Campaign to Improve Local Broadcasting

Posted by on July 30, 2004

[posted from Demos: Democracy Dispatch]

Campaign to Improve Local Broadcasting

This week the Public Interest, Public Airwaves Coalition launched its Community-by-Community Campaign for Better Local Broadcasting to encourage local citizens to hold community broadcasters to a higher standard of public service, particularly when it comes to election coverage. This initiative is the national grassroots component of the PIPA Coalition’s ongoing efforts in Washington to urge Congress and the FCC to put in place a clear set of public interest guidelines for commercial broadcasters.

Local citizens groups will urge their station managers to sign a pledge agreeing to air a minimum of two hours per week of candidate- or election-centered discourse during prime viewing hours in the six weeks prior to the November 2 elections. Citizens will monitor election coverage to ensure that stations hold to their pledge.

The PIPA Coalition consists of more than twenty-five national public policy, grassroots and media reform organizations. Since April 2004, when the alliance was first formed, supporters have sent more than 150,000 letters to the FCC and members of Congress calling for policies requiring broadcasters to provide more coverage of elections and civic affairs.

Article Contributed by Meredith McGehee, Alliance for Better Campaigns. For more information about the PIPA Coalition, please contact the Alliance for Better Campaigns at 202.659.1300 or alliance@bettercampaigns.org, or visit http://www.ourairwaves.org/fcc. To become a part of the Community-by-Community Campaign for Better Local Broadcasting, sign up at http://www.mediafordemocracy.us/mfd/local.