>> this is the l. l. l. c. >> there are many different, you know, the lllc has gotten a lot of press but it is by no means the only organization that is out there. this is part of a big movement that has -- just a minute, jean. i will let you. >> i would just be quite in accord. >> no know i can kind of feel you chomping at the bit. but there is a much broader, a much broader movement for these, what are sometimes called for benefit corporations. to help out and economic development zones, say. and newspapers might be a beneficiary of that. . .

much. we talked about copyright and i will let other people talk as well. >> and again, i think that the concept >> well, again i think the concept as you have outlined of a public spirited or public-focused entity reporting news and information is, you know, on the surface sounds really wonderful. i worry that, again, going back to 1791 or earlier, that we had. we had a system of government determination of social purpose we see that replicated in today's society called licensing. printers were licensed. i don't want to engage in hyperbole for sake of recounting history but, when i hear, entity defined by social purpose as a news

organization, as a newspaper or radio, television, whatever, i think we open that door for what pushes the limit? not the thing we would all agree on. watchdog journalism looking how well municipalities and congress is doing their job, that's fine. where something approaches that line? they are in free market. set up stall in marketplace ideas and succeed or fail by their merits and business acumen. i'm worried about the zone in the middle, that little tiny zone or large zone they approach things where there is great debate whether proper or beneficial social purpose and where again, in terms of a free press are we going to draw that line? >> right. >> just want to be clear, these organizations nobody is talking about licensing them. i. >> i was going to say, steve, broadcast stations are licensed. >> fcc is different issue. >> so do you want to talk a little bit about some of the things you're thinking of?

>> first, just a broader point. we're talking as if the debate is whether or not the government for the time should get involved in regulating media. right now all of the tv stations in america and all of the radio stations of america got theirness losses from the public through the agency of the federal government. the government decides what kind of wireless spectrum is talk unised off. the government decides how much of the satellite spectrum should be set aside for educational program. the government decides how much of cable should be set aside for public access. the government decides how many radio stations a single company can own, how many towns can have cross ownership between newspapers. and radio stations and on and on and on. i'm not defending any of these policies in particular. i'm just saying the current reality is that government is involved in the media world in all sorts of ways, so the goal should be to

make sure this is done in a wise way. there tends to be a little bit of a newspaper centrist to some of these conversations and give as little bit of a misleading impression because newspapers are the least-regulated part of the media ecosystem. broadcast really is a different, is a different thing. so one of the things that we're looking at with the fcc is, there has historically been what's referred to as the public interest obligation for a broadcasters and that's been a subject of argument and debate back and forth for decades about what that means, what the government's role is in enforcing something like that. it's tricky, it is very tricky. the theory is, sensible, that unlike someone who is sets up shop with a printing press and there's unlimited number of printing presses that can happen. there is not unlimited amount of spectrum. the spectrum belongs to the public. the government has been

charged with the task of, of deciding who gets some of the spectrum and for a long time the government said, okay, because you're going to get this scarce public resource you have to serve the public interest in some way and that is traditionally had, you know, implications in terms of news, public affairs programing. but one of the things we're looking at, what does that mean now? what does it even mean to have a public interest obligation now? is it fair to have public interest obligations applied against broadcast terse when they're competitors don't necessarily have it? is there public interest obligation for wireless spectrum too? most importantly, what, is there a way, reconceiving our notions of public interest, public interest obligations for the 21st century in a way that would help with this problem? >> right. everyone will want to know how does the current

discussion of broadband and reallocating spectrum and having broadcasters even sell back some of the spectrum, how does that fit together with an inquiry that suggests that local, local news in particular might need some support? it seems like a mixed message? >> welith, not necessarily. one of the things that local broadcasters said to the sec when it was going through the broadband process was, we should not be treated as if this is just an economic equation. we are entities that have special relationships with the community, often touting the importance of local news. and i think that's great. i think the response is that the best way for broadcasters to make sure they have all the spectrum they need is to fulfill their obligations to their, to their community. so it could be a win-win.

