve got a little bit of skepticism
out here.

(Laughter.)

COMMISSIONER COPPS: But let me just say I think the figures in Marty
Kaplan\'s statement are really alarming and they\'re damning. You know,
we talk a lot of times about how things have improved, and we look back
in the 1950s, for example, as self‑satisfied and fat and flabby.

I remember growing up and I guess the first presidential campaign I
watched on television ‑‑ that\'s how old I am ‑‑ was Dwight Eisenhower
and Adlai Stevenson. Nobody has ever equated that, I guess, with the
Lincoln‑Douglas debates, but even then in 1952 ‑‑ maybe it was \'56 or
both of them ‑‑ I remember every week on television you would have each
candidate standing up for half an hour and doing a speech.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER COPPS: And it was not preempted. It was certainly
commercial-free, and usually there was an issue that was specifically
discussed, and now we\'re told, well, we have all of these new outlets.
So we have so much more diversity, but I don\'t think the campaign
coverage is any better. I think it\'s probably worse.

And Marty\'s ‑‑

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER COPPS: Marty\'s comments show that. The Grade the News
Project is Stanford, and its greatest grade gave most of the Bay Area's
TV stations C's and D's for their news coverage.

We\'ve got to find a way out of this. We\'re in a country here in the
middle of a war, in a health care crisis, in an education crisis, and
all kinds of crises, and we\'re reading about who\'s ahead in the polls
and what\'s the latest candidate\'s advertisement say. What has the
journalism come to and what's the media come to?

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Okay. We\'ll now move on to Commissioner
Adelstein if you have any questions.

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Well, it just seems like a fruitful debate
we\'re having here. I wanted to continue this out a little bit.

I mean, the statement from Professor Kaplan that Dean Salzman read to us
is just really, really damning. I mean, it\'s alarming. It's. . . it's .
. every time I heard it, and I\'ve heard it before, it just makes me
mad.

But I wonder is there any rebuttal to it. I mean, we\'ve had this study
out here for years, and the National Association of Broadcasters I see
is here. If it\'s wrong, then they ought to let us know, and if it\'s
not wrong, they ought to do something about it because ‑‑

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: ‑‑ it\'s outrageous.

I mean, those statistics are just outrageous. Now, we do have here, you
know, in fairness, you have Hearst‑Argyle here. We have you represented
in Mr. Heston, and they won the award. They stood up to the plate, and
they said they're going to do five minutes a night.

Now, it\'s pretty pitiful when you have to ask people to do five minutes
a night in the 30 days before the election, considering that they\'re
taking in \$1.2 billion in political advertising using the public
airways.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: But you know, as pitiful as that may seem, it\'s
actually a very big deal because others aren\'t doing it, and those who
agreed to do the five minutes, and I challenge broadcasters to do it,
are according to the study doing three times as much political campaign
coverage as those who didn\'t even bother to do that.

And this year we have a handful of stations, again. Hearst‑Argyle again
this year agreed to do that, but most of them aren\'t agreeing to do
that. I mean, I haven\'t heard from the vast bulk of broadcasters.

So we say the marketplace drives it, and I\'d like to hear a little bit
about the success that we have here. I mean, in a sense, first,
Hearst-Argyle is doing something right compared to the other
broadcasters, but what we apparently have is market failure in economic
terms.

I mean, the market is not working because I talked to one news director
who said that election coverage is ratings poison. Now, maybe that\'s
not true, but that is apparently the prevailing attitude among news
directors in this country, and it\'s borne out by these statistics
unless somebody can prove them wrong, and nobody has bothered to even
try.

So, to hear from you about how do you get news directors to say that
this is worth covering, how do you make it exciting enough?

And from other people, you know, what can we do to get broadcasters to
do their responsibilities, to do the kind of coverage that the public
deserves to get so that they can make the big decisions that are before
them in the election?

MR. HESTON: Well, Commissioner and Commissioner Copps, I can\'t do a
tutorial on good television, but a good news operation, politics is the
life blood of our democracy, and if you can\'t capture that on
television news, then you shouldn\'t be in the business of television
news.

And it\'s not about sensationalism. It\'s about local issues that affect
all of the people that watch our television station, that watch in this
area. And if we don\'t do that, for 50 years KSBW wouldn\'t be the
station that it is.

I would suggest, Commissioner Copps, that with all due respect, we could
put on a thousand hours on a thousand outlets of people standing and
talking about issues, but that doesn't mean that people will come to
hear them.

What we try to do is put on ‑‑

(Applause.)

MR. HESTON: What we try to do is put on political coverage that\'s
relevant and that people will actually see and it will have an impact.

Just as with public affairs programming, we could put on all 24-hour a
day public affairs programming, just one half hour of a talking head
after another, but by capturing it in a highly rated, highly robust
local news, the real issues go out to the community that we serve.

MR. TWEEDLE: Excuse me. I am not a television person at all. I\'m just a
viewer like the rest of you, but I commend the people that step up to
the plate in the business, that do a good job like KSBW who are in this
marketplace.

But being a radio person, which is what I\'ve spent my career in,
unfortunately a lot of years and a lot of gray hair, I\'d like to really
say that radio in a lot of markets ‑‑ and I\'m going to salute a couple
of my very tough competitors up in San Francisco, KGO, KCBS, KQED, the
public station -- all do a fabulous job with coverage, and these are all
basically 24-hour a day operations.

(Applause.)

MR. TWEEDLE: And do you know what? We live or die by the Arbitron
ratings. There are 48 stations that make the book pretty much every time
around, and our success or failure commercially depends on our ability
to deliver an audience.

And the KGOs and the KCBSs of the world are right up there, and they do
a great job, and I\'m proud to say that our company owns two great news
operations, WTOP in Washington, D.C. and KSLM in Salt Lake.

So we very much march to that tune in the markets where we can operate
those kinds of stations.

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Could I do one quick follow‑up on this same
area, which is I\'d like to hear from Mr. Dominguez about Telemundo\'s
experience as far as broadcasting more political information,
information about elections and candidates. And then the viewership of
that, and what you\'ve learned or haven\'t learned from the Hispanic
community reaction.

MR. DOMINGUEZ: One of the things that we have done through all the
television stations that I have, is that we also feel that we are, as I
mentioned before, bridged for that underserved community. So part of it
is also bringing some of the issues that are affecting a lot of our
audience that does not vote. So part of what we do, besides just
covering each one of the propositions that is up, and we have a
commitment to each one, and each one of the local politics, so for the
coverage areas that we have, it\'s 11 counties. We try to get those
issues where there\'s the highest concentration of Hispanics.

And then in addition to that, we also have a commitment that, the 20
years that I\'ve been in the business, we unite with local organizations
or with the Southwest Voter Registration Project to make sure that there
are citizenship campaigns and voter registration campaigns, and then
getting out the vote campaign. So it\'s about covering each one of the
issues, and each one of the sides in any one of the key elections,
supervisory elections. And currently, we also initiated quite a few
different segments during our newscast besides breaking news where it\'s
called \"Talk to Your Leaders\", so we do interviews with different
Mayors, Chief of Police, covering some of those issues that come to us
from the public.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you very much. So here\'s the question. We
can move straight to Panel II with no official break, and leave the
break before the public mic time, or we can take a very quick break, but
I\'m afraid of getting people coming and going, so what we could do is
just ‑‑ those who want us to continue say "yea."

(Audience response.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Okay. Well, those who don\'t? All right. We\'re
going to continue. Also, the panelists, if anyone needs to get up,
please do so. I mean, we\'re not trying to make people suffer up here.
I\'d like for Secretary Dortch to introduce the second panel.

SECRETARY DORTCH: In order of presentation, the speakers are Harry J.
Pappas, President and CEO, Pappas Telecasting Companies, Visalia,
California; John P. Connolly, National President, American Federation of
Radio and Television Artists, Los Angeles, California; Kathy Baker,
Executive Vice President, Buckley Radio; General Manager, KWAV‑FM and
KIDD‑AM, Monterey California; Davey D. Disc Jockey,

(Applause.)

SECRETARY DORTCH: KPFA‑FM, Berkeley, California; Delia Saldivar,
Regional Manager, KHDC‑FM (Radio Bilingue, Inc.),

(Applause.)

SECRETARY DORTCH: Salinas, California; Harry B. Robins, Jr., Emergency
Services Manager, Monterey County, California; and Warren L. Trumbly,
President, Community Broadcasters Association, Zephyr Cove, Nevada; Vice
President, Broadland Properties, KAXT‑CA, San Jose, California.

(Laughter.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: All right. Let\'s first hear from Mr. Pappas
who\'s here from Pappas Telecasting.

MR. PAPPAS: Commissioners, fellow panelists, distinguished guests, and
members of the public, good evening. I am pleased to appear before you
today as a broadcaster who just celebrated his 40th anniversary in this
great industry, but also as a concerned citizen who believes that
localism is increasingly quite endangered.

Regulatory action is required to ensure that we are able to fulfill our
duties without improper restraint by those who are not licensed to serve
a local market.

(Applause.)

MR. PAPPAS: The public has a legitimate concern when localism and
diversity are threatened by increased network dominance of over‑the‑air
TV, and the public senses that the increase in profanity and indecency
on television has occurred as a consequence of such increased dominance
in the last 15 years. I think there is reason for such concern, and
here\'s why.

Free, over‑the‑air broadcasting is the means by which we\'re bound
together as a nation. It is our national public space, and a symbol of
our democracy. In authorizing local broadcast stations, Congress gave
them a special mandate to serve local communities, and indeed, the
network affiliate relationship reflects in a significant sense the
principles of federalism on which this nation is founded.

The Commission has consistently reaffirmed the obligation of broadcast
licensees to air programming that is responsive to the interest and
needs of the diverse local communities we\'re privileged to serve. And
as the recent hearings in Congress on broadcast indecency reflect, local
broadcasters can also be the best defense against indecent and profane
network program content.

However, our ability to discharge that statutory duty to program in the
interest of our local viewers is limited by certain Big Four network
practices. This tension between the law and the true realities of the
network affiliate relationship has been clearly outlined by the Network
Affiliated Stations Alliance in its petition filed before the FCC in
March of 2001.

Today, local affiliates have been virtually stripped of any right to
receive network programming in advance, and to evaluate its content. An
affiliate is now asked to pay compensation and even risks losing its
affiliation if it preempts more than a specified number of hours of Big
Four network programming. And as the result of unduly relaxed federal
oversight, the Big Four networks are in a position to effectively deny
local stations the ability to reject network programs that may simply be
unsuitable for their local market, or to substitute programs of greater
local interest or importance.

Lastly, certain Big Four networks now seek complete control over all of
their local affiliates digital spectrum by seeking to require those
stations to carry unspecified digital content in violation of the FCC\'s
option time rules. Unfortunately, unless the Commission, and we,
forthrightly reverse this trend, local stations will become mere passive
network conduits for national network programs, to the great detriment
of you, our viewers, and to our democracy.

The bottom line is this ‑ localism depends on a balanced
network-affiliate relationship. Localism will not survive unless the
proper parameters of that relationship are restored by prompt
affirmative action by this Commission.

Localism also depends on the continued viability and robustness of free
over‑the‑air TV. The simple truth is that Americans are increasingly
being made to pay for what they used to get for free 20 or 30 years ago.

(Applause.)

MR. PAPPAS: For example, in the 1960s, the National Football League
promised that if it were given Anti‑Trust Immunity, it would not go to
pay TV. Decades ago, the public was assured that collegiate sports would
primarily be on free over‑the‑air TV, and now you know much of the NFL
games and college sports are on pay TV.

The repeal of the Financial Interest In Syndication or FINSYN Rules has
effectively strangled independent TV production. The repeal of FINSYN,
which I confess I once supported, together with the Commission\'s
unwillingness to enforce its network affiliation rules for much of the
last decade and a half, have effectively assured that independently
produced programming is shut out of prime time or prime access periods.

The impact on consumers of all this is tangible. Not only are they now
required to pay for a lot of popular programming that they used to get
for free, but they are also deprived of the diversity in offerings that
a vibrant, independent production market once provided.

If the FCC is genuinely committed to preserving localism, I believe that
it must assure the right of local stations to truly control the
programming that goes over the air, and it must assure that independent
production doesn\'t disappear from TV. It must also assure the continued
viability of free over‑the‑air local broadcasting, which can\'t survive
in an advertising supported context if its critical mass of viewers
continues to dwindle because of benign neglect by Congress and the
Commission.

(Applause.)

MR. PAPPAS: Why does the viability of over‑the‑air local stations matter
to you? Because broadcasters have largely kept their promise to the
American people. And yes, to our government. Local over‑the‑air stations
have an unmatched record of community service and of broadcasting in the
public interest. And long ago, this Commission fostered the
establishment of more news stations nearly all UHF, to promote diversity
and competition, and it worked.

Our first TV station, KMPH in Visalia, Fresno went on the air in 1971.
It was the first independent station outside of the top 20 markets to
launch local news in 1979. Now we carry nearly 30 hours per week of live
local news.

Today most UHF stations that went on the air over the last four decades
are ‑‑

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: You\'re winding up, right?

MR. PAPPAS: I\'m winding up. As struggling independents, have successful
daily local newscasts and regular public affairs programming. And just
last week, we joined many others in our industry in announcing our
Election 2004 Voter Awareness Initiative, a public service campaign of
enhanced candidate and issue coverage in the 30 days preceding Election
Day 2004. And as part of this initiative, all of our stations that are
news producing will devote a minimum of five minutes per day to election
issues and candidate coverage within our newscasts.

Localism is the bedrock of broadcast regulation, and it\'s a tribute to
the genius of Congress that it designed a broadcast system to assure
that local stations in local communities, not network executives in
Hollywood or New York, would pick the programs for those communities.

The emphasis on localism and diversity is what made American
broadcasting the envy of the free world.

(Applause.)

MR. PAPPAS: Free over‑the‑air local TV has served communities across
America well. With your continued support, and yours, we\'ll continue to
provide free TV service that reflects the needs and interest of local
communities for a long time to come. Thank you.

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you, Mr. Pappas. We\'re fortunate Mr.
Pappas is also willing, he spends time in Washington working with us,
educating us, so thank you again. And now we\'ll hear from Mr. Connolly
about his concerns. Thank you.

MR. CONNOLLY: Thank you. I want to express my appreciation both to the
Commissioners and the Commission Staff for the honor of appearing here
tonight and discussing these important issues.

In seeking broad public participation in the discussion surrounding this
critical public policy issue, however belatedly, the Commission is
acknowledging the tremendous challenge faced in balancing corporate
hunger for deregulation against society\'s right to demand that the
public airwaves be used to serve and protect our local communities, our
artistic communities, and the free flow of information that underpins
our democracy.

There can be no doubt that localism and the public interest are
inextricably linked. In my role as President of the American Federation
of Television and Radio Artists, I\'ll attempt to adequately articulate
grave concerns of our nearly 80,000 members who work in the media as
broadcast journalists, actors, recording artists, and other
entertainers, as well.

We have a lot of concerns about the continued erosion of regulatory
framework in the broadcast industry. And I submit that the central
question to be answered in this entire process is whether market‑driven
forces alone can ever sufficiently protect the needs and interests of
local communities and individual artists, or whether an unregulated
marketplace will ultimately sacrifice the free exchange of ideas
representing diverse viewpoints on the altar of the corporate bottom
line.

AFTRA, along with Communications Workers of America, the Newspaper
Guild, NABET, the Technicians Union and the Writers Guild of America
East, representing some half‑million media workers, conducted a survey
of a broad cross‑section of print and broadcast news professionals, and
the results are quite informative.

Notwithstanding the seismic shift in their industry and the commensurate
threat to their very own livelihood, this group of workers and artists
overwhelmingly expressed concern not about their self interest, but
rather about the loss of integrity and diversity in news coverage as a
direct result of industry consolidation.

These workers surveyed overwhelmingly cited an increased emphasis on the
bottom line, a declining quality of community coverage, too little focus
on complex issues, and the ever‑growing influence of ratings, or
circulation in the newspaper business, on coverage and programming
decisions. We released the survey yesterday morning at the United States
Capitol.

When asked to predict the likely impact of further deregulation, 80
percent noted that it would be likely negative. Eighty-six percent cited
less diversity of viewpoints in local news coverage, 86 percent thought
control of news and programming decisions would be concentrated in even
fewer, too few corporate hands, 79 percent predicted growing corporate
bias in the news, and 78 percent feared a general and continuing decline
of news quality. Seventy‑five percent of these views in broadcast
workers surveyed have worked in the media field for more than 10 years,
and more than 50 percent of them have been affected directly by changes
in ownership due to consolidation within the past 5 years.

Commissioners might want to follow‑up our survey results with further
interviews with broadcast journalists and workers, but you should
consider making provision to protect the identity of those workers who
would come forward, because unfortunately, many of our members, both
those we interviewed and others, are already fearful of openly
disagreeing with the new deregulatory orthodoxy; such as, single news
rooms and duopoly situations, etc. They fear for their jobs.

Now one might conclude that these results evidence little more than fear
of change among entrenched union members and the unions themselves, but
I submit that there are a number of concrete decisions being made in
corporate boardrooms throughout this nation that give credence to all
the concerns that we\'ve raised. And I\'d like to express a few tonight.

One familiar to many of us is voice tracking in radio. It has been
demonstrated again and again that distant programming disguised as local
programming actually corrodes local service in many radio markets,
unfortunately.

(Applause.)

MR. CONNOLLY: Clear Channel Radio is the greatest example of this,
owning over 1,250 stations, close to 70 percent of Clear Channel\'s
radio broadcasts are voice-tracked from distant locations. Now if
you\'re voice-tracking 1,200 stations or close to it with distant
production, that is not local production.

In addition, this is now leaking over into the television business, with
experiments like Sinclair Television creating central-casting. The
television equivalent of voice-casting, where news and weather is being
broadcast from a single national facility.

I\'ll wrap‑up by just going to a final comment. Essentially, our unions
and our members, and, I think, the public is urging a full schedule of
Commission hearings like this one.

(Applause.)

MR. CONNOLLY: Hopefully, I don\'t mean to be churlish, but hopefully
with the Chairman present. And these hearings, we believe, should
examine every aspect of ownership regulation, localism, and diversity in
program and voices, touching every corner of our country, and listening
to the unprecedented millions of voices that have already been raised in
alarm at the fraying of our media democracy, which is so crucial to the
politics and integrity of our republic. Thank you.

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you very much, Mr. Connolly. I think you
struck a chord with the audience, and I want to also say thanks for the
survey data. Again, that\'s the kind of information that we need as we
move forward and decide where we go from here, so thank you again for
taking the time and for your presentation. And now I\'d like to
introduce Kathy Baker, and have her make her presentation.

MS. BAKER: Thank you very much. Good evening, Commissioners, ladies and
gentlemen. I\'m pleased to be here tonight speaking about how
broadcasters serve their local communities, and how my stations in
particular fulfill that role.

I\'ve been involved with local media in the Monterey market for over 24
years. I\'ve been the General Manager of KWAV for 16 years, and KIDD for
9 years, in addition to my duties as General Manager in Monterey. I\'m
the Executive Vice President for Buckley Radio Overseas Stations in
California, and I was the Chairman for the California Broadcasters
Association in 2003.

KWAV and KIDD are privately owned. Our parent company, Buckley Radio,
owns 10 stations in California and 9 stations on the East Coast. This in
many ways translates to answering to Main Street and not Wall Street.
The company\'s philosophy has always been to be involved in local
communities.

At my stations, we invest in enough personnel and resources to keep that
mission alive. And we believe that it\'s just smart business and what
the community looks for in their local radio stations. Being local
creates a relationship with the audience and, therefore, makes for a
successful business. It is not only the right way to be, but the smart
way to be.

I was born on the Monterey Peninsula, and you don\'t get any more local
than that. My concern for the community and our radio stations' audience
carries over to my personal philosophy in running a radio station that
the things that are important to the people that live and work in the
community.

When Buckley Radio purchased Radio Station KIDD‑AM, it had been off the
air, and the owners had gone bankrupt. In 1994, we launched a nostalgia
music format, offering a style of music in a formation not previously
available in the market. Over the last 9 years, KIDD has offered an
outlet for local musicians to showcase their music. We have a program
which runs every week called \"Colony Arts,\" which features a local
musician, music teacher, or music program.

We also have a show called \"Central Coast Swing,\" which is dedicated
to promoting local musicians, their venues, and their recordings. We
have our own local band called \"The Magic 63 All‑Star Band,\" which is
made up of all local musicians.

