WASHINGTON, July 19, 2004 -- It's great to join you and other grassroots leaders in pushing for better civic affairs coverage by our media.

Last summer, when Commissioner Copps and I traveled the country, we discovered a powder keg of public anger over media concentration. It exploded when the FCC loosened its media ownership rules. And the people made a real difference.

Congress immediately condemned what the FCC did and sent a law to the President rolling back one of the changes. A federal court immediately stopped the rule changes from taking effect. To top it all, the court recently delivered the most important decision in the history of the media democracy movement. It told the FCC to go back to the drawing board because the analysis behind the rules was so shoddy.

All this has empowered Americans to get involved and stay involved. Over the past year, people that were already concerned have gotten even more alert to media issues and more ready to take action.

I sense this every time I listen to the American people. On the day the decision was announced, I was flying from a town hall meeting in Albuquerque to another in Portland, Oregon. I was thrilled to see how educated people are about both media concentration and the action they can take to find solutions - at both the federal and local level.

The American public doesn't need to read the many studies that show declining election coverage to know something's missing. People already know they aren't getting enough in-depth coverage of local civic affairs and elections. They struggle to find shows that tell them what the candidates' real plans are, but they're frustrated to find only horserace coverage - who's ahead and who's behind - and negative ads.

So I welcome this new grassroots campaign. I hope all broadcasters will sign the pledge to air two hours or more a week of candidate- or issue-centered discourse leading up to the election. I went before the national convention of broadcasters earlier this year and made a similar call for increased election coverage.

This is not too much to ask. Broadcasters are expected to reap more than $1.5 billion this year from political advertising. They should be able to spare some real time each night for the public. And they should commit to do so now.

We'll all be watching closely. I recently joined Senator McCain and Chairman Powell in calling for more election coverage. The FCC just launched an inquiry on how well broadcasters are serving their communities and what steps the FCC could take to hold broadcasters even more accountable. We've held official hearings in a few cities.

The information gathered by this grassroots campaign will help the FCC do its work. Broadcasters are on notice that Congress and the FCC, and most importantly the American people, are monitoring whether they step up to the challenge of properly covering this election season.

Broadcasters have a social compact with the government - they get licenses to use public airwaves in return for agreeing to serve their local communities. The government is supposed to enforce that bargain.

I'm completely confident broadcasters clearly understand what they get out of the bargain. There aren't enough broadcast licenses for everyone who wants one. Broadcasters get to keep the profits from running the station and from selling it if they choose.

Given that the airwaves belong to the public, people have a right to know what they will get in return. There should be a clear set of public interest guidelines that will assure that every broadcaster adheres to baseline standards. These guidelines should be concrete and measurable.

This is especially important for the emerging world of digital television and digital radio, where a broadcaster can transmit multiple programming signals. The public should understand how those extra channels will be used in their interest. But the FCC hasn't updated broadcasters' public interest obligations for the digital environment. We need to do so immediately so everyone knows the rules of the road.

Broadcasters should also disclose their public interest efforts on the Internet. The FCC started a proceeding for broadcasters to put their public files on the Internet nearly four years ago. Think of how useful that would be for grassroots campaigns like this one. This simple step continues to linger at the FCC. We need to act now so it will help us in this election cycle. After all, if we at the FCC don't champion the use of the Internet, who will?

So let's chart a course toward more coverage of local civic and electoral affairs. Let's inspire more civic participation in our society. Let's reaffirm the social compact of broadcasting.

Broadcasters who step up now to join this vision deserve our strong recognition. I know many public-interest minded broadcasters who I hope will welcome this campaign. Broadcasters who serve their communities exceptionally well should be proud of their efforts.

It's up to the FCC's to ensure that all broadcasters pitch in. All are equally accountable to their local communities.

And they will be. Thanks to the Public Interest, Public Airwaves grassroots initiative, broadcasters will soon realize that people everywhere are tuning in and taking names. Those who step up to the plate will get the recognition they deserve. And those that don't do their part will hear about it, as they should.

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