Media Control

David Clark and Billy Givens

September 15, 2003

Research for this article was contributed by David Clark. David was a merchant in Allentown, Pennsylvania, for many years. He currently owns and operates "Estate Treasures" in Easton.

Now is not the time to relax rules that prohibit a newspaper from owning a TV station in the same city. This article will present information to show how one newspaper, The Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania, used its print-media power to promote the monetary interests of its largest advertisers over the interests of the City at large. The Call also promotes the political candidates who will best serve the interests of it and its advertisers.

As business enterprises concerned with the bottom line, most media outlets in this country - newspapers, radio and TV stations - follow more or less the same policies. To allow the only newspaper in Allentown to acquire a TV station would be a disservice to the public.

The truth is, CEOs of the local media know each other personally and share professional courtesy. Still, these media are distinct entities, and this arrangement serves the public best in the long run.

To begin with, Center City Allentown has seen a steady economic decline, and there are reasons for it that The Morning Call does not want published because they supported every damaging program.

In 1991, the largest advertisers and the owner of The Morning Call, Donald Miller, together owned the majority share of the Park-N-Shop lots in Center City. They land-banked these lots, hoping to make millions from the developers who would one day build skyscrapers. This speculation kept small entrepreneurs from locating and flourishing in Center City.

The tail end of 1991 marked the worst recession in recent times. The owners of Park-N-Shop, who had been offered $3.5 million for their lots by Colonial Parking five years earlier when the economy was robust, feared the value of their lots would drop to a giveaway. Since Colonial Parking wanted to offer a lower recession price, the owners went to then-Mayor Joe Daddona. They talked him into having the Allentown Parking Authority buy the lots for the full, original offer of $3.5 million, the figure they had been offered earlier when the economy was strong.

At the time, The Morning Call editorialized that this was a great deal for the city. Before long, an opposition group of 75 people organized. The group viewed the sale as a bailout, an unreasonable land-grab by the government, a tremendous loss of tax revenue, and a destroyer of future development downtown. David A. Clark, an Allentown merchant at the time, told city council, the body that voted on the sale, that if the sale went through, they would see no new development downtown other than that subsidized by government for the next 10 years.

The lone city council member voting against the sale was the late Emma Tropiano, whom The Morning Call ridiculed for not falling in line behind Daddona and the other council members. Does Allentown want a newspaper with the additional armament of a TV station to launch its vendettas against dissenters like Emma Tropiano? Competition between media is a healthy situation that can be disrupted by allowing news outlets to join under one ownership.

At election time, The Morning Call brings candidates into its offices for interviews so that it can decide which ones to recommend that voters choose. In the case of Allentown, three interviewers decide through the pervasive influence of the only paper in the city who should win. Do Allentown voters really want this influence, already awesome, augmented by a TV outlet owned and controlled by The Morning Call?

Please phone, fax, or e-mail U. S. Senators Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum using numbers and addresses below. Urge them to oppose the FCC Rule Change that would allow one-newspaper cities like Allentown to own a TV station as well. The Senate's vote on this vital issue could come as early as tomorrow!

The views expressed herein are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect billybytes.com

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