Civil Defense - a weblog by Joshua Breitbart

The Philadelphia Grassroots Cable Coalition is calling on Philadelphia sports fans to pressure the FCC to close the Comcast loophole. That's the hole in the cable law that allows Comcast to withhold its local sports programming from satellite competitors.

This alert builds on the successful efforts of Free Press, which has generated over 10,000 comments to the FCC. Their comment form addresses both the Comcast-Time Warner-Adelphia merger and the AT&T-Bell South merger, listing six separate issues for the FCC to consider in its deliberations.

Those issues, including net neutrality, open access, naked broadband, and protecting PEG are all important. But we in Philadelphia are disproportionately affected by the Comcast loophole, since our cable company also owns our sports teams (or at least the broadcast rights to the games).

To learn more about the Comcast loophole, read Jeff Gelles's article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Trying to right cable loophole" or his blog. To hear the perspective of a local sports fan, read Welcome to Phillyville, "Comcast is Evil, the Phillies are Stupid and the Eagles are Run by a Bunch of Lucky Morons."

Here's the text of the alert:

Did you ever wonder why you can't watch your favorite Philly sports team on satellite TV? Maybe that's even the reason you're still paying Comcast for your television service.

It's because there's a loophole in the cable law that allows cable companies to withhold from competitors any programming they distribute through wires. They have to share anything they distribute through satellite, so it's called the "terrestrial loophole."

We prefer to call it the Comcast loophole because that's who takes advantage of it. Comcast uses its SportsNet channel as a weapon to hold us hostage to their expensive prices and bad customer service. Did you know that satellite TV has about half the number of subscribers in Philadelphia that it does in other cities?

Finally, there is something you can do about it.

Right now, Comcast is asking the FCC – the federal agency that regulates the television industry – to let it buy up part of the bankrupt Adelphia cable system; Time Warner is buying up the other part. This will turn our local corporate behemoth into a mega-goliath. If you thought it was hard to get a response from your cable company now, the new bigger Comcast will be even more dismissive.

The FCC can place conditions on the Adelphia merger, including the closure of the Comcast loophole to force Comcast to share its Philly sports programming. But they're not going to do it unless we tell them to.

Visit www.freetheflyers.com and tell the FCC to set our sports teams free!

For the past two weeks, I've been writing about Clear Channel and its use of racist hate speech as a business model. The hook has been the on-air comments of Star, the former morning host on several Clear Channel stations, including in Philadelphia and New York.

I worked with a team of other media activists to formulate a response: Hate: The Clear Channel Game. See the press release we distributed. We've received over 200 comments from the site and they're still coming in.

Some of our colleagues have been resistant to the idea of pushing on this issue, raising objections that merit close consideration. This is a major question of strategy: Can we have a progressive framework for fighting indecency?

It's an important time to consider this. The Senate just passed a bill multiplying tenfold the fines the FCC can levy on indecent broadcasters – raising the cap from $32,500 to $325,000. With the blessing of the Parents Television Council, the Senate version seems destined to become law. (The House version was harsher.)

The fear among community broadcasters is that so-called indecency fines of any size are only meaningful to locally-owned stations. As I explained in an earlier post, the government would have to fine Clear Channel about 100 times under the new limits just to recoup the money it sent to the company in the form of a tax refund. For a community station, $300k is the whole ball game.

So that's a real fear. But the passage of the bill – by unanimous consent in the Senate – shows that it's not a question of "can" we have such a framework. We must. We cannot ignore this issue away. Congress was going to pass that bill whether our little group sent out a press release or not. Doing nothing, especially in the face of such egregious on-air statements, hands a valid issue and a willing constituency over to the right, which sees remedies in "corporate responsibility," "protecting children," and censorship. Why cede all of that ground?

One concern with our action on this issue was that, if the government could restrict content, "our kind" (presumably meaning political speech) of content would be the first to be regulated. That is wrong on the one hand, and misses the point on the other.

Empirically, "indecency" is already the first kind of content the government would restrict; in the alliance between capitalists and fundamentalists that control the government, content is much more of an issue for the latter. Second, "our kind" is already regulated off the airwaves by the ownership and licensing process. There is definitely a price to pay for seditious speech, but the penalties are not likely to come in the form of fines from the FCC.

So we attempted to frame the issue as one of ownership, with license redistribution as a solution. (Please remember the phrase license redistribution and use it when talking about a remedy for Clear Channel and concentrated broadcast licensing.) This analysis meets the criteria of (a) being accurate: Clear Channel and its corporate competitors really do use hate, sexism, and sensationalism to make money; and (b) supporting our goal of community-defined media.

