One small step in giant march to media conglomeration:
sfbg.com
Good-bye, News Racks: Despite Concerns, Supervisors Approve Clear Channel Deal
By Tali Woodward
Over the objections of protesters, the San Francisco Board of
Supervisors voted May 6 to approve a deal that will give one of the
nation's largest and most criticized media conglomerates control over
the distribution of newspapers in the city for the next 20 years. Even
some of the supervisors who voted for the deal expressed reservations
and said they were acting under legal pressure.
The legislative package will ban freestanding news racks in parts of the
city, allowing Clear Channel Communications to replace them with
larger, centralized racks called pedmounts.
Critics of the deal fear the new distribution system will constrict the free
flow of information and hasten media consolidation. They also worry
about the implications of working with Clear Channel, a massive media
company and the country's largest owner of radio stations. Clear
Channel, which already controls roughly half of San Francisco's
billboards, will be allowed to mount 18-by-18-foot advertisements on
the downtown pedmounts.
The supervisors approved the original ordinance restricting news racks
in 1998 and the Clear Channel contract in 1999. But the entire deal was
stalled by a lawsuit filed by nine newspaper companies (including the
Bay Guardian). The newspaper publishers recently agreed to settle
that lawsuit if some changes were made to the ordinance and related
guidelines – prompting the judge to ask for city approval by May 30.
The city also made significant changes to the contract with Clear
Channel – a contract the publishers were not party to.
The supervisors have twice delayed a vote on the matter in order to
explore legal options. And after the board met in a closed-door
conference with city lawyers May 6, Sup. Chris Daly asked his
colleagues to delay voting another two weeks.
Sup. Matt Gonzalez agreed with Daly, reiterating his suggestion that
the board let the matter go to trial. If the ordinance was found
unconstitutional, the city would no longer have to honor the contract, he
said – and if the law was upheld, it would be "in a stronger position if
there [were] future lawsuits."
But deputy city attorney Wayne Snodgrass insisted that a delay
wouldn't do any good. "Neither one week nor two weeks would be
enough for the fundamental issues to be discussed and settled," he
said.
Sup. Tom Ammiano, who had opposed the initial ordinance, agreed
with the assertion of the City Attorney's Office that the board should go
along with the deal. "If it was about my personal feeling about
pedmounts, it would be a lot easier," Ammiano said. "But I really don't
feel we have a way out."
In the end, only Sups. Gonzalez and Gerardo Sandoval joined Daly in
voting against the deal.
Before the meeting, demonstrators gathered on the steps of City Hall.
"They're trying to privatize information – and keep it away from the
people who need it to make decisions about their lives," cautioned
Willie Ratcliff, publisher of San Francisco Bay View.
"A lot of people might say that these boxes are messy – but democracy
is messy," Jeremy Smith of the Independent Press Association said.
Jeff Perlstein heads Media Alliance, the nonprofit that organized the
rally. He described the deal as "a giveaway to a corporation that has
not been a good corporate citizen."
The final vote reflected a pattern that critics say has plagued city
contracting for years: the City Attorney's Office negotiates a deal (in
this case, a settlement), then tells the supervisors – who by law have
oversight – that they have no choice but to approve the deal or face
costly litigation.
In addition to more than 1,200 radio stations (including seven in San
Francisco) and its extensive billboard operation, Clear Channel runs a
massive concert-booking and -promotion business and 19 television
stations. Criticism of the company for discouraging competition and
homogenizing the media has been mounting since it began a rapid
expansion in the late 1990s. |