broadcasters that take seriously the need to improve their local news or to offer local news and journalism will have a much stronger case in terms of spectrum, but more importantly they will help solve this problem of the potential crisis in journalism in america. >> andy? >> well, first of all, in direct response to your last question, the possibility that some portions of the spectrum that is presently being utilized by over the airtel vision will will be rededicated for broadband purposes underscores the extraordinary benefit, broadcasters are now getting free of charge and the, and the responsibility cops with that. like in the earlier panel, i look forward to the day when we can develop spectrum-sharing and other technologies will change all this around but for the near

term and midterm, this spectrum, television broadcasters are using is highly-valued and it is reasonable for the public to expect public service in exchange for use of their spectrum. more broadly, gene's concerns are certainly well-placed but i do think it's possible that, as we've done in my opinion, with broadcast regulation, to make these things viewpoint neutral as well as, platform neutral. indeed the traditional postal subsy kiss we -- subsidies we talked about. they didn't ask whether you were a republican/democrat, or a federalist or a whig, in newspapers, in day newspapers were frequently owned by political parties and were highly partisan, think "fox news" and msnbc better analogs than cnn, it

is possible to devise mechanisms including voucher schemes that are proposed that will free, can free the government from any notion about making a value judgment, about, about the content. and, it's tricky, but then again the goal here is to preserve democratic process is an important one and a tricky one. >> barbara, did you want to get into the spectrum discussion? >> well, actually i wanted to make a slightly different point, which is, which is the question whether the government should fund journalism in any way, shape or form is at the heart of the first amendment we've been discussing here and i came across the other day a study of four argentinean

newspapers and this was a study conducted by a harvard business school professor and a northwestern business school professor. and they looked at the four argentinean newspapers over 10 years and looked at specifically the amount of coverage in those newspapers that was critical of the government and then they looked at the amount of advertising that had been placed in those newspapers by the government, and indeed in argentina unlike here, that's quite common and done by whim. the government can put any amount of advertising it wants. it is not public noticed related or anything like that. surprise, surprise, there was a quote, unquote, huge correlation between the amount of dollars that were spent in the newspapers by the government and the lack of coverage of government abuse, and so, i think, we have, whatever we talk about here today has to be against that backdrop that, certainly, if you're looking

to the government to fund you, or to another source of, whether it is private donor, you're not going to want to offend the source of your revenue. >> can i respond on that? >> yeah. >> "the wall street journal"'s largest advertiser by column inch is the united states government, in the back of "the wall street journal" there is all these dea forfeiture ads and, federal notices. there is some in "usa today" as well. this is largely done by bid. and, i don't think anybody can say that the "wall street journal" in either the news portion or the editorial portion pulls its punchs. >> well, i don't want to belabor the point but public notices are not government subsidy of newspapers. public notices are published so the government can take property away from individuals. only way they can do that

constitutionally legally and is to give notice and newspapers are still the best way to give that notice. so that's not a form of a subsidy. it is there for completely independent reason. and because it is through bid and a process that involves no favoritism, maybe you're right. >> i'm sorry. go ahead. >> i just wanted to add, one point and i'm not espousing government subsidy is for news organizations because, you know at our march workshop we looked at a lot of other ideas that have nothing to do with that but i do want to note in surveys of audiences the corporation for public broadcasting is most trusted news source in the united states. so, you know, yes, yes. so, it's not impossible. there certainly have been bumps in the road there, but it is also true that in many, many, countries, most countries, in europe, there

are government-supported news organizations like the bbc. and so, there are ways, i'm simply suggesting that there are ways to construct chinese walls, et cetera, et cetera. now, does this country want to go in that direction a lot more? that's not my perception. that's a u.s. tradition. but, it's simply, to say that it's not, that, not every government, quote, unquote, involvement necessarily implies entanglement. and i do think that it is very important to make sure that's the case. that you have structured it properly. >> quickly. >> we've had a, session here, freedom of information day on march 15th. i think that manipulation of government data to make it more accessible to anybody online but also news organizations so we can do kind of investigative reporting, database report

something great example where government on its own do what it does, the free press can do what it does. again not to be facetious, if you look back, 1791 first amendment along with bill of rights. eight years later, seven years later alien sedition act. good intentions in the broadest sense. we want to let this government survive against a hostile nation. they were good intentions. with all rehe can about -- respect again, for public interest, called the fairness doctrine. grew, supplied, some would say, failed and drew broadcasters away from editorials online and simple way to avoid portion of airtime, no political reporting. those are that criticism. those are examples, one long ago, one more recent, in the public interest ultimately we had a debt trimenal effect on flow flow of information. we live in democracy. we have a government. there is a reason for that. i acknowledge the beneficial aspects of government

sometimes doing its own thing but i think we have some historical examples and there are other smaller examples on a local level where government acting in what it calls the public interest at the moment, really thwarted the free flow of information. again that's where my concern comes from. i think we're tremendous you are innovative people. i think there are plenty of journalists will watch out for whatever government policies and practice there is are. i think public now with the web has a marvelous opportunity to be a, that same sort of watchdog but again, we, history teaches us some things about these early discussions. >> okay. i'm going to ask another question now but, if you have a question yourself, we're ready to take those. there are two microphones here and i'll be happy to call on you as soon as i have asked this question, which is to steve and that is, i wanted to ask you, what the relationship is between the study that you're doing and other things that are going on at the fcc, the local

