You can pick up a copy of the largest weekly paper in Plant City, drive into Tampa while checking the I-4 traffic conditions on TBO.com on your Treo, stop at a convenience store for a Tampa Tribune, peruse a free copy of the Spanish-language weekly Centro Mi Diario and get home in time for the 5:30 p.m. broadcast of Newschannel 8 — all without ever leaving the warm newsy embrace of the Media General empire.
That's because the Richmond, Va.-based media giant owns many of Tampa Bay's most popular sources of news and information.
How powerful is that?
"If media is the town square," said Brad Ashwell, the director of the Florida Public Interest Research Group, "that company owns the town square."
Media General has an advantage that most other media companies don't: Its common ownership of a newspaper and TV station in the same city is grandfathered, exempt from a 1975 rule prohibiting such cross-ownership.
But that rule could soon be history.
Four years after an unsuccessful attempt by the then-Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael (son of Colin) Powell to allow more media consolidation (it was blocked in the courts), all five current FCC commissioners — two Democrats and three Republicans — are coming to Tampa Bay on Monday for a seven-hour public hearing that could pave the way for the change. Current rules limit the number of radio or TV stations any one company can own and bar media giants from owning a newspaper and TV station in the same market.
What's at stake?
"The future of the American media is at stake," said FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, a Democrat. "The decisions we make could shape the media for generations to come. Any mistakes could be virtually irrevocable. Once the toothpaste is outside the tube, you can't put it back in."
What's at stake?
"Just democracy, that's all," said Louise Thompson, executive director of Speak Up Tampa Bay, the nonprofit that operates Hillsborough County's public access cable TV station. "Just a little thing."
What's at stake?
Billions of dollars in potential corporate profits.
It is perhaps the most passionate grassroots political movement in America today, and chances are you have never heard of it. But on a recent Monday afternoon, free media advocates gathered on a conference call to plan how to turn out a large crowd for the Tampa FCC public hearing, the fourth of only six official hearings being held in cities across the U.S. Audience members will be allowed to give two-minute comments after panels of experts testify.
The movement to stop Big Media is a veritable Who's Who of activist groups, many of them left-leaning (although the issue doesn't break down neatly along partisan lines): Florida PIRG. Speak Up Tampa Bay. Labor unions. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition. Common Cause. Free Press. Consumers Union. The League of Women Voters. Media & Democracy Coalition.
"This is one of the most important citizen action campaigns going on in the country," said the other Democratic FCC Commissioner, Michael Copps, "and it gets no coverage from the big media because it's their ox being gored."
Big Media argues — and finds a generally receptive audience with a majority of FCC commissioners, the three Republican appointees — that the media landscape is changing with the advent of the digital age, giving consumers innumerable new choices for their news and public affairs. The old rules, they insist, limit the flow of information and stifle innovation. Having a monopoly on information is simply impossible these days, they say.
This fight has been going on since 2003, when Michael Powell, a Bush appointee, tried to change ownership rules with very little public input. The current FCC chairman, Kevin Martin, a member of the Bush-Cheney transition team in 2000, has worked smarter — and that has free press advocates worried. Martin ordered numerous studies and public hearings to take input and has yet to announce how he will change the media ownership rules. He has publicly talked about "moving communications into the 21st century" while trying to reassure the public that "the Commission has three core goals that our rules are intended to further: competition, diversity and localism."
At each of the three previous hearings, hundreds of speakers lambasted the commission for even considering relaxing rules further, arguing against the homogenization, standardization and "race to the bottom" in modern television and radio news.
The October 2006 kickoff hearing was in Los Angeles, for instance, drew 1,000 people, including luminaries such as film director Taylor Hackford, television producer Stephen Cannell and R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills.
"Ten years ago, Congress passed the 1996 Telecommunications Act, opening the floodgates of almost unlimited consolidation in the radio industry," Mills testified in L.A. "On this important 10-year anniversary, we should all ask the question, 'Is American radio better than it was 10 years ago?' The answer, in my estimation, is an emphatic 'No.'"
"Playlists have been corporatized, nationalized and sanitized," Mills continued. "Airplay for local and new artists is a virtual impossibility."
The bassist said without locally owned radio stations, R.E.M. would not have made it. "We grew organically through word of mouth, local buzz and incessant touring," he said. "A journey like ours would be virtually impossible in today's era of consolidated radio conglomerates and concentrated mega-labels."
The singer Babyface's story was more dire. Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds' ex-wife, Tracey, recounted how the R&B artist and producer Russell Simmons put together an all-star effort to get out the vote with a recording of "Wake Up Everybody" during the 2004 elections, according to an account published by Reclaim the Media, another group fighting media consolidation. The song, which featured Mary J. Blige, Wyclef Jean and Missy Elliott among others, was ignored by Clear Channel radio, Mrs. Edmonds testified, because the company's owner was a Friend of Bush and feared the tune could produce votes for John Kerry.