Another criticism of our effort was the belief that someone should be allowed to be an idiot, even in public. I hope no one thinks we would be doing this if we thought Star was just some doofus punk. Or if he was on a community radio station. This is Clear Channel's fault and we felt obligated to call them on it.

We do not support censorship or fines as a remedy. We support community-defined media and license redistribution. This is not an issue of free speech and it is certainly beyond the bounds of humor. Power99/105 is not a public forum – it is an unaccountable corporate outlet in a (false) zero sum game of spectrum allocation overseen by a flawed agency.

I understand the liberal urge to let everyone have their say, but we cannot let Clear Channel abuse our airwaves in this manner without any protest.

Out of a fear that this might get twisted back on us, some advocate that we take no action whatsoever. That's called doing your enemy's bidding. We have to assume that we will be able to defend ourselves if this gets twisted back on us. Otherwise, we commit to a life on the defensive and seal our ultimate defeat.
Someone suggested that it would have been better to organize a protest. That would have taken a lot more energy in the short term, reached only a geographically-limited group of people, and left less of an infrastructure for action in the long term. It also would have been much harder to connect such an action to the issue of ownership.

Plus, what would have been the remedy such a protest would have called for? A contribution to a foundation? (Actually, we should have immediately put out a list of foundations for Clear Channel to donate to, if only because we knew they were going to have to greenwash this at some point – not that they have, yet.)

Our move, though it took a concerted effort by a number of volunteers working through the weekend, was still a low-input/high-output effort. Many people were legitimately pissed off about what had been broadcast on their airwaves. We were able to provide them with a productive outlet that connected their immediate reaction to the root cause: concentrated licensing.

Now we have 200 more people ready to support challenges to Clear Channel's licenses and reforms to spectrum policy and broadcast licensing that will bring more community voices to the fore. On those ultimate goals, everyone seems to agree. Let's keep trying on our tactics.

Yesterday, Joe DiStefano reported that the ad hoc firm set up by local developers Brian Tierney, Brian O'Neill, and Bruce Toll was close to sealing a deal for the Daily News and the Inquirer. If it's true (DiStefano cites an anonymous "person familiar with the sale&quot then that's bad news. It means today might be your last chance to influence the sale by submitting comments through the www.2papertown.com website.

The purchase price for the two papers is expected to be more than $575 million, but that only begins to describe what's at stake here for the people of Philadelphia. Of all of the dramatic changes underway in the local media landscape, this one may be the one that will cause the greatest impact, especially if you compare the possible outcomes.

The best possible scenario is for McClatchy head Gary Pruitt (who apparently has some appreciation for quality journalism) to select the bid from Yucaipa. (For bad options, see below.) Yucaipa is the investment firm of Ron Burkle, a California billionaire; Bill Clinton is on the board. Check out this beautiful nugget at the bottom of this article from the SF Chronicle about Burkle's purchase of a state law in California to protect him during his divorce. Burkle also claims to be the victim of extortion by a NY Daily News reporter. Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO once named him their humanitarian of the year.

That notwithstanding, Burkle has partnered with the Newspaper Guild, the union representing the newspaper employees, and has said he will offer employee stock options with the end goal of a worker-owner paper (what they call an ESOP or employee stock ownership plan).

Yucaipa is also the only bidder to declare that they will keep both papers open. Some, like Onex, have said they will close the Daily News. Others haven't declared.

The Guild put a full page ad in the Daily News soliciting letters of support. You can read what it said or visit their website, www.2papertown.com.

The website asks supporters to submit comments through email and lets you read what others have written. I'll be submitting a comment of support shortly and I encourage you to do the same.

The Newspaper Guild came into existence at a time when journalism was in ill repute. Underpaid reporters were mere conspirators in a crooked establishment and the general public was getting tired of it. The industry was suffering.

In the 1930s, the Guild brought a new professionalism to journalism and established a sense of respect for newspapers in the eyes of the general public. They set as their mission "constant honesty in news, editorials, advertising, and business practices; [and to] raise the standards of journalism and ethics of the industry." They won pay raises for reporters who were getting paid less than unionized drivers and printers, giving birth to journalism as the professional occupation we know today.

Today the news industry is again in peril. Certainly journalists from Judith Miller to Jayson Blair have a role in that, but the falling standards and bad reporting we see today are by and large the result of bad ownership, not crooked journalists. Unrealistic quarterly profit expectations from Wall Street have led to understaffed newsrooms; conflicts of interest on the business side have led to timid editorial leadership. The public knows this and they detest the corporate media for it.

