Martin Gives Old College Try for Localism

By Kim McAvoy and Harry A. Jessell

TVNEWSDAY, Oct 1 2008, 8:08 AM ET

As a way for TV broadcasters to meet their localism obligations, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is proposing that they fund residency programs for recent journalism graduates that would cover state government news and produce investigative reports for them, according to broadcasters and others who have been briefed on the plan.

The bureaus or news teams would be organized with the help of colleges and universities and based in state capitals, the sources say.

Bypassing the NAB, Martin has floated the proposal to the boards of the Texas Association of Broadcasters and the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters. Martin's staff also solicited the support of the California Broadcasters Association in a call to officials there early last week.

In each case, the state association officials have agreed at least to consider the proposal.

"When we get a call from the chairman of the FCC ... the first thing we are going to do it pay attention to do it," said Stan Statham, president of the CBA.

Statham and others briefed on the proposal referred TVNewsday to Martin's office for details. But neither Martin nor his staff would discuss it.

News of the proposal was first reported by the Taylor on Radio-Info newsletter on Sept. 19 after Martin met with the Texas association during the NAB Radio Show in Austin.

Before floating the proposal with broadcasters, Martin first sought the support of leading journalism school deans at a meeting with them at the W Hotel in New York on Sept. 14 and won their tentative support.

The deans were all members of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education, a group dedicated to advancing the education and professional of journalism through various programs.

Schools participating in the initiative include Arizona State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Nebraska, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, the University of Maryland, Northwestern University, Columbia University, the University of Missouri, Syracuse University, the University of California at Berkeley and The Joan Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

"I am not the authority on it; it's the chairman's idea," said Alex Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center at Harvard, who attended the New York meeting. "It really doesn't depend on us," he added. "It depends on what the broadcasters decide they would be interested in doing. If they are interested, then we are interested in exploring it further."

Jones was among those who declined to discuss specifics of Martin's proposal.

Roderick Hart, of the University of Texas, who attended the New York meeting as well as Martin's meeting with the Texas broadcasters on Sept. 18, said he is interested in "exploring the possibilities" of Martin's proposal.

"We're committed to journalism and broadcasting. The idea of putting together a residency or post-graduate program that would have some supervision and would actually have some impact sounds interesting," he said.

Martin's proposal arises from the FCC's so-called localism proceeding, which is aimed at boosting local public affairs programming on TV and radio stations.

The proceeding takes a more conventional approach to localism, proposing programming quotas, citizen advisory boards and requirements that stations formally ascertain what their audiences are interested in through surveys, focus groups and town hall meetings.

At the NAB radio show two weeks ago, Martin said that he wanted to take action on localism this year and invited broadcasters to negotiate with him on what the localism requirement would comprise.

Of the state association heads, only California's Statham would comment on the proposal on the record.

At the chairman's suggestion, Statham said, his staff has begun conversations with the journalism schools at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley, and is keeping in touch with Heather Dixon, the Martin staffer assigned to the project.

Statham said he still has questions about the proposal. Chief among them are whether it would completely satisfy broadcasters' localism obligation and whether carriage of the students' output would be optional or mandatory.

Statham said he is awaiting some of the answers before taking the proposal to his members. "There are just so many steps between now and the finish line," he said.

Although Statham said he is open to the proposal, he is discouraged that the FCC keeps pushing the stations to do more local news as if they now do none.

"We always find ourselves in wonderland when the FCC suggests that we are not full force in the area of localism."

Broadcasters used to feel good when they heard about localism since it is at the heart of what they do, he said. "Now, whenever we hear the word, we feel we are being attacked by the federal government again.

"If we provide Desperate Housewives and what's happening in the local community, we win. We are all about localism. That's the key to our success."

Statham sees a least one benefit from the Martin plan: it would produce news that may appeal to younger viewers. "If we did this, then we would get an MTV view rather than a Walter Cronkite-type view of corruption is government," he said.

Other broadcasters were perplexed by the Martin's foray into promoting broadcast journalism. One industry source called it "bizarre."

Another called it "hightly unusual. I don't know many news directors who would feel comfortable turning over the airwaves to journalism school students or recent graduates not employed at the station."

Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, said she would have to know more about the proposal before passing final judgment on it.

Turning to nonprofit organizations for newsgathering and investigative reporting is a bit of a trend, she said, citing the Center for Public Integrity, ProPublica and the Carnegie-Knight Initiative's News21 program.

"It's a way of responding to the need for more investigative reporting," she said. However, she added, the acceptability of the Martin proposal would depend in large part on how it is written into the FCC rule book.

"Is it voluntary or does it have government teeth behind it?"

If the FCC makes participation mandatory, it would be — like other government intrusions into the editorial decision making of broadcasters — unconstitutional, she said.

If, other the other hand, it is voluntary and one of a menu of ways that broadcasters can demonstration their commitment to localism, "then maybe it is useful."

The broadcasters would also have to have full editorial control over what they ultimately air, she said. "They need to have editorial oversight as they would with any [third-party] group."

The NAB is aware of the plan, but is not ready to talk about it. "NAB will not be commenting on this until our board has a chance to fully vet the idea," said NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton.

Paul Steiger, editor-in-chief of ProPublica, one of the nonprofit news organizations to which Cochran referred, said that Martin's idea is interesting. "But you have all of the problems of who would run these folks and how they would be trained," he says. "How would they be any better than the blogosphere?" Steiger added that he would oppose the plan if there were any role for the government in running it.

And the one-time managing editor of the Wall Street Journal also wondered whether the news from the statehouse would actually "crowd out the latest fire or murder" on the evening news.