Throughout the week we will highlight and give air play to local acts,
and put on our own summer music festival each year with local musicians.
Our annual summer music festival is free to the public.

Both KWAV and KIDD feature locally generated newscasts along with CNN
and NBC National News, public affairs programming, public service
announcements, in addition to our sponsored community events and our
music formats. We are heavily involved in our local community, working
side by side with non‑ profits, governmental agencies, city governments,
and government officials to get their message out over the airwaves.

The following are just a few of the organizations we are involved in ‑
Children\'s Miracle Network. Over the last two years, KWAV and KIDD have
been responsible for raising over \$160,000 for a local non‑profit
Children\'s Miracle Network. But more importantly, letting numerous
local organizations get out their message in over 80 hours of live
programming. The entire KWAV and KIDD staffs are involved in these kind
of efforts.

There\'s an organization, Jazz Masters. Jazz Masters is a music and
education program. It\'s dedicated towards teaching music to the youth
in our area. Working closely with Director Bruce Foreman, we\'re able to
get the word out about his events and workshops in our area.

Bruce is a frequent live in‑studio guest on our stations, and we have
assisted him in many of his fundraising efforts, including recent
coverage of his trip across the United States called, \"Route 66
Challenge.\" Bruce and his band raised money for Jazz Masters by
traveling the original Route 66 and played music along the way to raise
funds. We covered his travels live and on our website over a two‑week
period of time.

(Applause.)

MS. BAKER: Another sample of another event we\'re involved in is the
City of Monterey\'s annual Fourth of July celebration. We work
hand‑in‑hand with the city to put on a safe, entertaining Fourth of
July. We run public safety tips, as well as recorded and live
announcements about the event. We also provide a 20-minute musical
synchronized sky concert for the fireworks show for the city. Our on-air
staff participate in the day and evening activities.

Meals on Wheels, Alliance on Aging, SPCA, City of Seaside, City of
Salinas, Monterey Public Library ‑ I could go on, and on, and on. These
are organizations that we work with, and also we\'re involved in all the
chamber of commerces, or most of them, to help in our outreach program
in the communities to target the needs and interests of our listening
audience. We have an active participation of staff members volunteering
their time as an announcer for all kinds of events, and also on the
site.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak here tonight. I
understand the Commission\'s need to reach out into the local
communities and get the public\'s feedback on the job we are doing. I
can proudly say I feel we are doing a great job. This is the place I
have chosen as my home, and running a business that also supports the
local community is the bonus. I\'m happy to answer any questions. Thank
you very much.

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you very much, Ms. Baker, for telling us a
lot about what you do here in the local community. We appreciate that.
And now we\'ll turn to Davey D, Disc Jockey.

(Applause.)

DAVEY D: Just for people who don\'t know, I\'ve been in radio for close
to 15 years, spent 11 of them at probably one of the most influential
radio stations in the country, which was KMAO, which was a Clear Channel
affiliate. With that being said, a few things that we need to keep in
mind.

Radio, generally speaking, is very apt at doing what we call "smoke and
mirrors" in the business. That means that we present an image and make
it sound good, we\'re really good at selling things, crunching numbers,
and painting this picture that really achieves our end. And the thing
that we depend upon, collectively speaking, is the fact that the average
person doesn\'t really know what goes on behind the scenes, the types of
manipulation that takes place, all the types of games that are played to
really paint this picture.

That being said, what happens is, is that this is boosted by the fact
that you'll have very few DJs like myself who are in the professional
level, who will speak out. Now I think when I spoke in Seattle, I showed
my contract which said you can\'t speak about inner‑workings of your
station. I had to give up my severance package so I could continue to
speak about these sorts of things. So you\'re not going to find your
popular DJ coming to a hearing like this and saying look, these are the
things that are going on, and these are the reasons why they need to be
corrected. That usually means that the spokespeople are going to be the
managers or the owners, who are going to paint the rosy picture, which
you often have to question is it motivated, especially this whole
question about localism, is it motivated by an economic agenda, or is it
really a sincere, genuine concern about what the local community needs,
even if they, as owners, disagree with that. And that\'s where the real
question comes in. So we have to keep that in mind.

The other thing that happens is that we forget when we do all this
"smoke and mirrors," that all these changes that we\'re talking about,
even if you can find radio stations that show these examples, they\'re
not institutionalized. So yes, we can point all across the country and
say this DJ at this station, he showed all the public love for us. Or
that radio station, they did a nice thing ‑ they did a concert and all
that, but is it institutionalized? What happens if that local DJ, who\'s
doing the favor for y'all, doesn\'t like you? What happens if the radio
station that owns 12 in the market decides that they don\'t feel your
organization, because you are organizing and doing all this activist
work to result in these type of hearings, you might not be on the
airwaves, and you won\'t have access to the public. So you have to have
these things institutionalized. It just can\'t be nice guys doing you a
favor. That's a problem.

(Applause.)

DAVEY D: The other thing that you have to keep in mind, a lot of these
cosmetic changes to me are designed to placate people in the halls of
power. So in other words, we can paint the picture and say we got the
ratings, we got all these things that we\'re doing, but the problem
still stands. I\'ve been to a lot of hearings over the past couple of
years. Every time, whether it\'s in Seattle, San Francisco, here, you
name it, the halls are always packed, standing room only. And a lot of
people are just really upset, so even if you can present the nice
picture, it doesn\'t eliminate the problem which is evident by you being
here, so we have to keep that in mind.

Finally, a couple of other things I would say is that, oftentimes, radio
plays this "winner-take- all" mentality. I think the woman down at the
end -- I forgot your name ‑ mentioned the thing about significant
audience. Okay. Let\'s say 51 percent of the audience agrees with what
the stations want. They want more consolidation and all these different
things. What about the other 49? Are they just out of luck? Do they have
any recourse? Do their issues no longer matter? We\'re talking about a
situation where we live in a country where we\'re supposed to be able to
vigorously debate the issues, vigorously flush these things out and
really have an exchange.

If it\'s just a situation where "winner- take-all," and then everybody
else we just try to act like they don\'t exist, and paint this picture
like they never even protested, or brought these issues up, we\'re still
going to have the problem.

(Applause.)

DAVEY D: I\'ll give you an example. In Detroit, in Chicago, in
Cleveland, in Kansas City, in New York, you had community organizations,
significant numbers that have launched boycotts against radio stations.
There was the \"Turn Off The Radio\" campaign, there was the \"Black Out
Friday\" in Detroit, there was the Chicago situation ‑ all these things
where you were just looking around and seeing everywhere you go people
having the same problems, especially in the urban realm, but none of the
radio stations talked about it. You didn\'t see it on the local news
coverage. You didn\'t see any of these things, so then when you come to
a hearing like this and start to mention it, people go well, I never
heard this before, which goes back to my first point; that if you can
cultivate a learned behavior, condition people just to accept what you
continuously feed them, even if it\'s mediocre, they don\'t know until
you start to point out all the things that have been omitted.

You know, for example, Clear Channel in San Francisco after 9/11 put up
a dozen posters on all their billboards and had all these public affairs
advertisements going on about give to the Clear Channel Fund. Be
patriotic. It was only when somebody on the inside like me pointed out
and said hey, did you notice that they didn\'t tell you about one voter
registration campaign, didn\'t interview one candidate on any of the
stations, didn\'t do any sort of election coverage or encouragement to a
community that where you have 70 percent of the people not voting came
the March 7th primary after 9/11. And people are looking around and
going yeah, you know what -- they didn\'t do that. And so this goes back
to the seriousness of this problem.

This is not a thing of trying to make ourselves look good if we\'re
media owners or if we\'re in the media. This is very serious business
for a lot of people, very serious business. I feel even trapped because
I only have five minutes to explain so much, where there are a whole lot
of people who have protested, who have done studies, who have gone back
and forth in sending delegations to the stations, and doing all types of
things to bring out this type of awareness, and they\'re not even here
to explain themselves, and talk about the organizing and the challenges
that they faced, and how every single time they were rebuffed.

If you listen to the radio stations in San Francisco, some of the key
things that people are complaining about, local artists not getting
played. That was the basis for all the boycotts in the cities I
mentioned. Some of the community access that a lot of key organizations,
other than one or two that got on the airwaves had, they didn\'t have
access. So now you see some of these cosmetic changes. But what they
don\'t tell you is that it didn\'t come after all these protests and
everything. It only came when another radio station came into town and
said we\'ll fill the void. Then, you can listen to all the local groups,
then you can hear all the public service announcements, then that same
radio station that was turning away dozens of people at a time and
ignoring all these important issues, suddenly they want to be your best
friend, and we\'re supposed to buy into it and say yes, sign on the
check and give them whatever they want.

This has got to stop. It goes beyond just a few sound bites at a
hearing. It goes beyond just a few station owners touting what they can
do, giving anecdotal evidence, and then making everybody think that
that\'s the way it is all across the country. There\'s serious prices
that you pay if you\'re on the inside of these stations and you speak
out against it. You won\'t find anybody who\'s working for any of these
big major corporations speaking out. At all the hearings we\'ve been at,
have you seen any of them? I mean, you\'ve been at these things, you all
see it ‑ because you get blackballed in the industry, where it\'s
increasingly getting smaller, and the competition is less and less. So
everybody keeps their mouth shut, and then we have this illusion that
everything is A‑okay.

There\'s so much more I could add. We don\'t have a whole lot of time.
I\'ll answer questions. I will say one thing, that there was a study
that was done, and I\'ll just conclude with this, because this was
something that wasn\'t covered locally by the TV stations or the radio
stations.

You had a group of people, mostly twenty‑ something year olds, those
type of people who you say are apathetic, the hip‑hop audience that
doesn\'t do anything except rap and wear fat gold chains, they put
together a study after listening and monitoring the local radio stations
in their community for a couple of months, came up with a set of
recommendations, conclusions, talked about it, put it in the paper,
passed it out to everybody. Not only did it not get covered on the local
media, but then when these changes that they recommended started to
come, the very people who organized were not part of the process when it
came time to seating people at the table; which means that there was a
punitive action against those who organized. And so people who are
getting air play and access now, they\'re the ones that didn\'t even
organize in the first place, which is a shame, so that you still have
the same problem in those very key issues not being addressed. Thanks a
lot.

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you very much, Davey D, for taking the
time and having the courage to come here. You breezed through the clock
and I didn\'t even know it because I was paying such close attention.
And I want to thank you again for all your information and what you
said. And let\'s keep moving, so we can get to the open mic. At this
time, I\'d like to introduce Ms. Saldivar.

MS. SALDIVAR: Yes, after this great speech, I would like to talk about
the situation of the Latino population in this country, and how the
media doesn\'t represent us how we are and how we don\'t have access,
and what we should have.

(Speaking Spanish)

MS. SALDIVAR: I wish to express my gratitude to the Commission for
allowing myself and other committee members to submit testimony on the
important issue of industry deregulation. My name is Delia Saldivar.
I\'m a Mexican immigrant and resident of Monterey County, California.
I\'m the Manager of KHDC‑FM, a Latino-controlled public radio station in
Salinas, and part of Radio Bilingue, Inc., a statewide network of five
full-power FM stations serving California. We\'re affiliated in
California in South Salinas, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

We broadcast 24 hours a day and 7 days a week with music and
informational programming to benefit our community. We broadcast in
Spanish, Mixteco, Trici (phonetic), Hawaiian, Filipino, Latino and also
some English. Some languages are native languages for people who come
from other countries to the United States. We are a community‑based
station and guided by our mission to provide information and access to
our community through the radio airwaves.

There is a growing need by our diverse community for ethnic controlled
media in California and across the United States. Through my comments, I
would like to focus on how the Latino community in California and
nationwide can use media outlets to address issues such as health in a
linguistically and culturally competent way.

Currently, one‑third, 32 percent, of California\'s population is Latino.
Over two‑thirds, 70 percent of this population is of Mexican descent,
with 45 percent being foreign-born. The Latino population continues to
be one of the fastest growing in our state. California\'s Hispanic
origin population is expected to double between 1995 and 2025, and
accounts for one‑third of the nation\'s total Hispanic population. By
2025, Hispanics are projected to be the largest race or ethnic group in
California, comprising 43 percent of the population.

According to the 2000 census, some California counties are already a
majority Latino as in Tulare and Imperial counties. The majority of this
population prefers to communicate in Spanish, and refers to Spanish as
their language, primary language, and their language of comfort.
However, the number of radio outlets, commercial and non-commercials,
that are owned or controlled by Mexican‑Americans in California is zero,
except for radio stations.

The radio airwaves should be used to benefit the public and to address
pressing issues. One of these issues is health. The level of health
disparities in the Latino community is shocking. Currently, 1.2 million
Latinos of Mexican ancestry in the United States have been diagnosed
with diabetes. Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death among
Latinos in California and nationwide.

A lot stations will broadcast programs and messages to inform our
Spanish speaking listeners about ways to get health care for themselves
and their children. We use the airwaves as an informational tool and in
this manner we provide the public service that all media outlets should
provide. The need for reliable information from local services continues
to grow as the demographics of this state and the nation shifts.

For the majority of Latinos, English is not our language of preference.
So naturally, a Spanish language programming better serves our
community. Media is turning into a giant money machine, instead of the
people\'s voice. As the need for reliable information grows, so has the
consolidation of the media outlets. This consolidation includes
Latino‑Spanish language services, such as the purchase of Hispanic Radio
by Univision. The Spanish language corporate media offers less
information to our communities, less cultural programming, and virtually
no local information programming. The corporate Spanish radio industry
is increasing a broadcast of its own version of "shock radio", and they
broadcast music that glamorizes drugs and violence to increase their
ratings.

Unfortunately, in many markets, especially urban California markets,
there is no Spanish language public radio service to provide an
intelligent alternative for listeners. Simply stated, due to the
weakened regulation in the industry, a large segment of the population
is being excluded from effective radio service. The current stakeholders
who are media conglomerated do not represent or produce programming to
address the needs of the growing majority of California and Latinos
across the nation.

We urge the FCC to look closely at the actual demographics of our state
and our nation, and investigate whether or not the current situation
provides equal access to linguistic or cultural minorities. After all,
aren\'t these airwaves meant to serve the public? We support the FCC\'s
efforts and policies for increasing local services in low power radio.
Thank you for considering my comments.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you, Ms. Saldivar, for your commitment to
the Hispanic community, and also for sharing with us all the information
about what\'s going on. We really appreciate it. And now I\'d like to
turn to Mr. Robins, who\'s Emergency Services Manager in Monterey
County. Mr. Robins.

MR. ROBINS: Thank you very much, and I thank the Commission for inviting
me here to speak tonight. I\'m going to talk respective of Emergency
Services Management. That\'s something I\'ve dealt with in Monterey
County for the last 13 years. That means that we collectively, the
media, the Sheriff, the Mayors who were here earlier, and many of the
audience have dealt with a variety of major emergencies, several
disasters, and a host of minor emergencies in which we\'ve all played a
key partnership role.

Monterey County is not unique in some respects, but in some it is. Delia
just addressed one of my major concerns that I\'ll touch on later. We
have a wide and large growing population. We have varied demographics.
We have minority needs that must be addressed, and they must be
addressed in Emergency Services Management context. I can neglect no
element of my community. Everybody is important, and I must reach out to
everyone.

To do this, Monterey County, like other

counties in the state, imports standardized emergency

management systems. This is mandated by state. It

grew out of the Oakland fires of some years ago. We

are the lead agency in the operation arena. It is

composed of 38 agencies, cities, volunteer agencies,

districts, what have you. We handle an emergency

situation, originate and coordinate all public

information, those releases that go out to our media.

In a normal situation day‑to‑day, I

promulgate them usually myself, or one of my staff

promulgates them, the Office of Emergency Services.

We put a high premium, if you will, on public

information. It is vitally essential to our mission.

Our goal is accurate, timely promulgation of

information to maximize coverage. Our public

information officers are formally trained. This has

resulted in close coordination with the media

frequently on name‑to‑name basis. We understand the

mutual needs of both sides of the house. It is

cooperative.

We know what their requirements are. They

know what our requirements are. We use a process

called the \"Emergency Bulletin.\" It\'s promulgated to

the media and all county entities ‑ fire, law,

whatever have you, through fax, through e-mail, and

through our website. That\'s our means of getting the

information out.

During an actual emergency, we use the

emergency alert system. Yes, Monterey County, I\'m the

guy that interrupts your favorite program, be it game

show or soap opera with that ticker tape that comes

across. I\'m the guy who does that. I use that only

in extreme emergencies.

Responsiveness, to me, equates to

localism, localism in putting out information for

disaster information, as well as emergency

preparedness. Now if I can quote Mayor Albert, paraphrase Mayor Albert,
our relationship with the media here in Monterey County is strong,
viable, and mutually supportive. We rely on our local media as part of
the overall team and outreach arm, if you will, of OES, but there is a
caveat.

One thing that we are finding, I think

that my colleagues in the media have addressed this,

is that more and more of our local stations are

becoming what we call automated. If I have got to get

to that audience at 10:30 at night, or 2:00 in the

morning which I frequently have done, I\'m probably not

going to get there, because they\'re controlled from

someplace else, and it\'s either taped or automated.

Okay. Not in all cases, but more and more of that

percentage is going up.

Now OES has some needs. My needs are very

simple. First of all, we need from the media

notification of changes. This is what happened to me

at the Salinas Air Show last year, and the local

people will probably appreciate this. I have one

station which is my LP‑1, my primary station for the

emergency alert system. I walked up to that station\'s

booth at the Salinas Air Show, after the previous week

of putting out the information on that station\'s

frequency. There before me were bumper stickers which

had changed their frequency.

I felt a little stupid, but there\'s no

mechanism -- correction -- infrastructure in place to keep the local
emergency services management infrastructure informed of changes within
the media. Call Station change, licensee change, points of contact
changes, even fax changes ‑ there\'s no way of letting us know. We need
more interface with the media, and again this is localism, on PSAs. One
of my roles is to promulgate information on preparedness for
emergencies, again from terrorism to natural events and back again. I
need to get more interface and get my message out on preparedness.

I also need to work my, or achieve a greater ability to deal with my
ethnic minorities. And the reason for that is, I don\'t have any Spanish
speakers in my organization, but I know that my colleagues in the media
have found a way of taking my words, quickly translating them and
putting them out.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hire one.

MR. ROBINS: I\'ll take you as a volunteer.

Let me summarize by saying from our standpoint, and

I\'ll stress the word \"local.\" We need to retain

strong local involvement between OES and the media.

We need to retain strong local mutual support, and we

need to retain strong local responsiveness. The key

word is \"responsiveness.\" This equates to

professional partnerships to ensure that the public is

informed during any emergency situation. Public

service is paramount to OES. I thank you very much

for having me here tonight.

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you very much, Mr. Robins, for the work
that you do every day, and for sharing with us a lot of information that
frankly we just didn\'t have before, so I really appreciate your
presentation. And last, but certainly not least, Mr. Trumbly, who\'s
President of Community Broadcasters Association.

MR. TRUMBLY: Thank you, Commissioner,

and thank you, FCC Staff, for putting this together,

and Davey D for your great presentation. I think what

you said was very important.

We are a group of low power TV stations,

the Community Broadcasters Association, lower power

and Class‑A stations. There are over 2,600 of us

stations around the country. We\'re small stations, 97

percent of us are not on cable, and we\'re typically

locally owned and operated. We have about twice as

many low power and Class‑A stations as there are full

power stations.

These stations are received over-the-air,

just like full power stations on your television set.

The only difference is the amount of power that we\'re

allowed by the Commission. Our Class‑A stations are

required to broadcast three hours a week of locally

produced programming, and we\'re the only service to

have this requirement.

There are low power and Class‑A stations

all across the country in every market, from New York

City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, to Hopkinsville,

Kentucky, Kerville, Texas, and Wynache, Washington.

The Univision and Telemundo affiliates in Washington,

D.C. are Class‑A television stations. These 2,600

plus stations represent the broadest spectrum of

programming, and the greatest diversity of ownership

of any media. There are more individually minority

owned and operated LPTV and Class‑A stations than all

the other media combined.

Just east of here in Fresno, Cocola

Broadcasting\'s KJEO‑LP Channel 32 is the only station

in the area doing local high school football for the

Central Valley. They also do AAA Baseball for the

Fresno Grizzlies, and Fresno City College basketball

games. Their new business showcase features six new

businesses in Fresno per show, at no charge to these

businesses. Many of the owners have said that without

being on television, their businesses may not have

made it.

