STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER MICHAEL J. COPPS
ON REPORT FROM STEVE WALDMAN ON FUTURE OF MEDIA
FEBRUARY 18, 2010
I want to express my personal gratitude to Steve Waldman for the work he’s 
doing to examine the present state of journalism and its future.  This is an issue that is not 
only near and dear to my heart, but one that goes to the very heart of our democracy.   At 
its best, journalism asks the right questions and knows where and how to find the 
answers.  It holds the powerful accountable by providing citizens an accounting.  It is 
democracy’s watchdog.  As we move forward in this work, it is only fitting that we have 
someone here at the FCC with the mission of asking the difficult and encompassing 
questions and reaching out to stakeholders all across the land to develop some answers.  
The country is in serious need of a robust national dialogue about what we expect of our 
journalism media going forward in this era of great technology and economic change.
I can think of few, if any, challenges more central to the future of our country.  In 
fact, I can think of none.  You’ve heard me talk many times before about where the past 
three decades of media consolidation by the private sector, aided and abetted by this 
Commission’s wholesale decimation of public interest oversight, have left us in terms of 
actual news.  Watchdog journalism is a shell of its former self.  It’s dying in traditional 
media and unable to find oxygen in the new.   The road we’re traveling is inflicting 
irreparable harm not just on our media, but on the citizenry that media has an obligation 
to inform and enlighten.
So I am grateful that we are at long last, after a sojourn of many years in a strange 
ideological wilderness, asking how well the public interest is being served currently by 
traditional media, and equally appreciative that we are beginning to examine how the 
public interest can be served in the new digital era.  
I am pleased that the Chairman has initiated this proceeding and tasked Steve with 
shepherding us to some real and timely outcomes.  The recent Public Notice which 
examines the future of media information needs in communities across the country 
demonstrates to me that Steve takes his assignment with the seriousness it warrants and 
deserves.  I am looking to him to press the issue hard and to press each of us to meet this 
challenge head on, with the priority and the sense of urgency it so clearly merits.  I look 
forward to my colleagues and me joining Steve in events around the country to learn 
first-hand what people are actually experiencing—or not experiencing—when it comes to 
news and the media.  A formal FCC hearing, or two, would be welcomed.
Of course, we already have a hefty record on much of this from our previous 
media ownership and localism hearings, so we’re nowhere near starting from scratch.  
But it will do us all good to see for ourselves and to update the record in the weeks and 
months ahead.  And, to be sure, there are new questions to ask and new facts to gather.
Time is not our friend here, however.  Journalism’s decline moves measurably 
forward by the month, so this is not the time for a long, drawn-out process, and I believe 
2
Steve agrees with that.  With journalism’s fuel tank fast approaching “empty” in so many 
localities, a leisured pace would only make an already dangerous situation totally 
untenable.  This Commission has a responsibility to keep that from happening.
So the future of journalism begins now.  Now is the time to strengthen traditional 
media and now is the time to make sure that new media, as it takes on ever-larger 
responsibilities, serves the public interest and nourishes the democratic dialogue that our 
best leaders have worked for since the time of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  
They knew they had to get this issue right—and I hope we are beginning to understand 
that, too.    
I was reminded recently of the import of journalism, particularly the investigative 
type that keeps government and businesses accountable to its citizens.  I was speaking 
with Brian Ross, the great reporter for ABC’s Investigative Unit, who—along with the 
Los Angeles Times—broke the story on the Toyota gas pedal defect.  A very tough 
question to consider—and certainly worth asking every time you get into a car:  How 
long would that story have been buried without hard-working journalists digging in the 
right place?  It almost didn’t happen but for a handful of investigative journalists who, 
thank goodness, remain on the beat.   Now it’s our turn to be on the beat.
A great American who I got to know after I came to the Commission, the 
legendary Walter Cronkite, once said. “America is a powerful and prosperous nation.  
We certainly should insist upon, and can afford to sustain, a media system of which we 
can be proud.”   That’s at the top of my list of things to do in the months ahead.  And I’ve 
got high expectations for Steve and for all of us as we step up to the plate.