Employee ownership may offer some salvation. Aside from "ESOP" companies paying lower taxes, it would take the papers off the stock market. The Philly papers are still profitable, netting about $50 million a year, a margin in the 10-15 percent range (which is far lower than the McClatchy average of 30 percent). That would allow the papers to focus on reporting the news, which is what we need newspapers to do.

But this is about more than good journalism. There are people's livelihoods and civil rights at stake. I say this as someone who has worked to de-professionalize journalism for his entire adult life. But alternative media has not figured out alternative business models yet. And we are certainly not reaching every corner of our communities.

Goldman Sachs has reportedly recommended that the winning bidder shut down the Daily News, which is such a wonderfully perfect culmination of the profits-over-people attitude that is destroying journalism in this country.

The closing of the Daily News would put (I'm still trying to find the number of) people out of work. More importantly, it would eliminate a major source of local reporting (even if it focuses on murders and sports). We would be left with the superficial and non-union Metro for daily local coverage. And we'd be shit out of luck for news on the Phillies, Flyers, Eagles, and Sixers.

The closing of the News would hit African Americans disproportionately. Unlike most urban papers, The Daily News is read by African Americans in proportion to their presence in the city. They're not going to start reading The Inquirer if the News goes away. They would be simply shut out of the world of information. This is a major threat to civil rights and to the human right to information and communication.

As I said, Yucaipa is the only bidder to have pledged to keep the Daily News open. If one of the other bidders wins the purchase, we are going to have to work to make sure they do not shutter the News. We are going to have the get the messages I'm talking about here out to our neighbors and then we'll have to do something about. We cannot leave it up to the labor unions and their cohorts to rally and write letters. We need a broad coalition.

Here are some of the bad sale options, the ones that will leave us with a lot of work to do:

• Canadian-based Onex is the devil of the bunch. According to Wikipedia, the company "specializes in buying firms in Canada and the United States that are under valued or in need of restructuring and then later selling them at a significant profit." See also, "Staffers at Philly papers oppose Onex."
• If Onex is the devil, real estate developers Brian Tierney, Brian O'Neill, and Bruce Toll are the handmaidens. They would be a worse option than Onex; Onex at least would only care about the bottom line. These guys would see the papers as subsidiaries to their real estate business. The Toll Brothers are McMansion builders who recently entered urban areas to build McCondos. This crew also has its hands in the push to develop casinos in Philly, which has sparked community protest. If they win the bidding war, there are dark days ahead.
• Dean Singleton, the owner of MediaNews Group, in partnership with Hearst Corporation, already purchased 4 of the 12 papers McClatchy has put on the block. And they did it for $1 billion in cash to secure market dominance out in California. Singleton's a straightforward capitalist so you can expect him to take the advice of Goldman Sachs. His early bid of $575 million for the DN and the Inky is the one that everyone needs to beat.
• Mortimer Zuckerman's Daily News LP, the publisher of the New York Daily News. Someone told me he was only interested in the News's printing machinery.
• Christopher Harte is a former Knight Ridder executive. I'm told he worked under the last good guy at Knight Ridder, so he might not be so bad. But at this point, he seems an unlikely winner.

Beyond Philadelphia, the Newspaper Guild is pursuing the purchase or defense of The Akron Beacon-Journal, The San Jose Mercury News (now owned by MediaNews Group), The Monterey County Herald, The Pioneer Express in St. Paul, and The Duluth News Tribune.

More information on this story is available at

• regular updates at Knight Ridder Watch
• The Newspaper Guild's "Frequently Asked Questions Regarding KR Sale to McClatchy and Guild’s Worker Friendly Buyout Effort"
• The Inquirer's "Knight Ridder for Sale" coverage
• background from Joe DiStefano, "Some questions, answers on where PNI sale stands"
• and see "McClatchy's Philadelphia Papers Might Have Six Potential Suitors" from last Monday's Wall Street Journal
• The AP's "Timeline of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News"

Originally planned to protest the closing of the internet, Wednesday's National Day of Out(R)age against Verizon and AT&T has taken on special significance in the wake of the revelation that these companies have illegally aided the NSA's illegal domestic spying program.

While Philadelphia doesn't have any specific plans (that I know of) to join in the protests, I thought I could at least offer my trusted Ed Whitacre impersonation and my brand new Ivan Seidenberg impersonation to the cause.