My wife and I operated Class‑A stations in

San Francisco and San Jose for over 10 years. We\'ve

had independent Spanish programming. Much of that we

produced ourselves with daily newscasts from San

Francisco\'s Fisherman\'s Wharf. We\'ve also produced

San Francisco 49er pre‑season football in Spanish,

explaining the game in Spanish. Football means

something different in Spanish. We\'ve also produced

professional soccer in Spanish. We\'ve also given

local air time to, or free air time to local and regional political
candidates. And we have one hour a night of local news in Korean. And we
have gotten involved with the local music community. We produced video
preview for many years, one hour a night, local music videos, call‑in
interaction within the community.

Full power stations service the DMA. They

have a broader audience. Our stations focus on the

local community. We\'re much more specific in our

viewers. Mary Silver in Kerville, Texas, with KVHC‑LP

is an example of localism. They\'re 70 miles outside

of San Antonio, and they\'re surrounded by hills with

very little off‑air reception. They serve a community

of about 25,000 people. They work with the local

school system to produce \"Club Ed,\" a 30‑minute

educational program. They also telecast local

high school football games.

Mary told me of a story of an elderly lady

who was physically unable to attend the high school

football games because she could not climb the steps

to get into the stadium. She called the station in

tears after seeing her son for the first time playing

his trumpet in the high school band during the game.

This is just one of ten locally produced shows each

week, including a nightly half‑hour newscast for

Kerville, Texas. And they are the only local

emergency outlet in the community.

Mary Silver is committed to her community,

so committed that she has refinanced her house twice

in order to build the station and to produce local

programming, because the community needs the local

attention from her local station.

Vernon Watson in Pensacola, Florida is

another example of a person committed to localism.

Vernon is Vice President of the Community Broadcasters

Association, the CBA. He\'s an African American. He\'s

employed full time with the U.S. Navy, but on top of

his full time job, Vernon owns and operates WBQP‑CA,

that\'s CA for Class‑A, Channel 12. He does

significant local programming for the African American

community in Pensacola.

Lou Zenoni is another example. He\'s the

only television station in Trenton, New Jersey\'s state

capital, where he does news. Lou looked at the state

capital, that it should have a TV station, and he

saw the need for news where there was a significant

need. Lou has also had to make personal financial

sacrifices to building WZBM.

WZBM was the first station to broadcast a

Missing Child Report of 7‑year old Megan Cantor.

Megan was abducted and murdered by a pedophile

neighbor, and Megan, you might recognize the name from

Megan\'s Law.

When we talk about localism and what is

local, the best definition is an example. I believe

these stations and these people provide a very fine

definition. And very quickly, there are five things

that can help us produce more localism.

Number one, encourage Class‑A. A kind

word from the Commission, from the top on what we\'re

doing is very important. Number two, as we go to DTV,

provide a transition method that we can have a second

channel and the time and the effort to do this. And

number three is, our stations need to move to Class‑A.

They need an opportunity to do that. And number four,

don\'t let anyone tell you that low power stations are

causing problems with DTV. We\'re secondary, Class‑A

and low powers. We\'re not going to delay any

transition. And finally, local programming ‑ we need

to get the definition of local so that when we do

local interviews at the state capitol, that this could

be a local program for our stations.

Thank you very much. In conclusion, LP

TVs and Class‑A stations, they\'ve done a great job

over the years. Our goal, our only success, our heart

and soul is local. So, Commissioners, thank you so

much. I want to work with the staff as much as I can.

Thank you.

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you, Mr.

Trumbly. And I think you gave us a good example of

what can be done if you\'re committed. And he was in

last week at the FCC meeting with many of us about

what\'s going on, and we\'ve been paying close

attention. So thank you again for coming here

tonight. And now we\'d like to turn to Commissioner

Copps to see if he has any questions for the panel.

COMMISSIONER COPPS: No, I think I\'ll

forego any questions so we can get to the public mic.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER COPPS: I just would like to thank our panelists tonight for
I think some of the best and most eloquent statements that we have heard
anywhere. I think you have really . . .

(Applause.)

. . . laid out some of the big policy problems, and also some of the
nuts and bolts problems that we need to address, and we thank you for
that. The message I\'m hearing from most of you is that the public
interest is in trouble, and I think we need an affirmative action
program for the public interest based on what I\'ve heard.

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Commissioner

Adelstein.

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: I do want to get

to the public comments as soon as possible, but I just

have to observe that I heard a consistent theme here

about localism, and the need for local ownership

really, for things to be down, down low. We heard about networks trying
to crush local affiliates. We heard about workers getting squeezed and
crushed. We heard about good things that can happen with small

broadcasters who take the cities and the communities\'

interest into their own hands and put local artists

on. You hear what happens when somebody tries to

speak up and tries to take a stand against it, and

gets knocked down and crushed themselves. We hear how

the Hispanic communities take it into their own hands

to deal with their own needs, and doesn\'t always get

served as well as they need to by the larger

community.

Emergency broadcasting, which is the most

important basic function of broadcasters, if there is

any public interest obligation, gets ignored and

disrespected. And community broadcasters when they\'re

small and they\'re community‑based, do the best they

can to serve their local communities. It\'s all about

local ownership and trying to break it down, having

diversity, having a lot of owners. It\'s a consistent

theme here.

There\'s just one thing I want to ask. And, Davey, I know there\'s
something on your mind that you didn\'t get a chance to say about how do
you break out of that cycle? I know there\'s something more you had to
tell us, and I want to hear it.

DAVEY D: The thing with local ownership in contrast to the consolidation
that has taken place,

this is the things that they don\'t talk, that goes on

behind the scenes. You take, you get people that now start to use their
resources to literally bully everybody from advertisers, to community
organizations, to local artists.

Case in point ‑ up in San Francisco, you

now have another radio station that gives competition

to the dominant station that\'s owned by Clear Channel.

Now when I talk to the artists, and you heard this in

Seattle at the hearing, what has happened is that

these artists are afraid to even go do interviews on

the new station because they\'ve been threatened with

being boycotted from the other 1,200 stations and the

concert venues, and all the other resources that are

held by Clear Channel stations. So this is what

happens.

So, now you have people who have an

opportunity to maybe expand their business in their

reach who are afraid to do so. And the question that

I ask these artists, I go well, look ‑ they\'re telling

you to be committed and loyal to this one outlet under

the guise of doing good business. But I asked them ‑

I said have they made a promise not to play any artist

from Los Angeles, or any artist from another part of

the country? No, they haven\'t, so they want you not

to go anywhere else, but they play artists from all

around, and then are very limited and very selective

about who they put on.

That also translates over to community

groups, so God help you if you speak out. Like I

said, you\'ve got Media Alliance, you\'ve got Youth

Media Council ‑ I can go on and on about the list of

people who are very key in organizing and bringing

awareness about the issue of media consolidation and

the importance of local access.

Now that there\'s competition and now that

we have this concern, and media is responding by

saying we\'re going to do local coverage, ask Media

Alliance ‑ say when is the last time you all been on

any radio station in the Bay, or any TV station.

When is the last time that happened? It hasn\'t

happened. Ask any of the artists who put together

that report if they\'ve been on any TV station or

even the radio station now that they play a lot of

local groups.

Now keep in mind some of these people who

were part of this have gotten national attention and

acclaim for their craft.

One guy, he was featured on the front

cover of the *Oakland Post*. He was headlining or

touring Europe for six weeks, and he was voted by

Pepsi to be one of their top artists, but he ain't

played on the radio station because he was one of the

few to speak out. And it\'s important to underscore

that, because we heard the same thing in Seattle.

They pointed out ‑ they said since this consolidation,

you don\'t have the Nirvanas and the Pearl Jams, and

all these local groups just blowing up.

And you heard the same thing in Detroit,

and all these other places. And it\'s always the same

thing. It\'s not just the thing of sour grapes. It\'s

really a systemic problem that has to be changed. And

right now, these big companies, they smile, they paint

the picture, and then they\'re bullying people behind

the scenes. And really it\'s just insidious what goes

on.

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Thank you, Davey.

DAVEY D: The last thing I just want to

point out too, and I\'ll leave it at that because I\'ve

got to bounce. If you start to look, at least in the

urban reign of radio stations, there may be three or

four stations in the entire country that have public

affair shows that come on at any decent hour. Most of

them come on at five in the morning, six in the

morning on a Sunday. KMEL, for example, had Jesse

Jackson. We have Jesse Jackson advertising, but he\'s

on Sunday mornings at 5 a.m. Go around, check the

websites, check the community affairs stations. This

might be one of the only markets where you have a

prime time public affairs show, but around the

country, it\'s 6 and 7 in the morning, which means that

you don\'t have that sincere commitment to public

discourse, because who\'s up on a Sunday morning at 6.

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Those of us with

very small children, but other than that, not many

people. I want to just quickly thank all of our

panelists. As I said, we are going to stay for and expand the time frame
and make sure that we hear from as many of you as possible. I hope you
learned as much by letting these folks talk as we did. There\'s a lot
that we need to take back to D.C. It was very, very helpful, so thank
you for your patience. We will take a very quick like eight to ten
minute break, and then we will be back here. All right? Can we at least
go to the bathroom? All right. Like three to four minute break. Okay?
And then we\'ll be back. Thank you.

(Brief Recess Taken.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: OK, let's go ahead and start the open mic
presentation. You guys have been patient enough. My colleague,
Commissioner Adelstein, said he may be a few minutes late, but I don\'t
want to hold anyone up. I want to remind the audience that anyone
needing Spanish translation of tonight\'s proceedings may get a headset
in the lobby for that purpose. You can get simultaneous translation. And
at this point, what I would like to do is go ahead and introduce Belva
Davis, who will handle the next part of this proceeding as we listen to
all of you. (Speaking to audience member) No, first I'm supposed to go .
. . yeah, I did that. The

Spanish Interpreter is right there.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: But say what you said.

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: I\'m sorry. It\'s

2 a.m. ‑ go ahead. Please go ahead and translate for

me about the availability of headsets. I apologize.

(Spanish translation.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Okay. Thank you

very much. I\'d now like to turn the proceeding -- now, can I turn over
the proceeding over to Ms. Davis? I'd like to turn the proceeding over
to Ms. Davis who\'s going to host the open mic portion, and we\'re
looking forward to hearing from all of you. Thank you for your patience.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you, Commissioner

Abernathy. We finally get to the star moment. Good

evening, everybody, and welcome once again. I\'m Belva

Davis, as you know, and I have the privilege of

appearing weekly at KQED on their program "This Week in Northern
California." I have been asked to moderate this public participation
segment of these hearings. I\'m honored to do it.

During this segment, we will hear from you

directly about how broadcasters serve you. The FCC

has devoted substantial time to the open mic session

because your views are critically important to this

whole debate.

The format and procedures for the open mic

session tonight are as follows, and I will read them

so that we can get through it. Upon entering the

hearing room, everyone who wished to speak should have

drawn an orange card with a group number on it. If

you did not do so, and you wish to speak, please speak

to the FCC staff at the table just outside the hearing

door. They will assist you.

There are 10 orange cards associated with

each group number. For example, there are 10 orange

cards for Group 25 printed on them. Throughout the

remainder of the hearing, group numbers will be chosen

at random, and displayed on the screens here in the

front of the hearing room. When your group number is

displayed, just move to the check‑in area at the table

in the lobby, just outside the hearing room. This is

where the public information packets were made

available to you before the hearing.

For example, when Group number 25 is

displayed on the screen, the ten people holding those

cards should proceed to the check‑in table in the

common area just outside of this room. An FCC staff

member will then direct you to a microphone at the

appropriate time, and we will alternate between the

two mics: mic one and mic two. That\'s to ensure that

there is minimum delay and to maximize the number of

people, which is what this is all about.

In order to hear from as many people as possible we ask all speakers to
limit their remarks to no more than two minutes. We will use the time
machine, as you know, to keep track of time in order to maximize the
number of people who will have the opportunity to speak. Surely, there
may be someone in line that has not said what you had planned to say.

We greatly appreciate your cooperation. As a reminder, a yellow light
will be displayed when a speaker has one minute remaining. That\'s to
give you time to gather your thoughts and to have a great

close. A red light will be displayed when a speaker\'s

time has expired, and each speaker should then

conclude their remarks and leave the microphone. We

would remind the speakers who continue after the red

light has been displayed that their time has elapsed,

and we will move on.

Again, the goal behind the time limit is

to hear from as many people as possible. I know I can

count on each of you to help make this segment run as

smoothly as possible, because the whole idea is to

hear as many ideas and suggestions as possible.

I should note, however, that this open mic

session is only one of the ways that you can share

your views with the FCC. You can send comments

directly to the Localism Task Force by e-mail or

regular mail. Therefore, the Localism Task Force

invites those who do not have an opportunity to speak

or wish to provide more details to their comments, to

submit them in writing following the instructions on

the Localism Task Force website, WWW.FCC.gov/localism.

I know that the Commission is anxious to

hear from you, so I\'m going to stop right now and ask

the first speaker with the magic numbers if they would

come up to the podiums, one at mic one, and one at mic two. And let me
remind you that your time that you

use to associate yourself with organizations is being

deducted from your two minutes, so you might keep that

in mind as you go. Allright. We will start with mic

one.

MR. POLASKI: Thank you. Art Polaski from

the California Labor Federation representing some two

million workers in the State of California, many from

Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland, San Francisco, Fresno

unable to speak to you tonight, and we ask you to

expand these hearings so they too can share their

concerns to you.

(Applause.)

I understand that Commissioner Copps

indicated earlier a concern about the question about

whether or not we allow the market forces to dictate

how local programming happens. We\'re from California.

Welcome to California, where the FERC, your fellow

commission, said let\'s let the market forces allow

energy prices to dictate. And what happened in

California was the bankruptcy of this state, was the

bankruptcy of our budget and our homes, and many of

our businesses. Don\'t allow this to happen again. We

must regulate local accountability.

I want to give you one expression of

concern, and that is the issue of health care. We have on the ballot
Prop 72 this November, which is

revolutionary in a sense. It will be the first time

voters get a chance to vote for health care for working families. But
corporations will invest some 15 and 20 million dollars in
advertisements to dissuade voters from supporting this important health
care legislation. They will, in fact, lie to voters. We know what
they\'ll say. They\'ll lie to voters about this, and there\'s nothing
that we can do to match their money contributions to advertising on
broadcasting, because we won\'t be able to keep up. And there won\'t be
any regulation of the misinformation they give to voters, but yet we\'ll
ask voters to try to make a sensible choice on this. And it will be
impossible unless we have some regulation of information to voters
through local broadcasting. And we ask you to be sure that we\'re
allowed to do that. Thank you very much.

MS. DAVIS: Microphone number two.

MS. PARENTI: Good evening. My name is

Orionna Parenti. I wish to address the consolidation

of media as the co‑opting of democracy by corporate

interests. Democracy is what corporations want people

to believe it is. They define it for us in the news.

For‑profit interests want us to believe that freedom

is the ability to consume as we choose. News stories

are measured on the scale of corporate profit, and do

not serve the people\'s interest.

The news consistently reports positive for

corporations as positives for the people. This

corrupting of perspectives to serve corporate rather

than community interests characterizes the examples

that I will now give.

First, the jobs reported are paying an

increasingly lower living wage than in the past. This

trend is not reported. Low wage temporary jobs, which

deny benefits, may be good for corporations, but they

are not good for people or for families. This is not

reported when job rates are painted rosy.

Next, we commonly hear that there are not

enough teachers. Why do we not hear then that

corporations are paying less and less of the federal

tax burden from which schools are largely funded?

Why do we not hear that the families who are working

harder for less are contributing a greater and greater

proportion of the federal tax burden, yet receiving

fewer and fewer public services? Where is that story?

There are many other stories that I would

like to share, and I have submitted this in writing.

I\'d like to conclude by saying that the FCC right now

is in a dangerous position of being identified as a

captured organization. Thank you very much.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you. We appreciate it.

Can I please ask the speakers if they would identify

the community where they\'re from, as well as their

names. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: My name is Tyler Johnson,

and I\'m from Pacific Grove. And I\'d like to start

with a bit of a public confession. I\'ve just learned

that the FCC only has five members. Is that true?

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Yes.

MR. JOHNSON: I know there\'s been a lot of

critique tonight about large media outlets, and I\'m

just wondering about a critique of a system that tries

to vote on behalf of millions of people in this

country that only has five members. I mean, if we\'re

consistently saying the opposite of what the FCC is

voting for, what\'s the possibility of restructuring,

for example not just our media outlets, but the FCC

itself? That\'s a question.

MS. DAVIS: But your time is going. Would

you finish your time, please.

MR. JOHNSON: Yes. That\'s a question.

MS. DAVIS: You\'re done?

MR. JOHNSON: Yes.

MS. DAVIS: Okay. Thank you very much.

Would anyone on the panel like to address that.

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: That would be up to Congress. We obviously
can\'t restructure ourselves. We exist pursuant to laws and statutes, so
if Congress wanted to restructure us, and they have ‑ there used to be 7
members and they cut it down to 5 ‑ they could make it 20 or 100, or
whatever they want. It\'s up to Congress, not us.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you very much.

Microphone number two.

MR. GALLAGHER: Hello.

MS. DAVIS: Hello.

MR. GALLAGHER: Thank you, Commissioners.

My name is Colin Gallagher. I\'m Board Representative

for Service Employees International Union, Local 817.

I have submitted an extensive technical comment to the

FCC Commissioners in writing, and by e-mail today.

Instead of repeating it here, allow me to provide a

general perspective, if I may, which I will call the

two feet of social change. One foot is charity, the

other foot is the means for preventing the need for

charity.

A brief story. A man sees a body floating

down a river. He buries it. He sees another body.

He also buries that body, but he doesn\'t look where

are these bodies coming from. How did they get there?

You cannot make localism real. You cannot achieve the

social change that accompanies localism without

walking forward. And you cannot walk forward without

two feet, those two feet of social change.

I ask you, the Commissioners and members

of the public, to consider the need for both of these

feet in social change. I thank you for the

opportunity to speak before you, and to provide

comment. Thank you.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you. Microphone number

one.

MS. FINELAND: Thank you for having this public session. My name is
Marcia Fineland, and I\'m the Peace and Freedom Party candidate for U.S.
Senate in California in November. Now I didn\'t come here to complain
about the fact that you\'ll probably never see me on the media, because
I probably have just as much right as any other candidate to spend
millions of dollars on 10‑second sound bites. I came here to ask you to
give us some real news, so that voters can make some intelligent
decisions, and so that as citizens we can act in our own interest in
this country, and in this state.

Now one of the problems is that there\'s not enough local coverage, but
there isn\'t even

coverage of things that happen in California, except

for the comings and goings of our celebrity governor.

You know, in November, there are going to be 14 propositions on the
ballot. And you are not

going to hear much about any of them except the ones

that you hear of because of advertising.

You heard from Mr. Pulaski, and I think it

bears repeating. Now, proposition 72 is perfect. It

doesn\'t provide for universal health care. But the

state legislature actually passed a bill which would

provide health care for employees of companies that

have more than 20 employees.

Now, the biggest campaign contributors for

this referendum, which means we have to pass it again

at the ballot box, the biggest campaign contributors

for no 172; that is, no health care for employees, are

the fast food industry.

You would think the global fast food chain

is going to say on the radio and on the television

\"Vote against this because we don\'t want to give our

employees health care.\"

They\'re not going to say that. They\'re

going to say, \"We\'re citizens for something good\" or

\"We\'re citizens against something bad. And we don\'t

want to put your corner flower seller out of

business.\"

That\'s what you\'re going to hear. We\'re

not going to get real news. We\'re not going to get

real discussion. We\'re not going to get real analysis

because our public airwaves that belong to us are

bought and paid for, bought and sold to the highest

bidder. It\'s time for us to own our airwaves.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone number two, please. Yes,

please?

MR. PAPPAS: I appreciate the passion that

I have heard here, but I think that all of us do want

a discourse here where we truly try to shed light on

things, instead of heat. (Audience shouting.) Isn\'t that interesting?

And I think ‑‑ that\'s all right. What I

love about this country is that you\'re entitled to

speak that way. But what I also love about this

country is that we believe that the truth should fall

where it may. And the truth is that most broadcasters

here and in this date and ‑‑ (Audience shouting.)

MS. DAVIS: Mr. Pappas, if I

might?

MR. PAPPAS: The fact ‑‑ I\'m going to try

and finish.

MS. DAVIS: They have waited about three hours.

MR. PAPPAS: Well, the fact is that the

broadcasters do carry news about the proposition and

about the candidate.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Pappas.

We\'ll move back to the public mics now, if we might.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Microphone number two.

