Federal Communications Commission	"FCC  XX-XXX"


STATEMENT OF
CHAIRWOMAN JESSICA ROSENWORCEL

Re:	Priority Application Review for Broadcast Stations that Provide Local Journalism or 
Other Locally Originated Programming; Notice of Proposed  Rulemaking; MB Docket No. 24-14

	This is an initiative to support local journalism.  Local news is essential.  It helps us make decisions about our lives, our communities, and our country.  
For decades, the Federal Communications Commission has supported the development of local news and content through the distribution of broadcast licenses under the Communications Act.  These local licenses are powerful.  In exchange for access to the public airwaves, the law has long required that they broadcast in a manner that serves the interest of their community of license.  
Here, we propose to sweeten the incentives for locally-originated news and content.  After all, having the capacity to develop programming locally is important.  It adds to the diversity of voices on our airwaves and strengthens the ability of stations to meet their obligation under the law to serve their community of license.  Plus, without it, stations can just pump in programming from the largest metropolitan areas and miss opportunities for content creation in their own backyard.  So in this rulemaking we build on the time-tested model used with the Children’s Television Act and propose a first-in-class processing review for renewals when a station can certify that it provides locally-originated programming.  This is a tried-and-true incentive-based system that creates no new obligations, but instead puts in place a structure to better support the capacity for local news and content—and the local journalism that is absolutely vital for our communities and our democracy.  
 



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