That kind of direct intervention in suppressing content is rare. The more insidious affect of media consolidation is the loss of local news. A 2004 report by two FCC economists that studied broadcast media estimated that local ownership of a station yields almost 5.5 minutes of local news and more than three additional minutes of local on-location news, where a reporter is actually on the scene of a news event.
The economists' study was spiked by the FCC and hidden away for three years. The researchers said "no plausible explanation" for burying the report was given but believed it was because their conclusion ran contrary to FCC and broadcast industry desires for more deregulation. The report came to light in January after an Associated Press reporter found out about it. Current FCC Chairman Martin has since had the agency post all eight drafts of the study on its website.
The FCC is coming to Tampa, for the most part, because of Media General's convergence project, which has merged (to varying degrees) the operations of Newschannel 8, the Tribune and the website TBO.
Unlike other convergence experiments in the nation, Media General constructed a new building to house all three media and combined assignment desks and sports reporting operations.
For 13 years, Trib religion reporter Michelle Bearden has not only filed stories for print but spent part of her week in front of a video camera, taping her Friday evening "Keeping the Faith" segment.
Without convergence, Bearden insisted, stories about faith and religion would not be showing up on the airwaves of a major commercial broadcast station.
"There are so many stories in the faith-based world that are good, the kinds of stories that you don't see on TV any more, and to take [a TV reporter] aside and say go out and cover this interesting story that is not about murder or mayhem, it just doesn't happen," she said.
The newspaper benefits as well, Bearden added. "A lot of people call me and say they saw me on Channel 8 and here's a story idea. I would not want to do television singularly, but I feel like there's a lot more clout" now as a print reporter with a broadcast presence.
Tribune Executive Editor Janet Coats is likewise sold on convergence. As an editor at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, she led a converged newsroom that printed the newspaper and operated a cable news outlet, Six News Now, or SNN.
She cites numerous examples where all three media platforms — print, broadcast and online — have teamed up to give consumers information in ways that were unimaginable only five years ago. When tornadoes ripped through Central Florida, interactive graphics showed just where, and the Eagle 8 helicopter gave Tribune photographers an aerial view that other print journalists didn't have.
"I think that the question that used to get put to me in Sarasota and Tampa is, 'Does this really make newspapers better and television better?'" Coats said. "Yes, to some degree, but there are some trade-offs. The real gain is what it creates for us in the digital world. When you look at what convergence has done for us in this newsroom, it has made us much better able to play in a digital world."
One trade-off comes because of the inherent conflict present in trying to write about a TV station that your employer owns, a reality that complicates Trib media reporter Walt Belcher's job. He acknowledged writing fewer critical stories about other stations' gaffes or mistakes because of his relationship with Newschannel 8, not wanting to appear like he is nitpicking the competitors. He said he has also noticed that the other stations seem less forthcoming with information that he used to get routinely from them, he believes because they fear tipping off a competitor about their plans. He doesn't confer with the sister station on stories, but the Newschannel 8 editors do have daily access to find out what Belcher is writing before it is printed.
Convergence didn't save the Trib from having to lay off 70 employees, including six in the newsroom, two weeks ago. But Coats said convergence didn't cause the deep cuts; in fact, she argued that convergence allowed the Tribune to hang onto its staffing levels longer than many other newspapers in the country that are laying off hundreds of journalists, production workers and other employees.
Former Tribune reporter and editor Suzie Siegel is critical of convergence's impact on in-depth reporting, especially in her specialty field of diversity.
"Before I left, the Trib had become increasingly interested in graphics and images to the extent that some not-so-good stories got more prominent display, simply because the photos were better," Siegel said. "Convergence with WFLA has made images even more important. But this is a national trend."
Some reporters, especially old print die-hards, remain skeptical of the kind of additional duties and cross-training that convergence requires. And some TV reporters resent giving up their extremely limited airtime to the scribes.
"Airtime for local TV news staff is very precious, and the jobs pay well," said one Tribune journalist who requested anonymity because of concerns over the recent layoffs. "So I doubt there's much enthusiasm among the broadcast journalists for letting low-paid scribblers grab coveted screen minutes — and maybe do well enough to replace a few expensive prima donnas. On the other end, I know lots of reporters who have absolutely no interest in being on camera and resent the possibility they might have to."
Eric Klinenberg, a New York University sociologist and nationally known media critic, said he heard similar sentiments when he spent time in the Tribune newsroom researching his 2007 book, Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America's Media. He called Media General's Tampa NewsCenter the "world's most sophisticated convergence news operation," but added that most of the benefit of convergence seemed to flow in one direction: away from the newspaper.