MR. HIGGINS: You know, I brought a book

with me just in case it got boring, and I have not

cracked it in the past four hours. So thanks for a

very interesting evening.

(Laughter.)

MR. HIGGINS: I\'m John Higgins. I teach

at Menlo College in Atherton, California, media

studies. I am also president of the board of

directors of the San Francisco Community Television

Corporation that is a nonprofit organization that

operates public access channels and facilities in San

Francisco. We are a volunteer group on the board

there.

I am just thinking personally 30 years ago

I was working at a commercial radio station and I was

volunteering at a community‑based grass roots radio

station. It was real easy then to see one as evil,

but I had to earn a paycheck. And the other one was

good and light.

It was actually the general manager of

that commercial radio station that helped me see it

not as "either/or" but as "and/but" and that there was

room and, in fact, need for both of them on those

radio dials.

It was hard to see then, but this "and/also" is something I think that
we\'re missing in a lot of our public policy and some the allocation
space.

He said we need them both, but he also

believed in localism and local identities. He was one

of those people, radio was in his blood from birth.

He believed in things like the fairness doctrine

because he said that it helped even the playing field

for those broadcasters that really wanted to serve

their community.

And he said there were an awful lot of

scurrilous broadcasters who weren\'t in it for that.

And as soon as that was dropped, he was a little

saddened by all of that, the loss of local news and

information.

Recently I saw him. And he was getting

out of radio because the recent corporatization had

stolen the soul of radio in his mind: no localism, no

local news. Hell, you couldn\'t even get the local

time. You knew how many minutes after the hour, but

what hour is it?

(Laughter.)

MR. HIGGINS: So that\'s part one in a

26‑second. Part one is please restore these basic

regulations of localism and community needs and public

interest, which actually means public good and not

what the public might be interested in that particular

day.

And the add more part of that, which he

gave to me is that \-- let\'s add more. Let\'s take that model of local
franchising that public access gives and apply it to ten percent of
every media, broadband,

satellite, everything, and add more.

Thank you very much.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone one.

MR. PERLSTEIN: Good evening, panel. My

name is Jeff Perlstein. I\'m the Executive Director of

Media Alliance.

(Applause.)

MR. PERLSTEIN: We work in concert with a

host of organizations here in California. We have

been doing this for 28 years now. And we have been

working in a variety of ways for a more diverse, just,

and accountable media system that is responsive to the

needs and concerns of local communities.

We have been very involved in this issue

for the last several years. I am very proud to say

that we were one of the lead plaintiffs in the court

case that rejected Chairman Powell\'s awful rules from

last year and sent them back to you, the FCC, to

rewrite them.

(Applause.)

MR. PERLSTEIN: I\'m also proud to say that

we convened a really unprecedented and packed hearing

last year on those rules where over 650 people,

unfortunately ‑‑ in some ways it was unfortunate ‑‑ it

was an unofficial hearing because the three

Republicans and the chairman refused to come and make

it an official hearing.

So we do want to thank you all for having

an official hearing, although we think this is

completely inadequate since it\'s the only one on the

entire West Coast. We want to thank you for coming

today to hear what we have to say.

I actually want to address the rest of my

comments to the audience and the people listening at

home. And, of course, I hope that you all will

listen.

(Laughter.)

MR. PERLSTEIN: Since the FCC is charged

with regulating the public airwaves, the ones that we

all own, in our interest, we hope that you will really

act more significantly to do that job.

But we are not going to wait for you to do

that, see. It is really up to all of us, the people

here in this room, who are listening on the air, the

millions of people who weighed in last year and helped

to overturn those rules, to make the significant

change that we need in our media system. It is the

only way that significant change has ever happened in

our society or any other society. We really look

forward to working with all of you in the future on

that.

Let me rattle off some quickly. We need

more teeth in the license renewal process so there is

more accountability to local communities. We need the

fairness doctrine reinstated so that there is equal

response time for controversial opinions, whether you

like them or not, in public space.

(Applause.)

MR. PERLSTEIN: We need more public

affairs in prime time. And we need rent for these

airwaves that are ours that they\'re using to make

billions of dollars.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you. Microphone number two.

MS. KELLEHER: My name is Lindsay

Kelleher. I have been working in both the radio and

television industries for over ten years now. And I think it is
important to remember that the main goal of the major media is that
control of most of the

airwaves are in the goal to stay in business, and that

means that they\'re in the goal to make money.

That money comes from corporate

advertising. Those corporate interests lobby the

government. The government also spends money on

advertising. How do we get local information, freedom

of information, free local ideas on our airwaves?

Localism requires accountability.

I feel as though I\'m a bit preaching to

the choir here. I wish I was addressing Chairman

Powell because many of the ideas that we have heard

tonight already express what we are already thinking.

The important thing is that the FCC needs

to both create and uphold regulations, not just create

them but also uphold them, to make sure that there is

freedom of access to the airwaves for the local and

prime time, for local ideas, for political ideas that

may not have the money to purchase this type of

advertising.

No more media by the rich for the rich.

Thank you.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

(Applause.)

Microphone one.

MR. O\'DONOGHUE: My name is Liam

O\'Donoghue.

One of the questions that you want us to

ask on this card is, are the segments of the local

communities being served by the media today? I am

part of an organization called Indy Media.

(Applause.)

MR. O\'DONOGHUE: We have Indy Media

centers all over the world right now. And we\'re not

asking how media can serve the people. We want the

people to serve themselves. We want the people to

become the media.

We are trying to encourage people to get

involved with that by publishing their own news

because the localism is more than just local coverage.

It is about local ownership.

You know, the local owners are going to

have a lot more devotion and passion in covering local

news than some corporation that is just fulfilling a

mandatory minimum five minutes a night, you know, public service
requirements so they can keep their monopoly on the airwaves.

Local owners will cover more than just the

crime and violence. They will get ratings. They will

get people involved with labor, environment issues

that really affect people in the local community.

And by doing that, you know, people say, \"Oh, people don\'t watch the
news enough.\" It\'s because we've been condition not to because it
doesn\'t discuss a lot of the issues that people are passionate about.

Local coverage would cover the battles

that people are involved in every day. And as people

see their friends and neighbors on the news talking

about their struggles on more public access channels

that should be much more supported by the federal

government, people would be a lot more excited about

the news. They would be willing to get more involved.

And the quality would reflect that.

And the news wouldn\'t be a chore. The people have to like sift through
to find what they need. It would be right there for us. And that\'s why

Independent Media supports local ownership.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you very much.

We continue.

MR. LIN: Good evening. My name is Tran

Lin. I am representing the Vietnamese associations in

Monterey County.

After the Vietnamese War ended in 1975,

thousands of Vietnamese came to Monterey in order to

find a better life, the life of freedom, in which they

are able to share and to learn one culture to another.

It is very sad to see that hundreds of

Vietnamese families have moved out of Monterey County

to the other places because they feel they are being

left out here. They think no network media is

interested in covering their cultural language

customs, traditions, and religions.

Absolutely, the network media does not

help them to understand about the value from the other

groups. It is there to improve their lives. The

Vietnamese community begins worrying about the

miscommunication, misunderstanding, and losing their

identity.

Until recently, the staff of the public

broadcasting television channel 24 protested the

Vietnamese Buddhist ceremony and Vietnamese Student

Association culture. So the people in Vietnamese

Monterey County called me and expressed, the activity

was finally broadcast on the television.

In order to educate the people in our

community and have them to learn more about American

values and bring them closely to American society, I

am asking the network media to seriously listen to the

people views and incorporate that \* along with the language so they
don\'t feel to be left out. Doing this is where Vietnamese and other
communities are

very proud to be the part of the big county.

I finally would like to say no majority

group should be left out of our local media. Thank

you.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

(Applause.)

Thank you. Microphone one.

MR. BOZZO: Sam Bozzo, 26‑year volunteer

for the world‑famous Gilroy Garlic Festival.

(Applause.)

MR. BOZZO: As the past president of the

Garlic Festival, we survive and thrive on behalf of

150 nonprofit organizations who depend on a

well‑attended garlic festival.

The sponsorship of KSBW Channel 8 has

assisted in raising \$6.5 million dollars. This is a station that opens
itself to weekly community interest

programs, numerous public service announcements, and

on‑site coverage of our local event.

KSBW is supportive of the Gilroy Garlic

Festival. We are very appreciative of that support

because it supports those 150 nonprofit organizations.

Those nonprofit organizations have institutionalized

their budget because of the success of this festival.

And without them, it would be difficult to support them.

KSBW has reached out to the Gilroy Garlic

Festival. And on behalf of our board of directors, we

want to once again express our appreciation because it

has tremendously benefitted the Gilroy community.

KSBW serves Santa Clara County, Monterey

County, San Benito County, and Santa Cruz County. The

staff at KSBW not only work at the station but are

also committed to what goes on in their community.

And for that, we are grateful.

Thank you.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you for your comments.

(Applause.)

Microphone two.

MS. DIEHL: Good evening. I am Martha

Diehl. And I don\'t represent anyone. I do, however,

care a good deal about my community. And instead of

giving you my prepared remarks, I would like to

respond to some of the things that were said in the

panel tonight and by the commissioners because I think

that is a valuable opportunity, almost a dialogue.

(Laughter.)

MS. DIEHL: Number one, I heard people

talk about cable, satellite, and internet sources as

if they assumed that they might be equivalent to

broadcast. I know the commissioners are well aware

that they are not. You have to pay for them.

I live in an area which is never going to

rise to the level of being a market. I live in Big

Sur. There are people there. There are challenging

geographic problems. Mr. Robbins can attest to that.

I do not get any television reception via

broadcast. I can get one AM station in Spanish, one

in English, and one public radio station, which

generates from Santa Cruz. That\'s the closest one I

get. So just keep that in mind. There are some

physical concerns with broadcast access that you might

want to consider.

Number two, coverage of local matters that

I need would include items about which there is

controversy. While I very much appreciate the local

support of our broadcasters for charity, I am

interested in knowing if we have crimes, I love

hearing about our heroic personalities, and the PSAs

are important, I understand we need prenatal care, I

understand that concerned parents can help kids, those

things are not what I need the most information on.

I need civic discourse.

(Applause.)

MS. DIEHL: And 30 seconds in the local

news isn\'t going to do it, no matter how well‑informed

the broadcasters are.

I would like to ask you as my agent,

supposing you were a Hollywood agent, to get me what

I think is a fair shake. I want ten percent.

(Laughter.)

(Applause.)

MS. DIEHL: I want ten percent of my air

time allotted during prime time. That\'s 18 minutes a

day. We got an award for some people who are good

enough to do five minutes a day. I want those 18

minutes a day in prime time allocated for civil

discourse about areas about which there are

differences of opinion.

Thank you.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

(Applause.)

I will stop for a minute and see if there is a commissioner who would
like to comment on her comments or anyone at the table. If not, we\'ll
move on.

(No response.)

MS. DAVIS: Okay. Thank you very much. We\'ll go back to the microphone
line.

MR. GREER: Hi. My name is Kim Greer.

I\'m the CEO of the National Steinbeck Center, a museum

dedicated to the legacy of Salinas\' native son and

Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck.

Since opening 6 years ago, we have had

over 500,000 people visit the museum, including over

100,000 students. We have launched curriculums throughout the school
system. We have had all levels of public programs in English and in
Spanish. And we have developed a writing literacy program that will be
in all schools in the county by the end of next year.

In addition to being a museum, we are a

cultural center which has hosted over 1,000 local

community and business events in the past 6 years.

Starting a new museum is a daunting task.

There simply is not enough money to go around to pay

all the bills. I know how it is to struggle to make

payroll every month.

Local media has been a champion in

providing us broad support and media access. They have, they got
together six months before we opened and agreed to give us one year of
free local media to advertise our pre-opening and our opening events.
And that was eight local radio stations and three local TV stations.

They have covered all of our community

events. They have put together PSAs for all our

major events and fundraisers. Sometimes they run the

PSAs so much that even I get tired of them.

(Laughter.)

MR. GREER: They have covered so many

nonprofit events at the center that every week when I

show up or leave work, there is some radio or TV

station covering some other community event that is

occurring at the center. They have continued to cover

the political debates that have occurred at the

center, including broadcasting them live on radio.

I sat down this morning and added up the

amount of the media coverage, the value of the media

coverage that we have received. And it exceeded over

\$1.1 million dollars in the last 6 years.

I think that we have localism here in

Monterey County alive and well. And I think it is a

model for what should be at every other place.

Thank you.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

(Applause.)

Microphone two.

DR. HAFFA: Hi. I\'m Dr. Alan Haffa from

Monterey and a professor at a local community college.

As an educator, I am evaluated by my students, by my

peers, and by my administrators, as I should be. My

college is evaluated by peer institutions as part of

our regular accreditation process.

Accountability is the norm in education.

Why, one might ask, is accountability anathema to

broadcasters who are using our public airwaves?

(Applause.)

DR. HAFFA: Our president has pushed

accountability in education as part of his No Child

Left Behind program, which requires assessment of

school performance, requires improvement, and provides

serious consequences if there is not demonstrated

performance improvement.

Is it too much for the public to demand

local accountability of our well‑funded media outlets?

I urge you to pursue the very fine recommendations of

Martin Kaplan. And I also would say that our local

educational outlets should be part of the media plan.

We need to have our voices heard as well.

Thank you.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

(Applause.)

Microphone one.

MR. SHULL: Good evening. My name is

Leslie Shull. Thank you for this opportunity.

For more than 19 years, I was a volunteer

programmer at the local community station KEZU. And at one point, the
license ‑‑

(Applause.)

MR. SHULL: Thank you.

‑‑ the license for the station was taken

over by the foundation of the university. It is a

strange situation to have a state‑owned organization

taking over the license that belongs to all of us.

But, in any event, all of the music disappeared from

KEZU or virtually all of it. And I want to make a

plea for the music.

A lot of people have said very eloquent

things about politics and about democracy and health

care. I\'m not going to even pretend to be that

eloquent. All I am going to say is that without real

community radio and without the support from the FCC

of community radio, we are going to lose music. And

music is very, very important to all kinds of people.

Thank you.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

(Applause.)

Microphone two.

MR. McMANUS: Good evening. My name is

Michael McManus. I am here representing KSPB‑FM. I

am 17, and I am the public relations and public

service director for the station. I am here with my

friend Reed Caviner. He's also 17.

(Applause.)

MR. McMANUS: We are doing our best to

develop programming that serves the needs of the

community. But we need to hear from you.

Serviceatkspb.org. That\'s where you need to help us

out.

Secondly, commissioners, Commissioner

Copps, Commissioner Abernathy, Commissioner Adelstein,

there is a youth generation in this country that is

being manipulated by the large media right now.

(Applause.)

MR. McMANUS: This is my question for

you, what is going to happen in 15 or 20 years when

the present generation, youth generation, right now

comes into being the people who are at the heads of

these corporations, these companies? And when they

are the ones who are making the decisions, what

happens in this media?

This is the model that they have to work

off of right now. They are being manipulated. We are

treated as dollar signs to be manipulated.

We are smart, thinking people. And we

need to be given the opportunity. We need to be

recognized that we can do something. And I need your

help from doing that. We need help from the

communities.

But please carry this message on to the

other commissioners, who couldn\'t be here, especially

the chairman. I got a chance to see him speak in Las

Vegas. I didn\'t get to speak with him.

But there is a clear lack of recognition

of who we are. And we are a huge part of this

country, and we cannot be neglected. We cannot be

denied. You need to help us out, please.

And I am here to work with you. I have given you my information. Please
contact me. I want to do everything I can to help. We need the community
to do everything we can, everything that you can to help. Contact us.
Work with us.

We\'re here to fight, and we\'re not

leaving. I\'m 17. That\'s my friend. He\'s also 17.

We\'re here.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone one.

MR. BARBER: Yes. My name is David

Barber. I come from Richmond, California. And I am

not associated with a group.

More stations and more diversity are

absolutely necessary to our democracy. It has taken

many serious blows lately. Recently the U.S. Senate

Intelligence Committee has analyzed the stories we

were told leading us to war. They showed us that what

Colin Powell stated before the U.N. was crafted and

fabricated to lead us to war. For the first time,

most people in the U.S. learned what the rest of the

world has known since February 2003, long before the

war started.

Yesterday I re-read an article from *The*

*Guardian*, the London newspaper, dated February 6,

2003, one day after Colin Powell spoke. It analyzed

each point, showing it was unsurprising, misleading,

and just plain wrong.

Where was this data in the U.S. media?

Our TV networks were continually giving the message of

war. The New York Times\' front pages were filled with

unchallenged government propaganda under the byline of

Judith Miller.

Of the four major TV news programs in the

week before and the week after Colin Powell\'s speech

before the U.N., of the 393 pundits and analysts,

exactly 3 were anti‑war, and the rest were pro‑war.

This was at a time when the majority of

U.S. was polled as against the war. The

administration was put into power by the media. And

they were trying to keep him in power.

I demand that Michael Powell recuse

himself from this decision ‑‑

(Applause.)

MR. BARBER: ‑‑ since he has shown himself

as biased and has a clear conflict of interest. For

the rest of the commissioners, the media must be owned

by many and varied sources, I think no more than 25

stations by one corporation.

Thank you, Commissioner Abernathy, for

being here. I hope you are listening. You did, after

all, vote for the consolidation the last time.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you, sir. Thank you.

(Applause.)

Microphone two, please.

MR. OLSEN: Okay. I am Hebrard Olsen,

producer of 800 unpaid‑for local programs, about 200

local groups in 4 years.

(Applause.)

MR. OLSEN: This resulted in the transfer

of about \$70,000 per year to this community. This is

a value which the local media is not paying for.

And that is more than all the other media combined,

excluding council meetings and studio shows.

Local media should arrive . . . be ashamed in my mind and arrive with
their heads covered to hide from the shame for not serving this
community. And I feel this community needs about ten times ‑‑ and I am
now including Salinas because they recently joined us ‑‑ of the service
that I provided.

Members of this community have been

brainwashed to believe they do not deserve to be the

subject of media. The cost of radio and TV content in

our culture is the only criteria used by the media,

rather than benefiting our local community.

Local Vietnamese culture ignored by the

community media for 20 years was explained in English

by Vietnamese point of view to the community and with

great respect, which stunned the Vietnamese community,

by exposing that on public access by me. This is one

of ten instances. The Vietnamese community was really

impressed.

What I would like you to do is please

revoke the licenses of stations which cover fewest of

1,000 groups that need to be covered and who have the

greatest number of non‑viewers.

We never survey non‑viewers. We just have

a little competition between different large groups.

Those stations which have monocultures should also be,

licenses should be considered for pulling. And if one

person can do it, like myself, they should be able to

do it.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you so much.

(Applause.)

Microphone one.

MS. GANGADHARAN: My name is Seeta

Gangadharan. I am a Ph.D. student at Stanford

University. I have been asked to read the testimony

of Patti Miller, who you know was unable to give her

official statement tonight. And I am paraphrasing.

Five points. As the FCC evaluates how

broadcasters are responding to the needs of local

communities, they should consider, first and foremost,

how children\'s needs are being served.

Under the FCC guidelines, stations are

expected to air a minimum of three hours per week of

children\'s educational and information, EI,

programming, at times when children are likely to be

watching.

To assess how commercial television

stations are serving the child audience, Children Now

and the Institute for Public Representation at

Georgetown University analyzed the children\'s

television reports for the last quarter of 2003

prepared by the four full‑powered television stations

in the Monterey‑Salinas Designated Market Area.

First, our analysis found that many of the

shows still do not have educating or informing children as a significant
purpose of the program as required by the FCC rules.

Here is one example of how broadcasters

have inappropriately characterized programs as serving

children\'s educational and informational needs.

The educational objective for KSBW\'s

\"Kenny the Shark\" is as follows: Kenny the Shark is

about a tiger shark that has made the transition from

sea to land, but it\'s very hard to adapt to new

conditions. He lives with Cat, a middle school

student, and her family. In the process of watching

Kenny deal with his situation, we learn real world

facts about shark behavior, habits, and biology.

I don\'t know about you, but I am not aware

of any real‑world sharks that live on land.

(Laughter.)

MS. GANGADHARAN: There are four other

statements that come with Patti Miller\'s testimony.

I believe it will be submitted into the public record.

I encourage the commissioners to take a close look at

it.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you very much.

Microphone two.

MS. FARMINGTON: My name is Ann

Farmington. And I have been a media activist and

educator for 24 years.

(Applause.)

MS. FARMINGTON: I founded Media Watch to

challenge racism, sexism, and violence in the media

through education and action. Our goal is to bring

about social change to improve life, especially for

the disenfranchised.

