FTC

The Federal Trade Commission's final workshop on changes in the media business, “How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?," ended with the sense that only limited policy recommendations would come out of the session, at least in terms of recommendations by the FTC.
Yet in a larger sense, the convening of publishers, industry analysts and academics revealed a surprising development: a growing consensus that some public policy intervention in media is not only possible, it's already happened.

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Over the last year, the Federal Trade Commission has been investigating the role of public policy in helping to meet Americans’ information needs. This week, the FTC will hold its final hearing on finding policies that could reshape our media system for the better.

In preparation, the FTC released a “Discussion Draft” that outlined the various policy recommendations submitted to the agency for consideration. More than 2,000 citizens have filed comments, and many organizations submitted recommendations. FTC staff have been deployed to journalism-related events across the country to gather information and ideas percolating in those communities.

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Over the weekend the journalism tweetosphere and blogs were abuzz with rumors of a government plot to freeze journalism in time by propping up a range of failing business models at the expense of new innovation in news. The document that set off this flurry of digital doomsday warnings was a “Discussion Draft” of possible policy changes released by the Federal Trade Commission team working on their future of journalism initiative and the announcement of a June 15th roundtable discussion where the draft will be debated.

For the past year the FTC has been examining how laws related to copyright, antitrust, advertising, and tax status could be changed to ensure that our communities have access to the news and information they need. Along the way it has sought public input and has heard from thousands of people (Free Press members submitted over 2,000 comments last fall). Now it is preparing its report and seeking feedback on its draft.

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Local news was a focal point at the recent FTC workshop, “How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?" Reed Hundt reported on the Knight Commission recommendations and emphasized the role of local news in promoting the traditional U.S. policy goal of localism both in newspapers and in broadcasting. Matthew Gentzkow reported on his study that the entry and exit of newspapers from local communities have the most pronounced effect on voter participation in local elections. Tom Rosenstiel emphasized again that local newspapers have more reporters on the ground to cover local news stories than all other local news entities combined, and drew the logical conclusion: Economic threats to local newspapers strike at the heart of the availability of information concerning the issues of public importance to local communities.

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This post originally appeared on www.NewPublicMedia.org

The second act of the Federal Trade Commission’s production of the latest off-Broadway hit, “Much Ado about the Future of Journalism,” came with a nice plot twist. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) kicked it off yesterday with a commendable soliloquy that pushed the market forces argument out of the spotlight by introducing suggestions for policy changes to promote a “vigorous” free press.

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David Westphal is the former Washington Editor for McClatchy Newspapers and joined USC Annenberg as executive in residence. He spoke today at the Federal Trade Commission’s future of journalism workshop. Below are his remarks. Westphal and his colleague Geoffrey Cowan also published an excellent article in the Online Journalism Review today.

Check back at SaveTheNews.org where we'll be posting more commentary and interviews with speakers at the FTC's journalism event.

Westphal:

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