investigation and media ownership investigation and, for example, in localism, there's a discussion of possibly local news councils and that kind of thing. how do you see all of these pieces fitting together? >> a lot of them basically will get rolled up into the future of media report. we'll make recommendations on what should be the status of this the previous localism proceeding that had happened. the ownership, review, is on a shootly different track, because there is a different legislative history and has a schedule dictated by congress. so we're coordinating. that's basically, congress's, requires the fcc every four years to look at its rules and make sure that its rules on ownership still make sense. py the way, i should say about the future of media

project. we're looking at not only, potential regulatory interventions but potential deregulatory steps as well. the idea is to look at the full slate of what the government does to see, not only are there things government can do but are there things the government should stop doing that might also help. >> barbara, want to suggest anything? >> oh, we could go on all day. >> andy might want to jump in there too. >> yeah. but let me pick up on a point, when you talk about low alism, you allowed to the local news councils that might be established. i think there's been in the discussion of public funding of the media, kind of a conflation of national news and local news and everybody thinks it's all the same when indeed it's quite different. and the european examples are primarily national news organizations that have been

funded. i'm very close to the local news business. i mean we have newspapers in big cities like phoenix and detroit but we also have appleton and oshkosh and, the thought that there would be a local news council in each of those communities that would somehow figure out what quality journalism was in an unbiased way and give that money to the, to the best, to the best entrant is kind of ridiculous. i mean who would be on that council? who would be judging the quality of the news? >> just to clarify one thing, there are two different local news councils that have been talked about. the local news council that is proposed something would do what you said. >> downey. >> downey report. >> right, right. >> what was in the fcc paper was something, a question of whether or not there were ways of getting local tv stations to do more aggressive outreach to find out what they should be

covering. which is a little bit of a different thing. >> right. >> i can claim total ignorance on that. i'm new at sec. i have no opinion on what happened more than three months ago. i wanted to clarify there is never, never been any attempts or interest at the fcc to establish local news councils, of that sort. >> okay. good. i think we have a question here. yes, bob? >> yes. hi. >> if you could identify yourself. >> bob revere, rights remain. i want to pick up on gene's point, to quote jerry fallwell but i never do but, gene, the shekels come the shackles. and address a question to andy. various examples he have he gave of postal subsidies and so on, starting with a long quote from alexander michael john, how government should get involved affirmatively with the press. i don't know of anyone who suggests that government promoting first amendment values is itself a first amendment violation.

for example, i don't know of anyone who would suggest for a local government to build a library is somehow a violation of the first amendment. but i want to go to the notion of the entanglement comes with subsidies. everyone has mentioned postal subsidies. andy, i know you're familiar with the long history of government trying to manipulate postal subsidies to either favor speech that the government liked or disfavor speech that it didn't like. other examples, you mentioned nea, for example, for journalism, and yet, the supreme court has held because of the nea subsidy, it can demand conditions based on content, public broadcasters are a wonderful asset but they don't have same editorial rights as commercial broadcasters. and, you know, if you have finding through the e-rate and happen to be library you're obligated to use content filters. whereas, if you know, don't take the e-rate, then, it would be a first amendment violation to impose a content filter on internet terminals in libraries.

with those those examples in mind how would you entanglements and first amendment problems that are created? or, alternately do you see subsidy as opportunity to impose conditions on media across platforms you would be unable to do through direct regulation? >> your points are very well-taken and, takes us down into the weeds of course. i'm not saying it's easy. i'm not saying it's without difficulty. i am saying that we are facing a genuine problem going forward. and here, i do want to note, barbara's right that, barbara wall is right, or barbara cochran too. but barbara wall is right too that the journalism is a profitable business and an ongoing business and we're not talking about the death of it. there is undoubtedly a

secular as well as cyclical change egg going on. only when we come out of the recession how much is one and how much is the other. any way you look at it, there is part of this is secular and there is some very fundamental change. and, i do think we need to look at ways to do it. there are better ways and there are worse ways. for example a voucher system has been suggested that would give every american 100 or $200 to allocate towards any journalistic venture of his or her choice as an platform-neutral content-neutral, viewpoin viewpoint-neutral mechanism for funding journalism. if you believe journalism, especially local journalism is essential to democracy. i'm not endorsing that. i'm pointing out there are ways to skin this cat and look at it and look at it fresh. we want to avoid mistakes of the past. and nothing is perfect. i pointed example of, for, all of the problems that,

occasional problems that there are cpb model with pbs and npr. has worked remarkably well and that is mixed, interestingly a mixed system. also i think the tax laws, to permit public-spirited investors to sacrifice some rate of return in exchange for assisting local journalists in their communities has great promise and these are platform-neutral, viewpoint-neutral things. so i do think we need to design them. i do think that you make very, very important warnings about kinds of problems that can arise and we need to design around them. >> okay. question here. >> ryan wall lack, with will key, gallagher. we heard on earlier panel. broadband internet is disruptive technology. we've clearly seen effects on newspaper industry.