Local television has a history of covering

our protest marches, street theatre with a snicker.

We\'re the teaser or the joke at the end of the news

hour. The overt trivialization of feminist concerns

is blatant in commercial media.

(Applause.)

MS. FARMINGTON: I personally committed

civil disobedience to attract media coverage in order

to begin vital discussions about the epidemic of

violence against women. Rape, intimate partner

battering, and child sexual abuse are epidemic.

While the exact connections between

violence and the media is disputed, we are all surely

guinea pigs in this vast commercial media experiment.

Having local media access for every

community member is our right. This is not a polite

request. For many of us wanting to make informed

choices, it could be a matter of life or death. We

need a media that invests in compassion. We need to

see and hear untold stories, the real life

consequences of hate.

Where are the stories of the 200 U.S.

women soldiers who sought assistance from a rape

crisis center since the Iraq war started who were

assaulted by fellow troops?

(Applause.)

MS. FARMINGTON: Where are the in‑depth

stories of harm and abuse caused by prostitution and

pornography? Where is the relationship between the

boards of directors of media giants and the energy,

banking, and defense industries?

(Applause.)

MS. FARMINGTON: These topics are treated

with the media\'s most effective tool: silence.

I hear shock jocks spewing hatred 24/7.

It\'s hip to hate. My 13‑year‑old son was with me when

I heard a DJ on a Santa Cruz ex‑radio instruct women

to put cottage cheese in their crotches to get rid of

unwanted boyfriends. These attitudes are impossible

to counter without equal access.

A truly diverse public media information

system would stimulate community participation and

expose the results of greed, violence, and racism and

woman‑hating. The FCC must hold stations accountable

to local communities through a stronger license

process.

Can I just finish this sentence?

MS. DAVIS: No.

(Applause.)

Microphone one.

MR. MELENDEZ: My name is Bill Melendez,

representing the League of United Latin American

Citizens of a Central Coast in California.

My comments are brief. No \-- to

deregulation, no \-- to corporate consolidation, no \--to the outdated
classification and the allocation of rules and regulations, and no to
shock vocabulary and

vulgarity.

Now let me just briefly go over the first

"no" on deregulation because before deregulation, our

organization, LULAC, NAACP, Phil Lamp (phonetic) Councils participated
in local quarterly assessment meetings regarding the broadcasters\'
employee affirmative action plans, ‑‑ this was with KSBW ‑‑ how people
of color were being negatively portrayed in news service and media,
methods that could be used to portray positive role models in the
community of color, and programming that would be of interest to our
communities. This all stopped with deregulation. We no longer engaged
broadcasters with our views because they truly don\'t care.

This area has a large Latino population.

And I just heard a man say who works for emergency

services that he doesn\'t have a person who speaks

Spanish on emergency services. How could this be in

a county where there is such a large Latino

population? So you could see that we've got major

problems.

I would say "yes" to the localization or the opportunities that should
be provided to the diverse populations that live in this community, but
wages at most broadcasting facilities pay less than some fast food
outlets.

The recruitment of Latinos ‑‑ thank you

very much.

(Laughter.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

I appreciate it. Thank you.

MR. ZWERLING: Hi. My name is Michael

Zwerling. I was born and raised in Santa Cruz, just

across the Bay from here, where I now reside.

For the last 13 and a half years, my

family and I have owned and operated KSCO News Talk AM

1080, a 10,000‑watt commercial radio station which

serves the Monterey Bay area with news, traffic, and

discussion of issues, both local and national, and

proudly the only commercial radio station broadcasting

this entire hearing live.

(Applause.)

MR. ZWERLING: I feel very strongly that

what the Commission did in 1996 by relaxing broadcast

ownership limits has been contrary to the public

interest as well as destructive to the radio industry.

It has spawned a very disturbing government‑induced

and protected anti‑competitive and predatory

environment in the radio industry that is making it

increasingly difficult for independent broadcasters

like me to survive.

I was going to give you a very juicy

illustration of Clear Channel trying to squish us like a bug, but
there\'s no time because of the two minutes.

I think you can see and recognize the

problem here. Regardless of what they say, large

conglomerates will always do what is in their

interest, not the public interest. That\'s why we have

you, the FCC, to look out for the public interest, not

sandbag it.

I am here to make two simple suggestions

of what you should do to fix the problem and create an

environment that promotes, rather than prevents,

localism, diversity, and competition.

First, change the ownership rules not to

raise the limits but to roll back the limits to what

they were back in 1991, when I got into this business,

‑‑

(Applause.)

MR. ZWERLING: ‑‑ no more than one AM

station and one FM station per owner per market, and

require divestiture immediately.

(Applause.)

MR. ZWERLING: And second, make it absolutely illegal for a company that
controls much of the hardware or radio station licenses, a company such
as Clear Channel, to also own the dominant software or

radio programming in the broadcast industry. I

believe this falls under the antitrust rules already

supposedly in force in the United States of America.

We have no communications. Do you want

diversity? Do you want ‑‑

MS. DAVIS: You do have 15 more seconds.

MR. ZWERLING: ‑‑ localism? Do you want

competition? Do it. Do it now.

MS. DAVIS: I gave ‑‑

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: I had spoken with that gentleman. And he had an extra 15
seconds. I\'m

sorry you didn\'t see my signal. Okay.

We can go to the mic, next mic. I think

he made his point. His comments are being sent in.

Take your 15 seconds.

MR. ZWERLING: Okay. And, second, make it

illegal for a company that controls much of the

hardware or radio station licenses, a company such as

Clear Channel, to also own the dominant software or

radio programming, such as the Rush Limbaugh Show, the

Dr. Laura Show, et cetera, in the broadcast industry.

I believe this falls under the antitrust rules already

supposedly in force in this country.

You want diversity. You want localism.

You want competition. Then do what I said, those two

simple things. You will be amazed at what happens.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you for keeping your word. Microphone one.

MR. OSMER: My name is Dennis Osmer. I am

a former mayor of the City of Watsonville, also open

for your tourist dollars just 30 miles north.

(Laughter.)

MR. OSMER: I currently represent the

Pajaro Valley on the Santa Cruz County Planning

Commission. We are fortunate to have a radio station

here that in its format, operation, and management

epitomizes the best of service to the public trust and

whose history exemplifies the difficulties of

achieving such service in the face of unresponsive

legislation and regulation. That station is KPIG

107.5 FM, ‑‑

(Applause.)

MR. OSMER: ‑‑ currently licensed to

Mapleton Communications, led by President Adam

Nathanson. Their playlist is not set by a finance

manager who has been promoted to program director ‑‑

(Laughter.)

MR. OSMER: ‑‑ but by a long‑time

professional dedicated to diverse entertainment and to

promoting the art and enjoyment of music in many

forms.

Local artists and those on the fringes of

the mainstream music industry are featured, mostly

live, and promoted. The DJs broadcast live and are

involved in community events throughout the region.

Diverse commentaries are encouraged and

played regularly. It is a local station run by local

people who belong to an endangered species:

independent broadcasters.

While this station has been helped to

survive by Mapleton Communications, there is a

constant threat from market forces and absent

regulation. In the history of the station ‑‑ and by

\"station,\" I mean the people dedicated to the local

format and their local audience ‑‑ the buyer of

consolidation fueled by the FCC has burned them again

and again. It is almost impossible to operate a truly

responsive local station in the face of the trend

toward market monopolization.

Please consider all of the options you

have for increasing local influence in broadcasting.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

(Applause.)

Microphone two.

MS. MUELLER: Hi. My name is Mary Ann

Mueller. I\'m from Palo Alto. And it\'s really awful that us in
California are so shy.

(Laughter.)

MS. MUELLER: I am not a high school

teacher of AP communication studies, but if I were, I

would put this essay question to my students: Murdoch

and localism, is there a connection? Does the FCC

care? So I would like to put that, actually, as an

honest, serious question to you. I know it comes

across as a little bit antagonistic, but okay.

That\'s it.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: You would like a reply to that? Is there anyone here who
wants to reply to that?

COMMISSIONER COPPS: This commissioner cares.

(Applause.)

MS. MUELLER: Well, thank you very much

for having the courage to say that you care. I think

it is notable that people don\'t even have the courage

to say anything when Murdoch\'s name is brought up.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you. Microphone one.

MR. QUICK: Thank you. I am Peter Quick.

I live in Salinas, California. I am on the executive

board of Local 817 of the Service Employees

International Union.

We are 7,000 janitors, clerks, nurses,

doctors, teachers, child care workers, home health

care workers, technicians, scientists, cooks,

housekeepers; in short, mainstream working Americans.

We don\'t see or hear ourselves very often on TV or

radio.

A year ago, 4,000 workers marched in

Salinas for universal health care, 4,000 in Salinas.

You know, Salinas is not exactly a hotbed of political

activism.

(Laughter.)

MR. QUICK: So you would think the local

TV and radio stations would maybe trim the daily

ten minute crime report or one of the three weather

reports. But no. Despite the incredible efforts of

the citizens of this county, we received the usual

scant, superficial sound bite coverage with absolutely

no opportunity to meaningfully present our point of

view.

And when unions are covered, we get the

business perspective. We hear about labor costs,

labor unrest, and wage pressure, as if we are by

definition nothing but a burden on business.

There are plenty of regular programs about

the 10 percent of the population who own 90 percent of

all stocks. Why can\'t we have shows about the issues

facing the 95 percent of the population that works for

a living?

(Applause.)

MR. QUICK: Finally, finally, it\'s often

said of our media that yes, it\'s tawdry,

sensationalistic, trivial, disgusting. But, alas,

it\'s that way because that's what the people want.

But wait a minute. When I am driving on

the highway and I can\'t keep myself from looking at a

gruesome crash scene with blood and guts and wreckage,

does that mean I really wanted to see it?

And that\'s what our media too often does. It shocks us. It insults us.
It mocks us. It employs the best and brightest that psychology and
science have to offer to exploit our deepest fears, prey on our
vulnerabilities, and sooth our manufactured cravings.

(Applause.)

MR. QUICK: Why is that? Because in a

system in which the profit motive trumps the public

service motive, the name of the game for broadcasters

is, whatever you do, make sure the viewer doesn\'t

change the channel.

MS. DAVIS: And your time is up. Thank you.

(Applause.)

Microphone two.

MR. JOHNSTON: Good evening. My name is

Paul Johnston. I am here to speak for the Monterey

Bay Central Labor Council, a union of about 60 unions

here in the communities on California\'s Central Coast,

to express our concerns about corporate bias in the

media and how it affects localism and, I should also

say, I suppose, to express our unqualified support for

every recommendation that has been put before you by

the Media Alliance and also, to my surprise, by KSCO

as well.

(Applause.)

MR. JOHNSTON: Let me just say that, at

least for the moment, thanks to the federal court, the

majority\'s agenda here at the FCC has been sidelined.

Excuse me. Now I think, even here in Monterey, in the most affluent,
least accessible, isolated corner of our county and perhaps one of the
most isolated places you could have picked to hold your only hearing ‑‑

(Laughter.)

MR. JOHNSTON: ‑‑ even here in Monterey,

it seems that the movement from media to democracy is

ready to turn a corner. And we're here to say, I

believe, that slowing down this anti‑localism agenda

is not enough. Now we want to move forward.

And I'll just tell you a story to tell you

why we in the labor movement feel this way. Recently

another little town nearby here, Gilroy, the city

council, indeed the whole community, was arguing over

Wal‑Mart\'s proposal for a super store.

And then our local Hearst TV outlet ran an

editorial campaign in favor of Wal‑Mart, ridiculing

and really undermining and not accurately stating the

arguments of its critics, which helped to push the

city council into giving Wal‑Mart the go-ahead.

So in hearing complaints and calls and so

on, we at the Central Labor Council called and wrote

and faxed and e‑mailed the station, asking to record

a rebuttal.

Eventually, we did get the general manager

of the station on the phone and explaining that

according to their methodology for measuring community

controversy, the issue was not significant enough to

merit a rebuttal. And so there was none. (Audience shouting.)

MS. DAVIS: I\'m sorry. Your time is up.

MR. JOHNSTON: Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Microphone one.

MS. LOPEZ: Good evening. My name is

Eliva Lopez. I live in Monterey, California. And I

am with Democracy for America, Democrats in Monterey

County.

As a Hispanic, a young Hispanic, living in

this area, I want to call to your attention the

domination that Clear Channel has on the Hispanic

market in Monterey.

I agree with everything Delia and Blanca

talked about tonight. Clear Channel through one of

their affiliates, Entravision, dominates the Hispanic

market here in Monterey. That is 41 percent of the

population of Monterey County that is only served by

one station, and the one that Delia manages.

They have seven radio stations, and they

also have a television station. And one of these radio stations, 107.1,
caters to a demographic of people my age. They claim to be the number
one in the

demographic of people who are 12 and over. This is

the only radio station that tries to play pop music or

rock. The other ones just play different kinds of

Mexican music. They are the only station that caters

to this demographic.

I think this is wrong. Not only do they

get to choose and limit the options of music that

young people our age can listen to but also what kind

of products we will consume. And they also limit the

access that we have to news.

They have zero news content in their programs, they have one sorry
attempt in the morning at informing and entertaining. And all they do is

promote negative stereotypes of Hispanics. We can do

better than this.

So I will cede the rest of my time to

Mark. Thank you for attention.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Mark, you have 23 seconds, whoever Mark is.

MS. LOPEZ: I\'m sorry. I wanted my friend

Mark to have more time to present his point. That\'s

why I\'m giving away my time.

MS. DAVIS: No. You cannot do that. You have two minutes. You had 23
seconds when you finished.

MS. LOPEZ: Well, you know what? Let me

just point out this radio station, I think, as one of

the only stations that caters to people my age, you

would never have known that we had a primary election

back in March. I think this is wrong. We need more

coverage.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you for making your points. Microphone two.

UNIDENTIFIED OPEN MIC PARTICIPANT: I will address the audience because
out of five commissioners, two are AWOL and two seem to agree, at least
in part, with our grievances.

We are not fooled by this facade of a

democratic process. We are surrounded by police. We

are relegated to police with tazers, for that matter.

We are relegated to the end of the night,

after corporate media has gone. They are gone. They

have left. Independent media remains.

We are forced to jump through ticketing

hoops, lines, wait, and then patiently sit and wait

for our turn in line to beg and plead for changes

before people who do not have the power or desire to

grant our wishes. This is pseudo accountability.

So go back to D.C. and make your rules.

We will continue to break them.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Microphone one.

MR. POINTER: I am Mark Pointer from

Monterey, father of three preteen children. I teach

elementary school children.

Like three million other Colombians, I

live in exile from the country where I was reared.

The U.S. and Colombian governments are waging war

there.

My children ask me, \"Poppy, when can we go

to your farm?\" I try to explain that the guerrillas

mined it with U.S.‑made explosives and that American

paramilitaries contracted by Dyncorp here in Monterey

work with the Army and the paramilitaries to keep out

human rights advocates, like me.

Like thousands of South Americans in the

greater Salinas‑Monterey Bay area, I never see my

nation and cultures positively represented on TV or

radio.

Half of my Colombian friends tell me that

they hide the fact that they are Colombians due to the

villainous caricature that the media portray of our 47

million people, including Telemundo, sir.

(Applause.)

MR. POINTER: From my own research, here

is a local story. Part of the 3.5 billion tax dollars

vested on plant Colombia is spent in Monterey on

mercenary contractors. Local media neglects to cover

this story while it is debated in Congress this week.

Maybe they don\'t want to uncover their

advertisers\' claws to the public. Instead, Fox and

KION propaganda is about the deficiencies of public

education, which is a partisan agenda, averting

investigation of the tax and property politics that

created and exacerbate the economics that has

shattered the future of my students.

(Applause.)

MR. POINTER: These Machiavellian

corporations advocate school and teacher

accountability. It\'s time for media accountability.

(Applause.)

MR. POINTER: I am compelled to teach

students to read between the lines.

MS. DAVIS: Mark, your time is up.

MR. POINTER: Would someone tell us how

many kids of mine are now in Iraq before they get

killed? Create a media report card to be filled out

by a minimum number of market ‑‑

MS. DAVIS: Mark. We\'re moving on to microphone two, Mark. Mark, if you
want us to sympathize with your point of view, then let us

hear others, please. Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Microphone two, please.

DILLON: Hello. My name is Dillon. I

grew up in the Napa Valley. I'm third generation

Californian.

And I would first like to thank all of the

very educated and well‑qualified people that came to

this meeting with studies and facts that show what I

know already.

(Laughter.)

DILLON: I am the son of a Vietnam

veteran. And I inherited his disillusionment. I just

think you should know that at age 15 or 16, I walked

away from all local mass media.

(Applause.)

DILLON: It is only through the internet

and through alternative print that I get what I

consider useable information. And this leads to the

inability, I believe, for the population to elect

anyone who would choose the right panel for this

commission.

My friends don\'t even know what the

Federal Communications Commission is. Nobody . . . I told people I was
coming to this meeting, some acquaintances of mine. They were like,
\"What\'s that?\" So it\'s such a complete failure. I look at all of
this.

If it wasn't for my girlfriend, who is in

a nonprofit organization, I would have no idea this

event happened. And I just see this as a ship of

fools, and I am really sorry that it is really a shame

that this nation holds life and death decisions for so

many people in the world and it is in such a pitiful

state.

Save us, Mr. Copps. You are our only

hope.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone one.

MR. CARBONARO: Thank you.

My name is Mark Carbonaro. I am a local

broadcaster. I will get the biggest boo of the night

because I work for Clear Channel.

(Whereupon, there was a chorus of

\"boos.\")

MR. CARBONARO: Go ahead.

MS. DAVIS: Didn\'t make it. . .

MR. CARBONARO: But I want to say that our

stations do serve this community. And let me have my

floor. You have had your floor. Let me have my

floor. I have got less than two minutes. Thank you

very much.

Public hearings like this our news talk

station has broadcast over the last three years on a

regular basis, tax forums, debates with the sheriff\'s

office, the mayor\'s races, and so forth. Our stations

have worked to serve this community.

One other thing I want to mention to this

Commission ‑‑ and it doesn\'t have to do with that

service, but it has to do with enough radio voices in

the community ‑‑ and this is to the three

commissioners that are on the dais. Do not approve

IBOC for AM broadcasting.

It is typically flawed. It will lead to

the turning off of a great number of AM radio stations

in this country. The technology has not been proven.

You are not allowing it to be used at night because of

the interference that it causes on the AM band.

And if IBOC is approved as pending, the

only AM radio stations left on the air will be

50,000‑watt flamethrowers in big markets. Small AM

stations, like Mr. Zwerling\'s KSCO in Santa Cruz, our

stations here in King City, will leave the air because

the signals as they are, are not strong enough to

compete against the interference caused by this

proposed service, which would move AM from an analog

band into a digital band.

I know this is way out there for people.

There\'s only one guy in the audience who is a

broadcast engineer who understands any of this, but

everything ‑‑ when you\'re talking about localism, if

we lose more radio stations, then you\'re not going to

have localism. Thank you.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

(Applause.)

The speaker at microphone two.

MR. COUSINS: My name is Michael Cousins.

I am a communications attorney in Oakland. I thank

the commissioners for having this meeting. I

specifically want to compliment Commissioner Abernathy

for being gracious and gutsy coming out here and

chairing this thing.

(Applause.)

MR. COUSINS: Now, the commissioners as a

whole, on the other hand, when they get together, they

can do some terrible things.

(Laughter.)

MR. COUSINS: Specifically, I want to

mention that since 1987, there's been no generalized

opportunity to file for a full‑service TV station. A

freeze was put on at that time. That\'s very important: nearly a whole
generation with no

opportunities for new entry to full‑service television.

More recently, we've seen the Commission

adopt at the suggestion of industry a transition plan

for radio to digital radio, that involves no new entry

at all. Only incumbent radio operators are going to

be able to make the transition to digital. And then

much, much later perhaps, if ever, new entry will be

permitted.

These policies are wrong. I\'m concerned

that television broadcasting itself may be dying

because it doesn\'t have fresh voices, new entry, more

stations. It\'s down to, what, 20 percent of the

audience now is receiving television directly over the

air? And I think the industry may be in trouble.

The fate of radio could be even worse.

Radio if it doesn\'t expand and get new voices and

diverse voices could be hammered by new technologies

until we don\'t have an effective on‑the‑ground

broadcast radio service anymore.

So these are things to think about and to

take back to Washington that we need to expand these

services. We need to create new entry. Diversity is

going to come from new entry and not from pushing

around the folks that are already there because they

have shown that they push back very effectively or

they will outfox you every time.