"They have done some very creative things to further multimedia operations," Klinenberg said. "The innovations helped improve the broadcast and the Internet, but did not necessarily improve the daily newspaper. The reporters I shadowed worried that they were being pulled off the beat to do a television appearance or a graphic. Many people I spoke with were worried about the future of journalism."
Perhaps the scariest specter of media consolidation is the possible loss of diverse voices and ownership in Tampa Bay media. Already, national studies show the disparity: 33 percent of the nation are minorities, yet just 3 percent of the major broadcast TV stations are owned by minorities. Just over half of the population is female; yet women own only 5 percent of the stations.
For existing minority-owned media, the battlefield isn't the content war; it is fought in the back office and on the bottom line. Several minority-owned stations and publications in Tampa Bay say they are having trouble competing with the conglomerates that can offer advertisers multiple stations and newspapers.
"Papers like mine are an endangered species, even with the current trends," let alone the possibility of more media consolidation, said Patrick Manteiga, owner and editor of the 85-year-old trilingual weekly La Gaceta newspaper. His political column regularly beats the dailies on local stories, the result of three generations of editors who worked the beat like few others in Florida. But when he sells ads, he is up against a Media General machine that can offer advertisers all kinds of English-language placements, plus Hispanic media as a bonus.
"It puts me at an inherent disadvantage," Manteiga said.
Latino newspapers aren't alone in being impacted.
"We are feeling that pressure right now, since CBS [which owns several radio stations in the market] turned 92.5 into Spanish," said Marc Vila, vice president and general manager of WQBN 1150 AM, "La Super Q," a 100 percent-Hispanic-owned station headquartered in Tampa. "When a multiple-station owner in the market goes out to a client, let's say Ferman Auto, and they sit down with the Ferman marketing people and say we've got stations a, b, c and d, if you give us 80 percent of the budget, then we can give you a deal on the Hispanic market."
Throw in exclusive marketing deals that also shut out smaller media, and you not only hurt the bottom line but keep locally owned stations from having a higher profile in the community. Size = power, Vila said, pointing out that Media General's Spanish-language Centro newspaper has Budweiser ads, revenue that doesn't show up in the other Hispanic print publications.
Dr. Glenn Cherry, the president and CEO of the African-American-owned WTMP AM and FM stations in Tampa Bay, echoes those concerns. Big Media hasn't yet gone head-to-head with black media in Tampa Bay, but the FCC hasn't made it easy for Cherry to grow his small empire, either. He hopes to testify at Monday's hearing but admits that he's quite cynical about the process.
"I'm a little jaded by the system at this point," Cherry said. "You just wonder if you are going through the motions for something they are going to do anyway because Big Business wants it done."
Ben Eason, the owner and CEO of Creative Loafing, is also leery of Big Media's urge to converge.
"It's crazy to let them do that," he says, having seen the near-monopoly that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution holds with its broadcast partnerships in that city. Eason saw that paper's corporate attitude firsthand during a period of time that the AJC's owner, Cox Enterprises, was an investor in Creative Loafing. "It's sick," he said. "There's no way anybody's going to get another voice into that market. Maybe small ones, but no big booming voice."
Still, even the smaller papers are consolidating and converging to some degree. Cherry's company operates a weekly newspaper. Creative Loafing owns alternative weeklies in four markets and interactive websites in all of them as well. The Tampa newspaper has a marketing deal with Tampa Bay's 10 TV station to appear once a week on its Studio 10 show to discuss stories in each week's issue, as well as with Tampa Digital Studio for the production of multimedia offerings. Video and audio segments dot the CL website.
It is that kind of new media emergence, especially online, that Big Media cites in pushing for less regulation of older traditional media forms.
John Schueler, who oversees all Media General products in Tampa Bay as the president of the Florida Communications Group, offers no apologies for making money but says the company's mission is to give voice to the voiceless and build community, not tear it down. He promised a healthy turnout at the FCC hearing from local leaders who "are very familiar with us" in what he termed "a showcase market."
"There's a huge difference between homogenizing everything, having identical stories on each platform and what we do," he said. "That's not the way we see things at all. The voices [in our communities] have been magnified. We do so without fear or favor, so the journalistic side of what we do remains strong."
Schueler called it "marrying the spirit with the wallet."
The problem, many critics insist, is that the wallet has got to be pretty fat to make the conglomerates' Wall Street owners happy. Many media companies are expected to spin out profit margins in excess of 20 percent.
"The newspaper industry is in a bind today," NYU's Klinenberg said. "Clearly newspaper companies need to find a way to remain profitable. [But] a typical Fortune 500 company gets a 6 percent margin. We have to ask, 'How much regulatory relief do [media companies] need to stay afloat? What's the cost of allowing cross-ownership? Will it limit diversity of voices? Will it reduce competition in the local market?'"
Klinenberg paused. "I think there's real reason to believe it will."
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This article appears in Apr 25 – May 1, 2007.