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Portland Citizens' Group Challenges FCC Broadcast Licenses

December 28, 2006

A citizen's group in Portland, Oregon has filed a petition with the FCC challenging the reneweal of broadcast licenses for eight television stations in that market (which happens to be mine).

The coalition is complaining that during the peak period 2004 political season, Portland's leading television stations each devoted just 1 percent of local news time to state and local political campaigns, the coalition complained.
 
The group complains the top four stations each devoted more than 100 hours to local newscasts in October 2004, but spent less than 2 minutes of that time covering campaigns for the Oregon Legislature. Two of these same four stations offered no coverage of the Portland Mayor's race. O)nly 5 percent of the aggregate news coverage time went to the Bush-Kerry race.

"Voters are not served by that," says Janice Thompson, head of the Portland-based Money in Politics Research Action Project and a leader of the complaint to the FCC. "We need coverage of political campaigns on TV news, because that is what people watch."

Station reporesentatives interviewed by Portland's Oregonian newspaper defended their coverage of local events.

Althought he FCC will consider this protest, denial of licenses is seen as a non-possibility by experts.

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