(Laughter.)

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone one.

MR. GUSTASON: Good evening. My name is

Howard Gustason. I live in the City of Marina.

You know, I am not really worried about

consolidation of the media as long as you are there to

regulate them, honestly. In the 1980s, I was

concerned about CNN and Headline News taking over

because we already had the same thing with CBS, NBC,

and ABC. I really was concerned about the

homogenization of the news then.

It\'s hard to believe news from any source

if you disagree with one\'s fundamental philosophies,

political philosophies. And independent news is just

as untrustworthy easily.

News was beginning to come around with the

advent of independent broadcasters, believe it or not,

like Rush Limbaugh, in 1989 and 1990, which I believe

helped to create the need for Fox News. My news of

America, fair and balanced, finally came along with

Rupert Murdoch, who isn\'t even an American, finally.

And if you really want control of what you

watch, then why don\'t you come up with a great *a la*

*carte* menu system from the cable companies so we can

pick and choose what we want?

If I only want three TV stations, then

that\'s all I want. And give me a decent rate, you

know, really. And I don\'t want to pay tax dollars for

public television, to listen to somebody\'s political

diatribe that I don\'t agree with. I don\'t want to

hear them at all.

Another thing, you need to stop the

channel blocking. The channel blocking, isn\'t that

another way for us if we don\'t like what is being

shown at prime time to just move over and watch a

channel on an independent station who airs the same TV

programs?

KSBW is guilty of it. Fox News or the Fox

local channel is very guilty of it. I mean, they are

ornery about blocking TV channels.

Reruns. How could it hurt? If they can\'t

make it through their advertising dollar by blocking

channels, I mean, that is the most ridiculous thing

there is.

Anyway, thank you very much.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

(Applause.)

Microphone two.

MS. WEAKS: Hello. My name is India

Weaks. I want to thank you for coming to my hometown of Monterey. I
would like to give you an example of some of the local Clear Channel
content that can be heard on local KSJO here in Monterey. This is July
16th, 2002, The Mikey Show.

(Whereupon, an audio tape was played.)

MS. WEAKS: That\'s four‑year‑old Katie.

She was a regular feature on The Mikey Show. She

called in often and told dirty jokes, usually the

words too dirty to bleep.

That was \"What are the two most important

holes on a woman\'s body?

\"Her nostrils so she can breathe while she

is giving you a blow job.\"

Mikey no longer featured Katie as a caller

after the Dallas Police Department investigated. And you might ask,
\"Why Dallas?\" Well, it turns out that

though it was being heard locally here in Monterey,

the show is produced in Dallas and being

voice‑streamed here into our little community.

The Sexual Exploitation Unit in Dallas,

Texas looked into the issue, contacted the station.

The station said it was an adult woman who was an

actress but refused to cooperate with any further

investigation or provide any proof.

This is Mikey a week later, when he made

international headlines when he gave tips to

kidnappers on how best to dispose of children\'s

bodies, \"He recommends nylon rope because Jessica

Pratt was able to chew through the duct tape. He

recommends lye to dissolve the body and tarps.\"

I would also like to conclude by playing

for you his statutory rape song, which has been heard

on dozens of Clear channel stations.

MS. DAVIS: I hope it\'s quick.

(Whereupon, an audio tape was played.)

MS. WEAKS: There\'s an entire song that

goes after that. For those of you who missed the

beginning because of the cheering and all of that, he

said, \"Look at that little girl over there. Is she 9

or is she 12? Ain\'t got no pubic hair. I like them

bald and bare.\"

The song goes on to talk about the

international sex trade of children, \"I\'m such a bad

boy. I like little girls from Hanoi,\" \"I\'m into

videotape. I like statutory rape.\"

On June 9th, the FCC voted ‑‑

MS. DAVIS: I\'m sorry. I\'m sorry. Thank you.

MS. WEAKS: I was censored on June 9th,

when they dismissed my complaint with no

investigation.

MS. DAVIS: Do you want to apologize to the people who are in line and
hoping to be heard?

UNIDENTIFIED OPEN MIC PARTICIPANT: I would actually love to hear more,
but ‑‑

MS. DAVIS: Can we ‑‑

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Let me go ahead and respond. This was not voted
on by the commission. This was done at the bureau.

MS. DAVIS: Do you want to hear her answer or not? Would you like to hear
her answer?

UNIDENTIFIED OPEN MIC PARTICIPANT: Yes.

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Everything I heard is completely inappropriate,
rises to the level of indecency. And we have got to go after them. This
is the first I know about it. Yes.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you very much.

Please?

MR. SHILLER: Good evening. My name is

Zack Shiller. I\'m a graduate student in sociology at

the University of California at Davis. For the last

about two years, I have been studying low‑power FM,

specifically Radio Bird Street, KRBS‑LP in Oraville,

California.

In recent years, political scientists and

sociologists as well as national editorialists have

lamented the decline in civic participation and

engagement in our society. Theories explaining this

trend center on the pervasive cynicism present

throughout many sectors of society because of people\'s

voices not being heard or their votes not counting.

In my two years researching at KRBS and in

scores of interviews with folks in LPFMs across the

country, I found quite the opposite. Through their

participation in community‑oriented radio stations,

LPFM participants overwhelmingly report a feeling of

connectivity, both to each other and to wider social

forces, that they had never experienced before. This,

in turn, has resulted in an increase in civic

engagement in many communities.

The lesson here is that LPFM has actually

renewed civic engagement and participation. Being

connected to one\'s community should not be limited to

the opportunity for a new LPFM license window to open,

though I should strongly encourage you all to do that.

But the larger lesson is that existing for

profit stations with much more extensive reach should

be mandated to open a portion of their daily or weekly

program grid to community‑oriented and community‑produced programming as
part of their

obligation to serve the public interest.

(Applause.)

MR. SHILLER: Whether it is showcasing

local artistic talent or opening a space for debate on

important local issues, creating community time on

existing full‑powered stations and enforcing this

public interest obligation should be a central focus

of this task force.

Airing canned public service announcements

at 3:00 A.M. is one thing, but inspiring entire

communities to become more involved, more connected,

and more aware should be a primary goal of meeting

public interest obligations.

So yes, let\'s open filing windows for more

LPFMs in urban areas, but let\'s also open existing

stations\' airwaves to local community voices on a

regular basis. And let\'s let that count as serving

the public interest, which supposedly broadcast

licensees are required to do.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone two.

UNIDENTIFIED OPEN MIC PARTICIPANT: Hello. I\'m from Oakland,California.
Thank you, Monterey, for having us. Much respect for Davey D coming down
here.

I want to speak on two things really

quickly. The first up is personal experience. I

thought this was probably the most important part of

this Commission, for you to hear what is really going

on, not on Clear Channel\'s Web site.

My colleague up there, Eli Taylor, is a

promoter of hip hop events in the Bay area. He chose

to do an urban entertainment convention that was

designed to network local business people. And we

brought in a lot of corporate sponsors, a lot of

different media outlets.

Basically what happened is we chose to use

their competitor, 92.7, the new hip hop station, as a

sponsor. And the day before the event, KMEL Clear

Channel station called the artist\'s label and demanded

that they pull the radio ads off or that they would

stop spinning their record on KMEL. After that

happened, they called again and canceled on us the day

of the event because they had called the label and

said it was too much pressure. So the label canceled

on us, actually.

What ended up happening is the artist

performed anyway, came from New York to perform, not

despite the fact that KMEL's vans were circling our

event the night of, telling all of our fans that the

artist was not coming. So they are actively trying to

shut down local business people.

Unfortunately, none of that is important.

I want to put everything into context. There is a

flyer floating around the room right now. There's

probably also some agents in the room. There is

probably a lot of different stuff in the room.

The election in 2000 was stolen, folks.

The election in 2000 was stolen. And there\'s no

reason to believe that they\'re not gearing up for the

same thing, not in a year, in a couple of months.

I remember as a student watching films

from Nazi Germany. We have no Nazis in power here.

That is not what I am saying. But we know the role

that media played and what happened in the \'40s. We

know the role that media plays in preventing that. We

know what's going on right now.

I personally am speaking as somebody who

has been removed from voter rolls. I voted in

November. I went back in March, and I wasn\'t on that

roll. So there is stuff going on. And the media is

important. It\'s not just about music and art.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone one.

MR. ELIACH: Good evening. My name is

Nick Eliach. I am from Watsonville. I want to thank

you for being here and allowing us to speak here.

I am going to go for your stomachs first

and then your thought process. There was earlier

mention of eating in the Monterey restaurants. I want

you to imagine there was only one chain of restaurants

and it served bland food.

(Laughter.)

MR. ELIACH: That\'s what you have going on

here. You\'re having the entire media that\'s going to

be controlled by one chain. It\'s going to serve bland

programming.

I have a power in my hands, and it\'s the

Constitution. I think of the freedom of the press.

The press was something different 228 years ago

because there wasn\'t television. There wasn\'t radio.

And there wasn\'t internet. But the founding fathers,

if they were around today, they would incorporate

that.

Just because they said the word \"press\" is

because they were pressing the newspaper. But by having . . . but, what
you\'re doing, we\'re going to lose our freedom of the press. You\'re
abridging the freedom of the press by letting one institution, one
corporation control it all.

KSCO 1080 AM owned by the Zwerling family,

independently owned station, allowed me the

opportunity to have a noontime show one day a week.

Every Monday I'm on, I host the "Nick at Noon Show." They allowed me to
have that opportunity to represent local issues in Watsonville.

I am a carpenter by trade. They allowed

me to have that opportunity. Can you imagine a

corporation allowing a carpenter to represent local

issues? I know the local issues. I have been in town

my entire life. KSCO, which is an independent owned

radio station, gave me that opportunity. So I commend

them for that.

The answer is more independent owned radio

stations. And one of your questions, how to promote more localism in
broadcasting is by having more locally owned stations.

Our system was built upon people speaking

out and standing up for a cause. Today we are

standing up and speaking out to you to create more

local stations.

Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone two.

MR. ACOSTA: Thank you for allowing me to

speak.

My name is Tony Acosta. I am a longtime

resident of the County of Monterey. I have been very

active in my community at the grass roots level most

of my life. At the present time I am the chairman of

the Housing Authority of the City of Salinas.

For the last nine years, I have been

working for the Citizenship Project. It\'s a nonprofit

agency. What we do there is to help people to become

citizens, to apply to become citizens. We have helped

over 20,000 people in this county to become citizens.

(Applause.)

MR. ACOSTA: Also we help people to become

legal permanent residents. And also we empower people

of all colors to defend themselves with labor and

civil rights violations.

(Applause.)

MR. ACOSTA: We depend on the local media

to maintain a community well‑informed as to their

rights, health care issues, local activities that are free to them.

TV and radio are essentially requirements to serve the communities. They
often give us full coverage of local elections, ignore important issues,

discriminate against minority communities. We can\'t

let profit motives control the need for quality local

programming.

The current license renewal process is a

shame. Broadcasters have no incentives to serve their

local communities\' needs. We need a better process

for holding TV and radio stations accountable.

Of the broadcast stations that we have,

only two locals have been helping us 1,000 percent.

One is KHDC, Bilingue Radio -- thank you Delia \-- and also KFMS, who we
see on 67.

Thank you very much.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

(Applause.)

Back to microphone one.

MS. BISSI: Hi. My name is Kathy Bissi.

I work for a small business in the tech industry

across the Bay in Santa Cruz. I have a background in

broadcast journalism, and I produce a community access

educational show for my business.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak

tonight, but I know that there are many others who

would have liked to have joined us in some of these

empty seats that have been here since the beginning of the evening.

I really urge the FCC to cast a much

broader net, to truly listen to the local community,

and to add more hearings to your agenda this summer.

(Applause.)

MS. BISSI: I would like to see stations

be held accountable and be required to provide more

hours of public affairs programming and at prime time

hours, as has been said, not at 4:00 o\'clock in the

morning.

My husband and I watch the local nightly

news. There's two corporate nightly news viewpoints

given in our media area. And what we usually watch is

about a 60‑second corporate logo introduction to the

news story followed by a 2‑sentence story pulled from

a newspaper story about an hour before the broadcast.

I think we deserve more.

The few corporate owners of our media are

making millions off the public trust. Perhaps it\'s

time that we as their landlords start collecting the

rent.

As someone who purchases thousands of

dollars in advertising every year in this local

market, I'd pay a half a million dollars if I had

it for 60 seconds during prime time for an ad.

What\'s the public dividend on this

valuable commodity? Collecting the rent from big

media would support local viewpoints, funding for

non-commercial and PEG access stations, and create

local accountability.

Just one more quick note. As a marketing

professional, I know as well as you do that it is good

business to make donations and to support your local

charities. Don\'t let anyone fool you that cause

marketing is in any way to secure the public interest

in regards to access and control of local media. It\'s

noble, but it\'s not. It\'s in their interest.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Microphone two.

MR. McMANUS: Good evening. I am John

McManus. I direct a project at Stanford University

called gradethenews.org.

(Applause.)

MR. McMANUS: If there is a single

indicator of quality of localism, it's this. How

well do area broadcasters prepare citizens to vote on

state and local issues, races that are usually covered

only by the local journalists? The answer for four of

the San Francisco Bay Area\'s five most watched

stations is not very well.

Grade the News analyzed coverage in the

weeks before the March 2nd election. We found only

one station broadcast more than a minute per day on

its premier evening newscast that voters could use to

decide local races for Congress, the state

legislature, city, and county offices, and 65 state

and regional ballot issues.

KNTV Channel 11, the NBC‑owned and

operated station in San Jose, broadcast a minute and

40 seconds of local political issues per evening on

its hour‑long newscast, less than weather or sports or

crime. But consider that channel 7, KGO, the ABC

station; and KPIX Channel 5, the CBS station, devoted

an average of just 10 seconds of their prime evening

newscast to the substance of all state and local races

and propositions combined.

KTVU Channel 2, the Fox affiliate in

Oakland, broadcast just under a minute of news voters

could use to decide local races. KRON Channel 4, an

independent, ran half a minute a night.

We surveyed newscasts during the week

immediately before the spring election and the third

week before the election. By news voters can use, we

mean everything but horse race coverage of politics.

One minute or less on the longest newscast

of the evening in the weeks just before an election

for all local and state races and propositions

combined represents a serious failure to take

journalism\'s most important duty seriously.

Thanks for your patience.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

(Applause.)

Microphone one.

MS. MESSENGER: My name is Joy Messenger.

I work in the California Office of the National Center

for Missing and Exploited Children.

It is an honor to be here tonight to

express our strong support for our California

broadcasters and share how they serve our communities.

Ever since our doors opened in 1984, our

goal has been to help find missing children and

protect them from exploitation. In our business, time

is the enemy.

We believe there is no other industry that

can galvanize a community to action like our local

radio and TV stations. Twenty percent of America\'s

missing children come from California. But with

broadcasters\' help, we are able to fight these

horrible crimes. It is a partnership that shows

results.

Our statistics show one out of six kids

featured in our photo distribution network are

recovered as a direct result of a child\'s photo. And

the number one source of photo‑related recoveries is

television.

Radio also plays a very vital role in

recovering missing kids, especially through the Amber

Alert program. In California, we've had 12

recoveries so far, and more than 135 kids have been

returned safely nationwide because someone saw or

heard the Amber Alert and contacted officials.

The Amber Alert program has revolutionized

the way we fight child abductions in our country. No

longer are we waiting for the 5:00 o\'clock news to get

details about the case. Broadcasters now break into

programming with information so that no time is lost.

Broadcasters\' ability to engage and

empower entire communities to search is second to

none. We believe their efforts are commendable,

especially since they are not mandated to do so.

We have seen time and time again the power

of broadcasters in helping to resolve these cases.

Today more missing children come home safely than at

any time in the nation\'s history and families are more

alert and aware than ever before.

And that is because local broadcasters are

focusing more on this important issue. They run our

public service announcements and produce stories on

child safety tips and prevention. They educate their

communities on how to keep their kids safer.

Thank you.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

Thank you, sir. Microphone two.

MR. STEPHENS: Good evening. My name is

Ron Stephens. I am General Manager with People\'s

Radio. We are a commercial radio group here on the

Monterey Peninsula.

We have stations KYA; recently changing

KSRK to KMEO‑KMEX, which is Spanish Talk; and if you

don\'t know about the station, you have seen it. We

are the heritage station KNRY, which has the tower on

Cannery Row.

KNRY has been a long‑time station offering

the ability to present not only local individuals who

wish to propone their facts over the airwaves but also

trying to broadcast talk radio for not only Monterey

but covering wider areas of reach.

We are a minority‑owned local ownership.

We're probably the only radio group represented

tonight with our owner, Joe Rosen, sitting in the

audience.

It is very difficult in this day and age

for local radio groups of our type to be able to exist

in a market such as this. However, there's a place

for everyone to be and to work out throughout the

media direction.

We as a local radio station group attempt

to do everything possible to propone the local

community efforts. We broadcast localized basketball

by Cal State‑Monterey Bay.

We have adopted CASA, which is the local

organization for advocates for children in the court

systems. We also promote all of the local events. We

also give the public a chance to speak on our stations.

Localism is very important, but we are a

dying breed. We are almost extinct, the local

ownerships are. So we ask that as everything is

looked at, find the place to keep local ownership. If

not, that animal will disappear. And there will not

be the local ownership radio stations and owners such

as Joe Rosen sitting in the audience and people like

myself speaking as general managers for these

stations.

I thank you for your time. I thank the

Commission. I thank the community. Let\'s keep local

ownership alive. Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Good evening, microphone one.

MS. ADAMS: Good evening, Commissioners

Abernathy, Copps, and Adelstein. I welcome you to our

small, remote Monterey County. My name is Mary Adams.

And I am the President of United Way for Monterey

County.

I have lived here in the community for

almost 40 years and have been active in the

not‑for‑profit sector for just about all of those

years. I want to thank you for choosing to hold your

meeting here.

Like all communities, Monterey County

faces unique challenges and problems. United Way of

Monterey County works to tackle many of these

problems. And we provide funding, support, and

leadership to many nonprofit organizations that

provide assistance to people in need.

United Way agencies tackle such problems

as domestic violence, sexual abuse. We provide

assistance for children who are at risk. We help the

elderly. We work to address hunger and homelessness.

And we also address scores of other pressing issues.

United Way agencies touch more than 40

percent of the people who live in our county. In

providing these services, we're fortunate to have

strong partners in our local radio and television

stations.

We are a small community. And we do have

access that is not common in the larger markets. As

an example, KSBW‑TV in Salinas helped the United Way

of Monterey County and United Way of Santa Cruz County

launch a program called Success By 6, which works to

ensure that children are prepared to learn by the age

of six, when they generally enter school.

KSBW has aggressively promoted the

program, both on air and off, airing public service

announcements and vignettes covering such areas as

children\'s health, education, nutrition, and safety,

plus quality time with family and parenting skills.

One of the station\'s co‑anchors, Kate

Callaghan, who is an absolute delight, has shown

particular dedication to this program, regularly

preparing special features for Success By 6.

KSBW also provides local support for our

annual fundraising drive. If we were to try to pay

for the kind of support that we get to support our

fundraising goals, we wouldn\'t be able to give so much

money back to the community.

Indeed, many local TV stations and radio

and on‑air talent provide support for us from places

like KTIG to KION.

Thank you.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

Microphone two.

MR. DILLWORTH: Good evening,

commissioners and the public. My name is David

Dillworth. I represent Helping Our Peninsula\'s

Environment. I grew up here locally.

Just like a corporate restaurant, we are

not being served by our local TV broadcasting.

One‑sided, pro‑business, anti‑environmental local news

reporting is standard here.

For an example, a water supply and

building moratorium is facing us. It\'s a major

current local front page controversy. All three

Peninsula newspapers at least mentioned that there was

public support for the moratorium. At the single

hearing that was held.

Yet, not one of the three major local

English language TV stations, KSBW, KION, or KCBA,

allowed any mention of public support for the

moratorium. But they all provided extensive coverage

of the moratorium criticism by those who had a direct

financial interest in it. This is absolutely backwards ‑‑

(Applause.)

MR. DILLWORTH: ‑‑ because newspapers have

no government mandate to provide both sides of the

story but broadcasters do. We have a solution.

According to most journalism experts, the

"Letters to the Editor" page is the most read section

other than the front page. Our local KSBW‑TV pretends

to provide viewer responses to their one‑sided

anti‑public interest news coverage and editorials.

(Applause.)