In the spirit of the AMC audio PSAs, here are PSAs for the Out(R)age protests:

Ed Whitacre

Ivan Seidenberg

Kat has added the critically important straightforward pieces, so you can add on the details for:

• Boston
• Chicago
• New York
• San Francisco

Mix and match the corporate target with the right city. The files are all easy to download, radio safe, and ready to air.

(Devil ceo photos courtesy Common Cause, "Hands Off My Internet.&quot

On the heels of a victory in Pittsburgh, but still seeking a contract for workers in Texas, the Communication Workers of America will be holding an interfaith vigil at Comcast headquarters later today. (5pm at Comcast HQ; details below.)

The vigil comes a day before Comcast shareholders will meet to roll in all of the money they have taken from their Revenue Generating Units (RGU). That's what they call their customers when you're not looking. I'm not joking. From the report on their first quarter 2006 results:

Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast Corporation said, 'Our first quarter results set new records across the board. RGU additions accelerated in the first three months to the highest level in the Company's history.'

The idea of an RGU reflects the corporation's strategy to milk as much money as possible from every person it interacts with. That means raising rates whenever possible and signing you up for as many bells, whistles, and premium services as possible. It also means pushing workers to work long hours for little pay.

So all of you customers in Philadelphia who hate the way Comcast sucks money out of your pocket should come out today to this vigil. Ask the company to treat us like people, not revenue units or labor units.

Please join us for a human rights vigil for
Comcast workers

TODAY
May 17, 2006 at 5:00 p.m.
at Comcast headquarters
1500 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA

Come to support the Comcast workers who seek to exercise their human right to join a union. Comcast has fired employees for attempting to organize.

Sponsored by: Religious Leaders for Justice at Comcast

In association with: Central Labor Council of Philadelphia | Communication Workers of America | Interfaith Council for Workers Justice | International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers | Jewish Labor Council | Jobs with Justice

A coalition of media activists (including me) have launched a campaign to file complaints with the FCC following the offensive (yet distressingly typical) comments made on air by a Clear Channel DJ from May 3 to May 8, 2006.

You can read partial transcripts of the comments here. Mp3s of the audio clips can be downloaded here: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

I'm surprised these haven't hit the Internet already, but I'm glad since in the wrong context they could clearly do more harm than good. To help keep them from being used out of context, we stamped the audio files with a reminder of who is responsible and what you can do about it.

What you can do is visit Hate: The Clear Channel Game and fill out the simple form to send a comment to the FCC. Comments can do two things: they can provoke an investigation that could lead to a fine and they can serve as fuel for a license challenge when the broadcaster's license comes up for renewal. (In the case of the Power105 license, it's up in 2007.)

It is really important to keep in mind that this is not a singular act by a lone DJ. This is a pattern of hate radio – hate as a business model. Groups like Youth Media Council in the Bay Area, the Social Action Committee in Philadelphia, the citizen coalition led by Bill Huston in Binghamton, and the REACHip Hop coalition in New York City have been challenging Clear Channel for quite some time.

There will be a press release on this tomorrow, but you are encouraged to scoop any news outlet that waits around for such things.

You will remember that New York City Council Member John Liu was the one who brought attention to Clear Channel DJ Star's outrageous threats of sexual violence on a 4 year old. Star has since been fired, but the Councilman, like me, is not satisfied.

According to the Daily News, he wants Clear Channel to pay $5 million to the Megan Nicole Kanka Foundation, which was established in memory of Megan Kanka, a New Jersey girl slain by a sex-offender neighbor. He was on Wakeup Call this morning emphasizing Clear Channel's culpability (mp3).

Mr. Liu is heading in the right direction by seeking to hold Clear Channel accountable, but he's off base if he thinks that this incident shows that the danger to children comes from pedophiliacs. The danger to children comes from corporate media that use sensationalist trash talk and a warped version of hip hop to capture them as listeners.

I don't for a second think that Troi Torain was actually going to sexually assault the 4-year-old daughter of Gia Casey and DJ Envy. But I do think that children, like the rest of us, are under increasing assault from a hyper-commercialized and violent corporate media.

Kat's got the right idea when she says that, like money from the tobacco lawsuits going to help young people resist cigarrettes, money from FCC indecency fines should go to support media justice (or at least media literacy).

In other words, there are two ways to go up the ladder looking to hold someone responsible. You can blame the owner, Clear Channel, which would lead you to demand a fine or restitution. Or you can blame consolidation of ownership, in which case this would only add to your conviction that we need to support license redistribution.

We have put together the most amazing lineup for a media conference you have ever seen. Now is the time to register for the 2006 Allied Media Conference.

