June 27, 2004
Media Consolidation And Pamplin Communications Corporation
The Greater 'Tribune' That Wasn't
We have a ton of notes from Thursday evening's marathon town hall on media consolidation and localism but at this point we're not sure we can find the strength to cull through them for Portland-specific items.
Originally, we had intended to use as a local hook the fact that this previously-scheduled event turned out to be held on the very day that a Federal court struck down the very consolidation rules which the two FCC commissioners attending the town hall had voted against in the first place. In essence, Portland got first crack at hearing from the only two commissioners to have stood up against the rules to begin with.
But instead of going too deeply at all into the meeting itself, we want to pass along the gist of a curious conversation we overheard between two reporters during the pre-forum news conference held by the two FCC commissioners.
One reporter asked the other how, under the previous rules (in theory, the ones now back in effect since the court tossed the new ones) Pamplin Communications Corporation was able to own both a local radio station (KPAM) and a local newspaper (the Portland Tribune).
In essence, the old rules stated that companies cannot own print and broadcast media in the same market, while the new rules would have permitted this by lifting or easing such restrictions.
The second reporter (he writes for the Tribune, but we weren't paying enough attention to notice if the first one does as well) said that the old rules included an exception for companies whose newspapers publish less than four times a week. But he also said that the Tribune had been awaiting the new rules because they had been considering expanding to publishing four or more times a week.
Of course, that intention may be irrelevant anyway, given the paper's financial situation which caused it to fire staff and reduce the its physical size.
Meanwhile, since we're apparently avoiding doing any further reporting on the town hall meeting itself, we'll close with a couple of more items from elsewhere, in this case The Sunday Oregonian. First, Susan Nielsen offers something of a "what now" in the wake of the new rules being thrown out by the courts. Second, Michael Arrieta-Walden uses the public's involvement in the discussion at the town hall as an opportunity to re-underscore his responsibilities as the paper's Public Editor.