MR. DILLWORTH: But in reality, the only

thing they provide is a one‑sentence summary, their

summary, of our rebuttals, not in full, not on the air, not by the
author, only on their Web site.

We need meaningful broadcast time

dedicated to genuine unedited public letters to the

editor. For every minute of local news, please

require local TV and radio stations to provide an

equal number of free minutes in adjacent time, not at

3:00 A.M., for local unedited video, letters to the

editor spoken by their authors or a person they

choose.

(Applause.)

MR. DILLWORTH: It might even be popular.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you. Thank you.

MR. DILLWORTH: Belva, this is a certificate of media heroism for Hebrard
Olsen, the gentleman who spoke before you and has presented 800 hours of
public interest programming at his own expense. He doesn't know he's
going to get this, but we're presenting it to him tonight.

(End of tape 3)

(Beginning of tape 4)

MS. DAVIS: Okay. Thank you.

(Applause.)

Microphone one.

MS. KIRSCHNER: Hi. Hi, Commissioners.

Thanks so much for being here tonight. My name is

Laura Kirschner. I\'m the PR Director with the

Monterey County chapter of the American Red Cross here

‑‑ here in ‑‑ based in Salinas, actually.

As the FCC\'s localism task force

undertakes the examination of all the ways that local

broadcast stations serve local communities, I just

wanted to draw your attention to the long‑standing

partnerships between our own broadcasters and the

American Red Cross, Monterey County chapter.

Through the airing of disaster preparedness and response messages,
promoting blood drives, and highlighting health and international
services, local radio and TV stations in our community assists the
American Red Cross, Monterey County chapter in saving lives.

The American Red Cross and Monterey County

continues to rely on the media to provide information

to the public in times of disaster when help can\'t

wait. As flood waters are rising and in times of

local family disasters, it\'s through the media that we

get these critical life‑saving messages to the public.

Our local media support is greatly appreciated and

absolutely critical to ensuring that Red Cross

messages are delivered in a timely and effective way

to the waiting public.

For example, this year our chapter worked

closely with KION, KCBA, and local schools to raise

funds for local disaster relief efforts here in

Monterey County. Our broadcast partners sponsored

this campaign, providing public service announcements

and on‑air talent to help raise nearly \$7,000 for

chapter local disaster relief effort, thus ensuring

that local families would have the means to start over

when disaster interrupts their lives. It does make a

big difference, and we\'re tremendously grateful.

KION and KCBA\'s promotion was absolutely

crucial to the success of the overall campaign. As

someone who spent nearly 10 years behind the scenes in

local TV, and seven years in the non‑profit sector, I

can tell you that our area broadcasters are doing an

admirable job in covering our local nonprofit

organizations.

However, with over 500 registered

nonprofits in Monterey County alone, we simply can\'t

expect the media to cover our organizations just

because we\'re doing good things. We need to spend

some time thinking about how we can provide the media

with what they need.

Each one of us in the nonprofit world can

play a role in our perceptions of the organization.

It\'s up to us to learn how to think like reporters and

to critically ask ourselves why our issues are

important and what is it about them that\'s newsworthy.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you so much.

(Applause.)

MS. KIRSCHNER: Thank you.

MS. DAVIS: Microphone two.

MS. CHARLTON: My name is Tammy Charlton.

I have lived in Monterey for 27 years. I\'m a teacher

in Moss Landing north of here. During the Iraqi War,

a PBS radio station gave many‑sided coverage of the

war twice a day, unfortunately for me at 9:00 a.m. and

3:00 p.m. I could catch the 3:00 p.m. every day

driving home from school. I listened to it daily on

my way home.

The variety of viewpoints and coverage was

priceless. When the war supposedly ended, this

station could only afford to broadcast the program

once a day, unfortunately at 9:00 a.m., given the

limits of public funding by donation.

With the extraordinary profits of

commercial media, shouldn\'t they be required to

support unbiased public transmission with at least 10

to 15 percent of their horrible profits?

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone one.

MR. GROSSMAN: My name is Arlen Grossman.

I\'m a media consumer.

(Laughter.)

In theory, the FCC is the government

agency regulating the media on behalf of the American

public. My concern is that the people are not being

served by the FCC. I wish I could say the FCC works

in the public interest, but recently they seem to be

more interested in the welfare of Disney, Clear

Channel, Fox, and Time Warner.

Lowry Mays, the CEO of Clear Channel

Communications, was quoted as saying ‑‑ this is a

quote ‑‑ \"If anyone said we were in the radio

business, it wouldn\'t be someone from our company.

We\'re not in the business of providing news and

information. We\'re not in the business of providing

well‑researched music. We\'re simply in the business

of selling our customers products.\"

In other words, the primary responsibility

of a media corporation is to make money for its

shareholders, not to serve the general public or the

crucial information needs of a well‑functioning

democracy.

The number of companies who control the

media has been shrinking rapidly, leaving power in the

hands of a few corporate media giants. As it is,

monopolies represent 98 percent of all cable TV

markets, and two companies control satellite TV.

Since the 1996 Telecommunications Act deregulated

radio, Clear Channel grew from 43 stations to more

than 1,200 today.

Now, why would the FCC side with the big

media companies? Maybe the influence of the

\$100 million plus that media corporations and their

trade associations spent on lobbying the government in

recent years. Or maybe the influence of the more than

2,500 industry‑sponsored, all‑expense‑paid trips

provided for FCC employees since 1995. (Audience booing.)

So what can be done to serve the public

interest? Great Britain and Canada offer examples.

They have been wary of the dangers that an

advertising‑dependent broadcast system poses on

democracy. They have ‑‑ all right.

MS. DAVIS: Your time is up.

MR. GROSSMAN: All right. Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

At microphone two.

MS. GOODFELLOW: I am Robin Goodfellow.

I came down from Oakland because I believe in

alternative non‑commercial, non‑Republican radio is

vital ‑‑

(Laughter.)

‑‑ to the health of the world. I am also

KD6OAQ, an amateur ham radio operator. Please protect

our amateur frequencies from corporate greed. We

provide disaster communications for fire, police, and

Red Cross when the phones are down. Please don\'t sell

our birthright airwaves to the highest bidder.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you, Robin.

Let me take a minute here for a little bit

of housekeeping. We have to be out of this building

by 11:45. We have a choice. We have other speakers;

I\'m not sure how many, because I can\'t see the number

of people in the hall. But those of you who are

on line, if you would like to have your fellow speakers have an
opportunity, you might think of cutting your time or whatever it is that
would help us get everyone to the microphone. We\'d appreciate it.

Also, I\'m sure you\'d like to hear at least

a comment or two from the Commissioners before you

leave, after saying all these things. I suppose you

do. But if you do not, that\'s fine. We will continue

on until the last minute we can, to allow enough time

for you to clear the building when it\'s ‑‑

UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)

MS. DAVIS: We didn\'t take it away. On your ‑‑

UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)

MS. DAVIS: You haven\'t been cut short. I\'m discussing it with you now.
You have not been cut short. I only want you to know what\'s at stake. I
don\'t know how many people are in the line. Those of you in the line
should know you have 30 more minutes, no matter what. So can we start
with microphone one.

MS. SMITH: Thank you, and ‑‑

UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)

MS. SMITH: ‑‑ thank you for this

opportunity. My name is Margaret Smith. I reside in

Santa Cruz County, and I subscribe to Comcast cable

television. And unlike the previous speakers brought

here by KSBW, I have some serious objections to KSBW.

I find them both racist and classist, and that they

serve their corporate masters well.

My first experience with them was being

one of the thousands of people who were not able to

see "Saturday Night Live" because KSBW did not want Al

Sharpton to have that exposure. So no one who was on

cable television could see "Saturday Night Live" in this whole area of
three counties at least.

I didn\'t ‑‑ I complained to Comcast about

that, and they said, \"No, it\'s not us. They block the

other\" ‑‑ we would have had a chance to see it on

another ‑‑ another NBC channel, had it not been

blocked.

But the next experience made me even more

angry. I found out that they had made an editorial

commending Wal‑mart ‑‑ supporting Wal‑mart coming to

Gilroy, and I wrote to them and I got a response back

basically asking them to allow an opposing point of

view on it. The response back I got basically said,

\"Well, the only people who care about this is labor,\"

meaning, I guess, working people and 95 percent of the

public.

Anyway, they basically considered labor as

totally unimportant.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

(Applause.)

Microphone two.

MR. BALVEY: Hi. My name is Marcello

Balvey. I\'m here to represent NCMU California Media.

We\'re based in San Francisco, and also have offices in

Los Angeles, and in our network we have 700 ‑‑ over

700 ethnic media outlets statewide, and we\'re

expanding nationwide. We basically work to promote

the editorial and economic visibility of ethnic media

in this country.

Just some quick statistics. One out of

every ‑‑ one out of every 11 Americans is foreign born

at this point. People living in this country ‑‑

California, New Mexico, and Hawaii ‑‑ are majority‑

minority states. One out of every four Americans is

an American ‑‑ one out of every four Americans is a

minority at this point, and ethnic media is the

mainstream media in these communities.

Unfortunately, what I feel has happened is

that the huge demographic changes that have happened

in this country in the 1990s have happened too late in

order to be considered when we talk about all of these

issues, when we talk about media deregulation, when we

talk about localism in media, and I think that a

healthy media ecosystem in pretty much any major media

market, any media market really at this point in this

country, has to include ethnic broadcasters.

Otherwise, like we heard again and again

tonight, they\'re not really going to include the

concerns of the community, and they\'re not going to

communicate effectively with the communities the way

they look today.

I think that one way that the FCC can help

address this is by ‑‑ basically, I think it is an

issue of ownership. I think that when the FCC looks

at ownership changes, from now moving forward, I think

they really need to think about what somebody

mentioned before ‑‑ is the entry points.

We have a whole new generation of people

in this country that don\'t have access to media. They

have no way for their voices to be heard, especially

in terms of broadcast media, which has gotten so

prohibitively expensive to access for media

entrepreneurs ever since the deregulations went

through.

So if you could take these concerns into

account, that would be great.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone one.

KENDRA: Good evening. My name

is Kendra. I\'m a resident of Pacific Grove, and I\'m

also the Director for Children\'s Miracle Network.

We\'re a local fund‑raising arm of Salinas Sally

Memorial Hospital, and the funds that we raise help

children\'s health care needs in San Benito, Monterey,

and Santa Cruz counties.

I come here tonight to offer kudos to our

local media, because I think they do a great job for

all of us in the nonprofit sector as well as viewers

and citizens here in this community. For the past 10

years that I\'ve been doing this job, we\'ve been

working with the local television stations and radio

stations in public fund drives for our charity.

And, in fact, in the last 10 years we've

raised nearly a million dollars for children\'s health

care needs through these two types of fund drives.

Our current partners are KSBW on the television side

and K‑WAVE on the radio side. They just provide a

tremendous service to this community.

In fact, this year for television there

was a major news story that broke the afternoon that

we were due to do our telecast, and KSBW had the

option of moving away from the local show to pick up

network programming. They chose not to. They chose

to stick with the local programming, and they aired

that special the next day.

So on behalf of all the charities ‑‑ and

I know that there\'s lots of other issues out there,

but we truly depend on the local media for our

efforts. And because we do so well, then, in our

efforts, we can help so many people in this community.

I do think they do a great job, and, as Mayor Albert

said earlier, perhaps they are unique. But then let

this community serve as a role model for other markets

out there, both large and small.

Thank you.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

(Applause.)

We turn to microphone number two.

MR. CAMPBELL: Good evening,

Commissioners. My name is Bruce Campbell. I\'m with

the Department of Social Services, and I\'m the

Coordinator for the Central Coast Waiting Child

Network. We\'re a bunch of social workers, and we

really didn\'t understand marketing very well, so we

joined with the local media to establish a regional

network for public child welfare agencies and local

media representatives.

The purpose of the Central Coast Waiting

Child Network is to coordinate and consolidate foster

care and adoption recruitment efforts in the tri‑

county area of Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Benito

counties. It links local and statewide recruitment

efforts, sponsors press conferences and recognition

events, and enjoys a broad spectrum of media support.

It has included KION, KCBA, KSMS, and KSBW

television, as well as KFCO, KTOM, KUSP, and KEZU

radio stations, and local print media. These efforts

have been extremely helpful in our recruitment efforts

and have more than doubled the number of Hispanic

foster and adoptive homes in our county.

Through the years, recruitment efforts are

at their peak during sponsored broadcasts which are

always matched with generous portions of donated air

time. In particular, I\'d like to call attention to

KION and KCBA. KION sponsored the "Just for Kids"

program, which was a local waiting child program that

featured local children waiting for adoption. It

helped place some of our most difficult children, and

one 14‑year‑old girl was adopted by a family who

called us within moments of seeing her shown on the

"Just for Kids" program.

When we needed to launch a new campaign

for our Family to Family Initiative, two KION and KCBA

executives spent a full day with us at a planning

retreat. They have served on the Family to Family

Steering Committee, and one has served as the Chair of

the Marketing Committee. They have produced five‑

minute eye‑openers featuring various segments of our

Family to Family program, and we receive an average of

75 minutes per month of broadcasting each month.

So I would just like to thank the local

media for their support of our foster care and

adoption recruitment efforts and this opportunity to

speak to you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone one.

MR. RASMUSSEN: My name is Thor Rasmussen.

I\'m a local resident of Monterey. Thank you for the

opportunity to talk this evening.

For the most part, I support the concept

of the free marketplace. However, monopolies must not

be allowed. The airwaves are a very limited resource

that belong to the people. I am concerned about large

companies like Clear Channel having the ability to

control the majority of broadcasting stations.

In order to allow competition, there

should be a limit to the number of stations that a

single owner can have, say no more than 20 or 25

percent in any given market. The majority of the

stations should be locally owned and operated.

KSCO, AM 1080, in Santa Cruz is a good example of

this, as we heard earlier from Michael Zwerling.

With regard to the subject of advertising,

it appears that the amount of infomercials has been

increasing. While the revenue received by these paid

advertising programs financially helps the stations,

so that they can provide real programming, the amount

of time spent on this kind of advertising should be

limiting ‑‑ limited, and the airing of infomercials

should be restricted, maybe limit the time you can

have it in prime time hours.

While there\'s lots of new technology

coming out, there\'s a couple things that I\'m concerned

about. The FCC should not approve the use of BPL,

broadband internet over power lines technology. BPL

produces interference, which will essentially destroy

the ability of amateur radio operators and emergency

officials to communicate on the shortwave frequencies

in an emergency situation.

Other forms of internet should be utilized

instead of BPL. Also, I believe, as said earlier, ham

frequencies should be protected. Digital AM ‑‑ I

think there\'s a lot of problems with that, with the

regular analog AM. I think that should really be

checked out before approved.

And, finally, I\'d like to say ‑‑ it is off

the subject, but beware of electronic voting. There

is no way ‑‑ no way to have an independent accounting

of the votes through that.

Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone two.

MR. FULLER: Good evening. I\'m George

Fuller. I\'m a radio broadcaster in Monterey County,

and I work in a local radio station. And this station

for ‑‑ it\'ll be nine years in October. It\'s a

locally‑owned radio station with no change in format

for 20 years, and it\'s the only one that has done

that. Everything else here has changed as often I

guess as I change socks.

(Laughter.)

What I want to explain to you is how local

radio is attacked in another way, and that is through

Arbitron. As a broadcaster in the radio station where

I am, the format where I work is what the market is

here. It\'s jazz and blues. And when I contact

clients, major clients, for instance ‑‑ well, these

major grocery store chains, and I have to get in touch

with their people in L.A. about advertising on our

station, then what they say is, \"You\'ve got to make

the ratings.\"

And the ratings go to radio stations that

subscribe to Arbitron that pay \$35,000 a year. We

don\'t have to do that. We don\'t have to subscribe to

ratings. We know what the market is, and we are the

market. But they refuse to do this.

So this is how local radio is attacked

through Arbitron. I think the Federal Communications

Commission should have a word with Arbitron and these

rating services and say, \"Hey, move somebody into the

community, live there a while, find out what\'s going

on,\" because we are what\'s going on.

(Applause.)

And I come from an old school. I hold a

first class license. I have 21 years on the air, and

I\'ve only worked in one format, and that\'s jazz and

blues. I\'ll go nowhere else.

Thank you.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Yes, at microphone one.

MR. WARDWELL: Good evening. My name is

Harry Wardwell. I\'m a community banker from Salinas

and a lifelong resident of Monterey County. And for

over 30 years, I\'ve been heavily involved in our

community.

I\'m currently a Board of Trustees of the

local Salinas Valley Memorial Health Care System,

Director of the California Rodeo, and Executive

Director of the California International Air Show, all

of which are great organizations that have done

tremendous things for our community over the years and

depend on the local media.

And, yes, over the last few years we have

seen a consolidation of electronic media, TV, and

radio stations into large media companies. But

locally, however, I feel in my opinion that it\'s been

transparent. The local managers for the Clear Channel

TV and radio stations, the Hearst‑Argyle stations, are

heavily involved in the community.

They take leadership roles in our

community. They know our community. They\'re involved

in our community. And they are listening to our

community. They are all raising their children here

and know and understand local issues.

I think they are very responsive. I think

they do an excellent job in covering local news. I

think they do an excellent job in covering civic

affairs, education, social issues, community events,

and I think the needs of our community are being

served by even the large media companies serving the

local communities in our Central Coast.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Over at microphone two.

MR. NEVILLE: Eric Neville from Oakland.

I noticed that in the packet that we were given there

were two press releases regarding these meetings. I

just wanted to let you know that, interestingly

enough, I heard absolutely nothing about this on my

local television news broadcast.

(Laughter, followed by applause.)

I regularly watch morning and evening

news, and despite the handful of news vans outside I

literally saw nothing on localism at all, let alone

specifics of when and where this meeting would be,

even though I ‑‑ I receive four stations with evening

and morning news broadcasts.

I think this single fact speaks to just

how poor the service of the community\'s news needs are

being met by the existing situation.

(Applause.)

Furthermore, adding to the comments about

the location of this meeting, and its relative

distance from a major metropolitan center, it seems

that a citizen of this country couldn\'t help but

wonder how much greater public participation would

have been if this meeting had been properly notified

‑‑ pardon me ‑‑ if the public were properly informed

of this hearing and, furthermore, if there were

hearings such as this in a major metropolitan area,

maybe even near a public transportation system.

(Applause.)

Finally, in closing, I just wanted to

mention a particular thing that is a big frustration

to me, and I think a major shame. KCSM, which is

nominally a public television station, has dropped

their analog signal. The only way I found out about

this is because they had a little, you know, thing on

the screen, you know, for a week after they shut off

saying what had gone on.

So anybody who is watching cable or

satellite wouldn\'t know about this. But I think that

this is a travesty of broadcasting in service of a

democracy.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

May I have the Commissioners speak to

that, first, please?

COMMISSIONER COPPS: I just want to say that I was out in Phoenix ‑‑ we
had a hearing like this about a year and a half ago, kind of a
consolidated meeting. We had a good turnout there, 4‑ or 500 people. So
I asked one of the guys in the audience, I said, \"Where did you hear
about this?\" Because there\'s a lot of consolidation in the media here.
He said, \"Oh, I heard about it on the BBC.\"

(Laughter.)

MS. DAVIS: Mr. Heston, yes, go ahead.

MR. HESTON: I apologize that the

gentleman who just spoke is not watching our

television station. But the fact of the matter is we

are very fortunate that about ‑‑ on a regular

circulation, about 190,000 households are. And the

FCC, on the day that it was announced that they were

coming, was on our television station, on all

newscasts, was on our website. In fact, the FCC

called to say, \"Why is our press release on your

website?\"

And Commissioner Adelstein was live last

night for an extended period of time from Washington,

D.C., from our Hearst‑Argyle Washington News Bureau

where our anchor, Dan Green, interviewed him. So I am

incredulous when I hear something like that, but I

invite you to watch and we\'ll try to do even better

for you.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Heston.

(Applause.)

Microphone one.

MR. BURNS: Yeah. I\'m Jim Burns, and I\'m

from Monterey, California. And I really wanted to

thank Commissioner Abernathy for promising to

investigate that KSJO DJ. I mean, it has weighed

heavy on us for these years.

And what happened was June 9th, a month

ago, there was a consent decree that was signed that

fined Clear Channel \$1.75 million dollars, and all of the cases of
indecency that had ever been filed against them were to be wiped clean
from the slate and never used in re-licensing hearings. And here we\'ve
been going for two years with this thing, waiting for the process to
work. And all we need is three

Commissioners, you know, to make this happen.

So we got really worried. That was during

the Reagan funeral when there was a media blackout.

