FCC Media Ownership Hearing, Chicago to host September 20

Per the Chicago Media Actionwebsite     http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/

Chicago, Illinois  to host FCC Media Ownership Hearing, September 20

Back in 2002 and 2003, the FCC was trying to ram through a series of controversial media ownership rules (and by "controversial" I refer to a subtle division between "those who stood to gain financially by the decision" versus "everyone else who ever lived"). CMA, back in the day, got very quickly involved -- among the very first groups in America to work on the issue, spreading the word on the issue as a key to stopping the rules before they got passed.

What's key to the entire saga is that grassroots activism helped to fuel widespread outrage at a time when NOBODY else did or even knew. This was indirectly acknowledged by the judges in Philadelphia who heard an emergency court order on the day the controversial rules were slated to go into effect; the court granted an emergency stay precisely because a million people spoke up about the issue. Well, how did a million people know about the issue when the major media wasn't breathing nary a word and the FCC was even actively shredding its own research?

When the FCC lost the ensuing court battle, the FCC was forced to press the reset button on the issue, and thus the FCC promised at least six public hearings on the matter across the country. There had been speculation for months (going back as far as January 2007, in fact) that the FCC would be holding one of its hearing in Chicago -- and we found out this week that on September 20, 2007, that will indeed be the case.

The recipe for victory remains the same: Get involved. Spread the word. Come to the hearing to give your Two Minutes' Hate. Stay tuned for further bulletins. And let us know if you have any questions.

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