Kerry: I'd Keep Cross-ownership Rules

By: Mark Fitzgerald Answering questions at the Unity 2004 joint convention of minority journalists associations Thursday morning, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said he would reimpose the ban on same-city ownership of broadcast stations by daily newspapers.

?I?m against the ongoing push for reducing restrictions on media concentration,? Kerry said, echoing the question by Forbes Senior Editor Brett Pulley. ?It?s contrary to the greater goals of democracy for the country.?

Kerry said he understands that all media have more competitors, but that cross ownership is ?a concentration of power that, I think, remains a serious issue.? The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2003 lifted the 29-year-old cross-ownership ban, but a federal appeals court overturned that action in June, ruling that the commission had not sufficiently justified its decision.

About three-quarters of the audience greeted Kerry with a standing ovation, and his remarks on media concentration were vigorously applauded. Most of his remarks seemed taken from his standard stump speech, though he included a theme of interest to journalists by contrasting himself and President George W. Bush on the issue of openness. Kerry repeatedly described himself as ?straightforward.?

?We won?t win this struggle (against terrorism) by hiding or ignoring the facts,? Kerry said at one point. ?You have a key role to play in this, not as partisans but as truth-tellers.?

President Bush is scheduled to address Unity later this week.

Kerry -- who had said in his formal address to an audience of about 5,000 Unity attendees that ?no one in public life doesn?t have some complaint at some time about how they?ve been treated by the Fourth Estate? -- also touched obliquely on media bias in his response.

?Look, I don?t know how many of you have seen ?Outfoxed? or some of the other things that are circulating out there, and I?m not going to make this a critique of media,? he said. ?But look at the conventions, I thought Barack Obama (the Democratic senatorial candidate in Illinois) gave a brilliant speech -- America missed it. ... Ron Reagan speaking on stem cells. My wife, I think, gave a superb speech, but the networks chose not to (broadcast live) that night. These are issues for a strong democracy.?


Kerry said if he were elected president, ?I will appoint FCC commissioners who are commited to enforcing equal employment opportunities, and ensuring that small, minority (owned) broadcasters are not consolidated into extinction.?

Speaking of news outlets in general, Kerry said, "I look around at all he talent in this room and say to the management of these organizations, we can do better."

Before ending his speech with a literal salute, Kerry saluted famed journalists of color in a kind of roll call, mentioning among others: Ignacio Lozano, founder of La Opinion in Los Angeles; Native American journalist Arthur Caswell Parker, and Ruben Salazar, the Los Angeles Times reporter and columnist.