does it propose same risk for local broadcast journalism? how about national news networks? if so, are we going to be back here in five years talking about subsidies for those news-gathering efforts? >> do you want to answer that? >> well, again, i think, it's too soon to say. we own broadcast stations and, it's been a trying time over the last couple years but there have been, again, you know, bright spots on the horizon. for one thing, this united case is going to benefit local stations in the upcoming election cycle. and that i really don't want to go there but, you know, i do think though, you're right, that it's all part of a very long, term, secular change. and both newspaper and broadcast will be impacted. >> steve, have you formed any views about that, at

this point? >> think short answer is that, is not quite as bad for newspapers for the simple reason tv stations were never as dependent on classifieds. that whole leg of the stool when it disappeared for newspaper it is didn't whack tv stations the same way. but the other factors that affected newspapers are affecting tv stations. driflt of audience online. the lower ad rates online versus what you can get on, on air. so, there's no question that some of the challenges. and by the way, i don't mean to be a downer, but, on the one hand some things will get better. there is great innovation is going on. the economy is going to get better. on the other hand some ways the negative parts of this haven't fully played out yet. we do not have universal broadband. for all the benefits broadband will bring it will exacerbate some of these problems in certain pockets. one of the reason community

newspapers doing well, craig's list hasn't gotten there yet but he will. >> yeah. >> maybe not. >> so when the classified stuff keeps going down, some smaller newspapers will start to have some of those problems as well. >> susan, have you, found anything so far in your study that's, would be a response to that question? >> i think, talked about it very well. >> good. this microphone. >> maury mcanik, white & case. this is addressed to anybody that wants to take it. six months ago my thinking on this issues would be very close to gene's and todaying, probably a little closer to andrew's. informed by a book i'm not endorsing but people should take a look at. called the death and life of american journalism. and there are references to it by chesney and nichols. a lot is based on research of historical role of government indirectly subsidizing the press and some of the ideas talked

about here, are talked about in this book as well. but it did cause me to think about this issue in a much different way than i ever had before. as i said my own view has probably shifted as a result of that. i'm also, in a sense child of the '60s and '70s. when one talks about journalism, there is one word that sort of captures journalism at its best, the fear is, could this, are we, danger of losing capability of this happening again and that word, i think a out of people can guess it is watergate. that is classic example of how journalism in some respects saved the republic. if we're going to move into a situation now where the ability of investigative journalism is going to be harder and harder to maintain because of these economic problems, what are we putting at risk? and even though i'm concerned about the first amendment side and enstock exchange gelments, -- entanglements, lesser of two evils is some form of subsidy but preserving ability investigative journalism did in the past,

isn't that a price worth paying? >> if i could, see a sense moving from me to more of the middle of panel as it were, let me say as i said at beginning i think these are robust times. i think that investigative journalism is going on in so many different ways and at community levels as well as national levels from groups internet-only. that come around, single-issue groups. they live, investigate, they go. there's a model in all places in china where localities hire investigative reporters to report on certain government corruption, tolerable kind of reporting as long as you're not attacking large party but if you're talking about a manager of a municipal wastewater plant, whatever, not doing its job you can investigate that. i think these are great robust times for that. i don't see that in the same fashion. i think there's a commercial viability that still exists. i think again, news organizations that have been with us for a long time still, which is talked about in number of reports, come

up in all of your panels which is, that font of trust. despite alleged skepticism they are seen lower down the circulation level as you go as trustworthy venues and souths of information. i don't think necessarily this innovation and move and again, change from the mechanics of how journalism is practiced is, what we're talking about. we talked a little bit mechanics of saving entities here. >> i'm going to also give a response even though i'm the moderator to that question because i'm one of the people who was actually working in journalism in washington when watergate story was being investigated and we can not forget the fact even in those good ol' days, there was still tremendous pressure placed on "the washington post" company because they also owned television stations that had to be licensed. and that was used specifically as a threat. and the reason watergate was