I thought, you know, what\'s really going on? It was

my ‑‑

(Laughter.)

‑‑ thing was going on, you know? But the

thing is that Clear Channel is the largest

broadcaster of indecency in the country. I mean, they

are. And the CEO of Clear Channel is Lowry Mays, and

he built the Presidential Library for George Bush,

Sr. on the Lowry Mays School of Business on the Texas

A&M campus.

And the Vice Chair of Clear Channel is a

man named Tom Hicks. He's Vice Chair. He made the

President a multi-millionaire by buying the Texas

Rangers in 1998.

(Applause.)

Okay? So the largest broadcasters of

indecency in the country are George Bush\'s friends.

(Laughter.)

I mean, quoted over and over in the papers

that they\'re lifelong friends with the Bush family.

So I\'m just going, you know, oh, my God. You know,

George Bush\'s friends wouldn\'t harm us in California.

You know? Not ‑‑ they would play fair, by the rules,

in the stock market, you know? But, I mean, nobody

monopolizes indecency. Right?

So how is the religious right and the

corporate libertarians finding common ground in the

Republican party when the corporate libertarians

believe anything they broadcast to make money?

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone two.

MR. FRISH: Good evening. My name is Bill

Frish. I\'ve been involved with public access TV for

a number of years, both here in Monterey and in New

York. I\'m mad as hell, and I\'m not going to take it

anymore.

(Applause.)

Peter Finch shouted those words out an

open window to the streets below in the movie "Network." After 11 years
as a news anchor, TV news anchor, he began ranting about the true nature
of the media\'s power and its focus on earning bigger profits. It\'s
scary to see that this 1976 Hollywood film has become an example of life
imitating art.

When I moved to this area, I wondered

about the shared resources of local TV stations KCBA

and KION, which is owned by the corporate juggernaut

Clear Channel. The same stories are being shared as

well as the same physical environment. On numerous

occasions, the same news anchor appeared on newscasts

for both of the stations. This is diversity of ideas

in a democracy?

With Clear Channel\'s radio dominance,

recent cross‑country drives have resulted in hearing

homogenous sounds across the 3,000 miles traveled from

coast to coast. This is diversity of ideas in a

democracy?

I also wondered about Clear Channel\'s

decision to ban certain songs from airplay on its

radio stations after the 9/11 attacks. John Lennon\'s

"Imagine" and "Peace Train" by Cat Stevens are idealistic songs that
were tabooed in our war monger and industrial corporate society we have.

(Applause.)

Where was the FCC during this outright

assault on our First Amendment rights ‑‑ were first

heard on other media. This is diversity of ideas in

a democracy?

It is time for the FCC to monitor a return

to the balanced, objective, and fair standards that

were set forth in the fairness doctrine. It\'s time

for a return for more diversity of ideas over the

airwaves that belong to the public. It\'s time to

promote local interest. The communities that you are

supposed to serve are mad as hell. Listen to the

citizens now before the shouting gets too loud.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Microphone one.

MS. NEELAN: Hi. Thank you for staying so

late. I know you\'re tired; so am I. My name is

Kimber Neelan. I\'m an educator by profession, but,

more importantly, for this forum I am a military

family member as well as an ex‑soldier myself.

My husband and I just got back from three

years overseas in Germany. We were in the

Katzerslautern (phonetic) military community, which is

‑‑ you may have heard of Landstuhl Hospital where they

bring the wounded soldiers.

I would drive home every evening from my

job in the Department of Defense Schools, and the only

thing that I could hear between the hours of 1600 and

1800 ‑‑ or 2000 were ‑‑ well, 1600 ASM Evening News

Watch, which was basically a mouthpiece for the Bush

administration, Sports Byline, Rush Limbaugh at 1800,

Dr. Laura Schlessinger at 1900, 1945 was Paul Harvey

news and commentary.

(Laughter.)

And finally, around 8:00 when I was

getting ready for bed, making dinner, eating my

dinner, I heard something that was a little more to my

ideology ‑‑ NPR Talk to the Nation. But it was only

on for ‑‑

(Applause.)

‑‑ a few hours, and they would often talk

‑‑ cut the broadcast in the middle of a show or an

interview.

I was very heartened to read in *The Army*

*Times* this week that there is language in the 2005

Defense Authorization Bill ordering Armed Forces Radio

and Television Service to provide politically balanced

commentary.

(Applause.)

However, of course, there is a

representative ‑‑ Sam Johnson ‑‑ a Republican from

Texas, is fighting that, saying that he is not worried

about having an ideological balance, that it\'s more

important that military members overseas be afforded

to ‑‑ be afforded the opportunity to listen to the

same programs that they can listen to here.

That\'s a concern ‑‑

(Applause.)

‑‑ from my ‑‑

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone two.

MR. SHANKS: Good evening. Thank you very

much for staying so late. My name is Pete Shanks. I

represent the local Santa Cruz/Monterey chapter of the

National Writers Union. We passed a resolution which

I\'ve given to the staff outside, and I hope you\'ll

read it. I won\'t take up your time by reading it out.

It\'s in favor of localism and diversity of expression.

I thought I\'d point out a couple of other

things, though. I said the local Santa Cruz/Monterey

chapter. I\'m also actually speaking for the San Diego

chapter, the Los Angeles chapter, the San Francisco

chapter, San Francisco Bay area, the Seattle chapter,

the Oregon chapter, the New Mexico chapter.

My point is: this is one meeting for the

entire western states, which is an enormous area.

(Applause.)

Which has very, very varied communities

with different issues, different takes. I suspect

you\'ll hear the same message, because the message I\'ve

been hearing all night is basically we all want local,

diverse media ownership.

(Applause.)

There are a number of charitable

organizations saying thank you to people who have done

nice things for them, and that\'s fine. That\'s really

polite. But I\'m not sure they wouldn\'t want more

local, diverse ownership, too.

(Applause.)

That\'s what we\'re calling for. You\'re

getting a really consistent message here. Please take

you ‑‑ take these meetings further around the country.

I think you\'ll get the same message. And please take

that back to D.C. and craft new rules that will

implement this message.

Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone one.

MR. VARGAS: Hello. My name is Carlos

Vargas, and I am a Program Coordinator for Barrios

Unidas (phonetic), a gang intervention prevention

counseling agency in eastside Salinas, California.

Tonight, I\'m a messenger for the youth of eastside

Salinas.

The message I deliver this evening is one

of gang violence, drug addiction, illiteracy, pregnant

kids, overpopulation, and, in some cases, death. In

a community where these issues dominate our children,

we, as a community, need to find common ground and

search for the answers within.

That\'s when I had an idea. Why not apply

for a low‑powered radio station? Why not let the youth of the community
talk about the problems that are affecting them directly?

(Applause.)

What a positive impact to let young people

address young people through radio airwaves. What a

positive thing to have youth run and operate the radio

station. What a positive impact if you let the youth

facilitate discussions, because kids will influence

kids. Me, as a 37‑year‑old, it\'s hard to reach

sometimes ‑‑ it\'s very difficult to reach a 16‑year‑

old. But a 16‑year‑old has a better chance of

reaching a 16‑year‑old.

You go to almost any home in eastside

Salinas and you will hear a radio being played, but it

is not the radio our youths can truly call their own,

or radio that truly addresses their needs. If our

local radio giants want to continue to market to our

youth, instead of interacting with them, be my guest.

The time has come for us as a local

community to provide a forum for communication,

understanding, and discussion for our kids and our

community as a whole. So I am here this evening ‑‑

(Applause.)

‑‑ asking for a low‑power radio station

license, so I can do this.

(Applause.)

I\'ve heard all the reasons why I can\'t do

it. But I am here to explain why I need it.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you very much.

At microphone two.

MR. LEVY: Hi. My name is Sidney Levy.

I\'m from San Francisco. I am an immigrant, a human

rights activist, and a media democracy activist. I

was one of the coordinators of the hearing in San

Francisco on media ownership attended in the spring of

last year by Commissioner Adelstein.

This was one of 13 regional hearings the

communities put together, not the FCC. That was last

year. That day in San Francisco we had over 650

people come giving over seven hours of public comment,

representing every region, every color, every age,

every opinion, in the larger Bay Area. This was an

unprecedented civic event in our community.

KORM TV, which is unaffiliated, covered

the event. KPSA and (inaudible) radio, which are

independent, broadcasted it live. We asked the

commercial TV stations to come not only to cover it

but to be in the panel. We got no for an answer. The

local ABC, no; local CBS, zero; local NBC, zip; local

folks, zilch.

(Applause.)

We asked them to cover it, not only to be

on the panel. Nothing. All we got from them was

rumors from people that worked inside that said that

from high above they were told not to touch the issue.

I\'m asking you why. Why wouldn\'t they touch the

issue? Maybe because commercial media has an interest

on not touching the issue, because they were talking

about themselves, about media ownership, about media

monopoly, about media (inaudible).

We didn\'t get it. What kind of democracy

can we fashion when the airwaves are supposed to be

known to the public? We have all of the commercial

stations in the Bay Area ‑‑ not one came.

I\'m not saying it is sour grapes.

I\'ll be very brief. This is not a charity. I\'m not

talking about like a children\'s charity. I\'m talking

about an issue that is as important, but it is a

little bit more controversial, and it\'s vital for a

democracy.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

At podium one.

MR. HEARST: A different perspective, I

believe, from what I\'ve heard. My name is Howell

Hearst. I am a graduate of the Defense Language

Institute. I\'m a former Captain of United States Army

Intelligence. I\'m a longtime marketing consultant and

a published freelance writer of 30 years.

Being allowed only two minutes to speak,

I cannot present a substantive statement. Your rule

effectively blocks this. Some of us in America have

developed a suspicion, which we state neither as

opinion nor fact, that it is possible, at least

conceptually, that some of our Presidents, Senators,

Representatives, and federal civil servants could be

construed to have been or to be in financial, or at

least in philosophical, collusion ‑‑

(Laughter.)

‑‑ with the highest multi-national American corporate interests a major
portion of whose holdings are the military industrial complex, the oil
industry, and the controlling media of the country.

(Applause.)

Our media, which legally belongs to us,

the citizens of the United States. This suspicion

indicates only our frame of mind as we observe

American corporate presidents taking multi-million

dollar salaries while financing most political

campaigns, whether Democrat or Republican, while

exporting our jobs out of the country, while massively

profiting from various worldwide wars, while

controlling the mining, manufacturing, distribution,

wholesale, and retail sales in advertising of nearly

all products and services sold to us on their ‑‑

pardon me ‑‑ our media.

Last paragraph. Should proof of such

suspicions ‑‑ listen. Listen closely. Should proof

of such suspicions be unearthed, we citizens, as the

sole legal source of legitimate government authority,

have a sacred obligation to deal with such

constitutional violations of contract between our

government and ourselves. When it is clear we are

being taken for fools, we arise, we organize, and we

fight for what is legally ours and ‑‑

MS. DAVIS: That was your last paragraph, you said.

MR. HEARST: And we ‑‑

MS. DAVIS: That, you said ‑‑

MR. HEARST: ‑‑ we ‑‑

MS. DAVIS: ‑‑ was your last

paragraph.

MR. HEARST: And we always win.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

MR. HEARST: We are here to remind you of

this.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you very much.

MR. HEARST: I\'m finishing.

MS. DAVIS: Okay. All right. Okay. Your last sentence?

MR. HEARST: Listen to the words. You

work for us on the panel. We ‑‑ you do not work for

the corporations. If you do not bring this insidious

media monopoly under control, we American citizens

will find a way to bring it under control.

Edward R. Murrow said a citizen of a

republic ‑‑

MS. DAVIS: You\'re not good for your word. Okay. Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

Microphone two.

MR. KENNEDY: I just have to ask: how

many of us are wondering who can type that fast up

there?

(Laughter.)

My goodness.

Good evening. My name is Mark Kennedy. I

was born and raised here in this beautiful area. I am

the father of three very influential young boys under

the age of 10, and in the last couple of years I\'ve

had the opportunity to give back to this community and

serve on some boards. Most notably, I am serving on

the National Steinbeck Center, the YMCA, and the

American Cancer Society Relay for Life.

What I want to take issue with tonight is

there seems to be this notion that local management of

our media are a bunch of corporate robots, and I don\'t

think that\'s the case. You know, there are

individuals in this room that serve our community, and

they do a great job.

On these boards, what I find is that they

very seldom say no. They usually are saying, \"What

else can we do to help?\" Most of the time they seem

just completely consumed with their jobs in the local

issues that are going on and are finding ways to help

out. I think the thing that\'s most notable is the

time that they give. They\'re not only members of the

community, but they\'re serving on all the boards.

On all the boards that I have served on in

the last three years, there has always been a

representative of local media, whether it be radio or

TV. They\'re giving up their time, not just because

they have to.

So those are my brief comments. I just

want to say that I don\'t believe they are corporate

robots. They're people that are here to serve. And,

yes, there is corporate management out there, but I

don\'t ever hear them say to me, \"I\'d better check with

corporate on that one.\" I don\'t get that.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Okay. A warning. We are down to 10 minutes for those on line
who have friends they want to share their time with. Microphone one.

MR. CARVEY: Great. Thank you. My name

is Tom Carvey. Good evening, Commissioners. I am the

Executive Director of Common Ground, Monterey County,

and a 40‑year resident of Monterey County myself,

raised four children here, and lived for 10 years in

Big Sur of all places ‑‑ no power, no electricity, no

TV, and it was beautiful.

(Laughter.)

Well, welcome to the big world, and Common

Ground, Monterey County, is a group composed of

some labor folks, affordable housing advocates, AG business people,
educators, hospitality, minority groups and we advocate for issues such
as affordable housing, land use policies that are approaching sanity so
that the 12% of people that can buy homes here in Monterey County
currently may be increased to a greater proportion, maybe 15%, maybe
more. These are controversial issues here in Monterey County. And we\'re
very thankful for some of our local radio stations who have given us
time ‑‑ ample time ‑‑ to discuss issues with the community, issues that
are controversial.

And I have been very fortunate. For 15

minutes every Monday morning, at 8:30 on Radio KION,

AM 1460, Common Ground has been able to bring in a

guest, an expert from the community ‑‑ could be the

Superintendent of Schools, could be the Mayor of

Salinas, it could be an expert on water. And we\'ve

been able to discuss issues such as affordable

housing, which in our county of Monterey is a very

controversial topic.

We have been able to discuss that, not

only to discuss it and have back and forth dialogue

about this controversial topic, but to receive call‑in

telephone calls from people around the county, all the

way from Santa Cruz to San Ardo, calling in and

wanting to express their opinions, and wanting to tell

us what they think about issues such as affordable

housing, education, the environment, health care,

citizenship, water supply, agricultural viability.

We\'ve been able to do this in Spanish also

on the sister station, La Pressioso 100.7, and it has

been a great opportunity. We\'re thankful for our

local radio stations.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Microphone two.

MS. CAMERON: Hello. Good evening,

Commissioners. And thank you so much for sticking out

this late. My name is Laura Cameron. I\'m also with

the National Writers Union. I\'m on the Steering

Committee of the local chapter. I also serve as a

national trustee. I live here in Seaside, and I edit

*Monterey Magazine*.

When I lived in Britain for 16 years, I

didn\'t watch a lot of television, because you had to

pay for it. And when I came back to the U.S., I

didn\'t watch a lot of television because it was awful.

So I survive on the BBC and NPR, and I\'m very, very

grateful for them.

(Applause.)

I\'d like to address the idea of freedom of

thought, by which I mean the independent thinking I

would love to see the FCC demonstrate in these

matters. I suppose given the political leadership who

appointed this particular Commission, I shouldn\'t be

surprised that some of the decisions we\'ve heard about

reflect what I would call bias, and bias towards big

business and big media.

I am here to urge the Commissioners to act

in the ideal mode of the Supreme Court, and place

themselves beyond efforts to sway their decisions,

whether financially or by cronyism or political

pressure. I urge you to remember who you serve ‑‑ the

people.

The vast majority of us don\'t live

anywhere near New York City or Los Angeles, the big

acknowledged media centers. Locally owned, locally

programmed radio and television are essential to

serving and informing the American people. Maybe

someone who appoints people doesn\'t want us to be that

informed. I don\'t like to think that, but ‑‑

(Laughter.)

‑‑ we deserve better than biased, ignorant

reporting, bias towards big business, and ignorance of

our local issues.

(Applause.)

We really deserve better than that.

(Applause.)

As a writer, as a consumer of media, and

as a taxpayer, I urge the FCC to encourage local media

in every way you can and discourage media monopoly

wherever it rears its head.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

Okay. Microphone one.

UNIDENTIFIED OPEN MIC PARTICIPANT: Okay. Good morning, and welcome to
the Monterey Peninsula, where citizens must be able to receive signals
from PBS, Pacifica, a few NPR station programs, and BBC in order to get
firsthand information from investigative reporters on issues and actions
vital to our survival.

I speak of such crucial concerns as access

to health care, affordable housing, care of the

homeless, care of the elderly, the state of the

physical and political infrastructure, changes in

educational procedures, protection of the environment,

our civil rights, i.e., what is being done in our name

with our tax dollars, our national resources, and our

very lives. We only get sound bites locally, if we get them.

We implore you to take extra care in

protecting these valuable resources, so that we truly

have access to immediate news, alternatives to the

limited party lines. We can make our own decisions as

to what is good for us and our world, only if we are

allowed access to all sides of issues ‑‑ indeed,

access to the issues themselves.

Thank you for your consideration.

(Applause.)

MS. DAVIS: Thank you.

And I would like to say thank you for

passionate, spirited, intellectually sound, most times, comments.

(Laughter.)

Tonight has been fun, and I hope you get

get the joke at the end. Everyone who spoke tonight

obviously has deep feelings or you wouldn\'t be here

at nearly midnight. But most of all, I want to thank

the Commissioners who have sat here ‑‑

(Applause.)

‑‑ listened, taken notes, heard you.

(Applause.)

There are two minutes left before they

march us out of this building. I don\'t know if

anybody on the panel has a comment, but I\'m certainly

going to turn it back to the Chair for that word.

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Commissioner Copps, do you have some closing
words?

COMMISSIONER COPPS: I just want to thank

everybody for their heartfelt input for the facts, for

the data, for the new things we learned. I agree with

these calls for more hearings. Commissioner Adelstein

and I have specifically asked Chairman Powell to hold

a series of Commission meetings around the country on

ownership, specifically on ownership, as we plunge

into rewriting the rules, and we\'re looking at the

rules that the court sent to us. I hope we\'ll be back

out here.

We also urge, though, community activists

to hold their own hearings and groups to hold their

own hearings. We can do a few. If Chairman Powell is

reluctant to have full Commission meetings, I think

others of us will hit the road ourselves and do them

like we did last year.

But I would also urge communities around

the country to hold their own hearings. And speaking

for myself, I\'ll be at as many of them as I can

possibly be at and I would encourage people to do that.

Thank you again for your hospitality and

for your input.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: Thank you, Commissioner Copps. Commissioner
Adelstein?

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN: Just real quick

before we get booted out of here. I think that we

heard a lot of eloquence tonight from the people of

California. I\'m used to that, because I heard it when

I was here in San Francisco a while back. But I found

that I think people are even more educated than they

were last year. They are even more articulate,

incredibly clear, incredibly thoughtful, and very

concise, I might add.

But there is a clear message we\'re going

to take back. I mean, we really heard it loud and

clear. I don\'t think that you\'re going to let us get

away with this again.

(Laughter, followed by applause.)

And we\'re ready to go on the road. I\'m

ready to hear from all of the different communities

here in California, large and small, and all across

the country. We\'ll go to as many as we can. We can\'t

go to as many as we should, because there just is not

enough time. But we will go everywhere we can, and we

will hear this message and whatever other messages

people have to deliver. And we will take it back and

really try to integrate this into the rules.

So thank you so much for your eloquence

and for taking the time to share with us your views.

It\'s your airwaves.

(Applause.)

COMMISSIONER ABERNATHY: And, in closing,

I just want to say thanks to everyone for sticking

with us tonight, for educating us, for providing me

with new information about what we should be looking

at, what we should be thinking about when it comes to

localism, for giving respect to your fellow speakers,

whether you agreed or disagreed with them. That, I

think, reflects what is best about who we are as

Americans.

And we and I will continue to work on

these issues. As I said, I don\'t think anyone has a

monopoly on the truth. I need to keep learning and

listening, and that\'s what we\'ll keep doing.

So thank you very much.

This meeting is adjourned.

(Whereupon, the proceedings in the

foregoing matter were adjourned.)

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