oncerned about the portrayal of minorities, the Rev. Jesse Jackson is turning his attention to the people who own media outlets more than those who run them.
Jackson, who has called for Federal Communications Commission hearings on the
effect of media mergers on minorities, warned broadcasters from across the country last week that consolidation of media ownership homogenizes the culture.
"Too many people's real needs are not met in the
scenario of a concentrated ownership arrangement," he said at the annual convention of the Radio and Television News Directors Association in Charlotte.
Jackson was challenged by other members of a panel addressing the broadcasters. Erica Farber, publisher of the trade magazine Radio & Records, said consolidation in radio has had the opposite effect.
"I think the industry is so much more willing to take on new ideas," she said. "There's so much more diversity in formats than there was 10 years ago."
Robert Pittman, president of America Online, and Michael Bloomberg, founder of the multimedia news service that bears his name, both said the Internet allows for many more voices in media.
"Six months, two years from now, everyone is going to have their own radio and television station," Bloomberg said, "and I'm not so sure that's a good thing."
Jackson countered that the powerful media owners are much more able to drive the public agenda than would-be moguls.
Meanwhile, the RTNDA teamed up with a few minority journalism groups to encourage radio
and television stations to hire more minorities. The percentage of minorities in electronic newsrooms has slipped from a high of 21 percent three years ago to 19 percent now, the association said.
The organization steered clear of the question about minority ownership of the media. John Sears, RTNDA chairman, said his group will concentrate on what its members can control.
ATLANTA The Rev. Hosea Williams, a civil rights leader who was an associate of the
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.,is recovering after undergoing surgery for kidney cancer.Williams, 73, went into surgery to have one of his kidneys removed at 11:30 a.m. The surgery
took about an hour and a half, said Piedmont Hospital spokeswoman Nina Montanaro. Williams will likely remain in the hospital five to seven days, she said.
She said Dr. James Bennett, who performed the surgery, said it was too early to comment on Williams' prognosis. The pathology report, which will take three to five days to complete, will
determine what type of tumor it was and if all mass had been removed.
Williams, a former state representative who operates a bonding business, entered the hospital last weekend.
Instead of cards or flowers, Terrie L. Randolph, vice president of Hosea's Bonding Company Inc., asked that well-wishers send donations to Williams' Feed the Hungry and Homeless
Program for Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, which feeds tens of thousands from metro Atlanta annually.
