License challenge puts spotlight on scant election coverage
Via OPB comes word that an Oregon watchdog group is challenging the broadcast licenses of 8 Portland television stations, saying that political coverage is so scant that the stations are not acting in the public interest. From a PDF file of a press release from the Money in Politics Research Action Project:
On the other hand, if people in Portland think the television stations do a rotten job with covering Oregon politics, imagine what it's like north of the river. It used to be a long-running joke in Clark County that the only way for a Washington campaign to get on Portland television was to get in a high speed chase or something.
During the recent windstorm, a Portland television reporter was briefly trapped in her news van by fallen power lines somewhere in Clark County. They put her on the air via cell phone shortly after she was freed, and she couldn't even describe where in Clark County she was. It was pathetic, and while the reporter can be forgiven for being shaken, it was obvious she didn't have a clue about our community.
(By the way, one of the reasons TV stations do so much crime reporting is that it's easy, cheap, and almost any reporter can do it. You don't have to be a veteran).
It's worth understanding that there are historical reasons why Portland and Vancouver tended to have somewhat separate media. While the situation seems odd compared to many other metro areas in the country, Portland and Vancouver were once two fairly distinct cities. With suburbanization and massive population growth, it's basically one big city now.
Vancouver used to have its own radio station, and a lot of the radio stations in Portland claim to be serving "Portland-Vancouver-Salem," which is laughable. But when it comes to television, Portland has always had a monopoly and the powers that be in Clark County have made sure that public access cable never gets adequate funding to actually produce local content.
So it's good to see someone trying to hold the Portland stations accountable. As MiPRAP points out:
If the stations are smart they will start to mend their ways, and it wouldn't hurt to temporarily base some reporters in Clark County once every two years. (And no, setting up a feed at The Columbian, like KATU, does not count. The Columbian already has a virtual media monopoly as it is.)
Hopefully the challenge to these stations' license renewals will send a wake-up call through the industry.
Portland broadcast television stations, with little election coverage and even fewer issue- oriented campaign stories on locally produced news programs, fail to meet the public interest test required to justify a renewal of their Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted licenses.Naturally, the broadcasters are having none of it. From the OPB story:
“Voters are not served by broadcast TV news programs that provide little or no coverage of political campaigns,” said Janice Thompson, executive director of the Money in Politics Research Action Project (MiPRAP). “This trend is in stark contrast to the dollars earned by TV stations on political advertising and is why we have filed a license renewal challenge with the FCC.”
MiPRAP, in cooperation with the Oregon Alliance to Reform Media, the Campaign Legal Center, and the Media Access Project has filed a petition with FCC to deny the licenses of all the Portland commercial broadcast TV stations because of a market wide failure to provide voters with information needed to make educated decisions on issues and candidates on their ballots. Broadcast television stations use public airwaves without paying any fees for the FCC-issues licenses in exchange for serving the “public interest, convenience, and necessity.” Licenses renewals occur every 8 years, which means that the next opportunity to object on these public interest grounds will be in 2014.
The stations reject Thompson's claims. "Hogwash" was the reaction from Bill Johnstone, president of the Oregon Association of Broadcasters. He says Portland stations actively cover election news. In Johnstone's words, "If it's newsworthy it's covered."Hard to argue with that. If it's been stabbed, shot, run over, run into or had various foul crimes committed upon it, it's certainly covered.
On the other hand, if people in Portland think the television stations do a rotten job with covering Oregon politics, imagine what it's like north of the river. It used to be a long-running joke in Clark County that the only way for a Washington campaign to get on Portland television was to get in a high speed chase or something.
During the recent windstorm, a Portland television reporter was briefly trapped in her news van by fallen power lines somewhere in Clark County. They put her on the air via cell phone shortly after she was freed, and she couldn't even describe where in Clark County she was. It was pathetic, and while the reporter can be forgiven for being shaken, it was obvious she didn't have a clue about our community.
(By the way, one of the reasons TV stations do so much crime reporting is that it's easy, cheap, and almost any reporter can do it. You don't have to be a veteran).
It's worth understanding that there are historical reasons why Portland and Vancouver tended to have somewhat separate media. While the situation seems odd compared to many other metro areas in the country, Portland and Vancouver were once two fairly distinct cities. With suburbanization and massive population growth, it's basically one big city now.
Vancouver used to have its own radio station, and a lot of the radio stations in Portland claim to be serving "Portland-Vancouver-Salem," which is laughable. But when it comes to television, Portland has always had a monopoly and the powers that be in Clark County have made sure that public access cable never gets adequate funding to actually produce local content.
So it's good to see someone trying to hold the Portland stations accountable. As MiPRAP points out:
Portland broadcast TV stations aired 41,072 political ads from January 1 through the November 2004 general election at a cost of almost $27 million ($26,847,634). During the non-presidential election year in 2002, $9 million was spent on political advertising from January 1 through the general election that November. This data is from the Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG) compiled by the Alliance for Better Campaigns (now the media program at the Campaign Legal Center).The local stations make a killing on politics and then fail to provide the public with much decent political reporting at all. That needs to change. I can't imagine the current FCC doing anything about it, but hey, there's another election in two years.
If the stations are smart they will start to mend their ways, and it wouldn't hurt to temporarily base some reporters in Clark County once every two years. (And no, setting up a feed at The Columbian, like KATU, does not count. The Columbian already has a virtual media monopoly as it is.)
Hopefully the challenge to these stations' license renewals will send a wake-up call through the industry.