Allied Media Conference
June 23-25, 2006
Bowling Green, Ohio
http://amc2006.org

Check out all of the muckrakers, organizers, filmmakers, radio DJs, hip hop heads, artists, wonks, geeks, and educators we're bring to Bowling Green, Ohio, June 23-25. The AMC is the leading gathering of mediamakers with a mission to move from truth to power, because being right is not enough. Get to know them at
http://amc2006.org/participants/presenters

When you look through these bios, keep in mind that these 60 amazing people are just the tip of the iceberg since there will be hundreds more people there (including you). For a list of all of the participating organizations, see http://amc2006.org/participants <– it's the whose who of what's what.

Want to know what we'll be getting into at the AMC? We'll be tackling the tough questions and teaching the critical skills – and we need you to be a part of it. Here's a small sampling of what's got us so excited for this weekend that's coming up really fast:

• Muckraking with a Mission: Investigative Reporting for Alt-Journos (presented by recent Polk Award winner AC Thompson)
• From West Coast Streets to the West Bank Beats: Understanding Imperialism and Struggle through Global Hip Hop (presented by Mark Gonzalez, who will also be performing)
• Practical Privacy on The Internet
• Reporting from the Immigrant Struggle (presented by keynoter Deepa Fernandes)
• Independent Media Responses to Katrina, past and future
• Is This What Democracy Looks Like? new models for media activism (moderated by yours truly)

For the complete list – to see just how hot a media conference can get – check out http://amc2006.org/sessions

Do not wait! Register now! Reservations for the affordable and conveniently-located dorm rooms ends Friday, May 26. Free crash space is first come first serve. And we've just launched the AMC ride board.
Registration at https://amc2006.org/register.html

Now is the time. Become a participant in the 2006 Allied Media Conference and help move this movement from truth to power.

Allied Media Conference
June 23-25, 2006
Bowling Green, Ohio
http://amc2006.org

If you get down like that, hit up the AMC on myspace: http://myspace.com/alliedmediaconference

Check out the newly-released AMC audio PSAs. In addition to promoting the 2006 Allied Media Conference, they tackle the major media issues of the day through a social justice lens while attacking the corporate media and having a good time doing it – all in less than 30 seconds!

If you were angry yesterday when you learned what now-fired ClearChannel radio host Troi Torain has been saying on air you are really going to hit the roof when you realize who was, in effect, paying his salary: you.

(Before I get into that, can someone explain to me how it wasn't "news" when he said it or even when a City Council Member protested it, but only once ClearChannel did something about it? Headline: "Power 105 radio host Star gets fired". How about, headline: "ClearChannel = hate radio&quot

Now, about that money of yours going to ClearChannel… Through accounting magic, ClearChannel was able to claim an $891 million capital loss in the 4th quarter of 2005 from the spinoff of its live music division. As a result, they got a tax refund of $314.1 million.

Yes: the IRS is writing a check for $314,100,000 to ClearChannel Communications to pay for things like hate radio DJs. (Don't think it stops because Star is out; as I said, hate is a business model for Lowry Mays and co.)

Here's how ClearChannel describes it in their 10-K filing with the SEC (p35):

Discontinued Operations
We completed the spin-off of our live entertainment and sports representation businesses on December 21, 2005. In accordance with Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 144, Accounting for the Impairment or Disposal of Long-Lived Assets, we reported the results of operations for these businesses through December 21, 2005 in discontinued operations. The spin-off generated a capital loss for tax purposes of approximately $2.4 billion. We utilized approximately $890.7 million of this capital loss in the current year to offset taxable capital gains realized in 2005 and previous years, which resulted in a $314.1 million tax benefit which is included in income from discontinued operations in the fourth quarter of 2005. The remaining $1.5 billion of the $2.4 billion capital loss was recorded as a deferred tax asset with an offsetting valuation allowance on our balance sheet at December 31, 2005.

Now, I don't know anything about the "Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 144, Accounting for the Impairment or Disposal of Long-Lived Assets," but I sure wish someone had shown me that field in TurboTax when I was filing a return. I completed the spin-off my first generation iPod last year; I'd love $150 million from the government. How about those workers at Ford or GM that completed the spin-off of their jobs in 2005?

ClearChannel has $1.5 billion left in capital losses from the spin-off that they can claim against earnings in the future. At the rate of their first refund, that's another $529 million ClearChannel claims to have coming to them from the federal government for a grand total of $843 million.

And they still have those licenses we gave them to use our airwaves.