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Ally PotterThe Coffee House - May 2007 (2007)

The Federal Communications Commission is in the throes of its biennial review of ownership patterns of media. Broadcasters are again pressing for further relaxation of rules restricting the number of TV and radio stations an entity can own in a single market, and rules regarding cross-ownership of a TV channel and newspaper in the same market. Mark Lloyd, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and an affiliated professor at the Georgetown Institute of Public Policy, is the co-author of a study recommending how the FCC should measure media diversity in order to foster civic engagement. Lloyd argues that FCC should aim to gauge democratic values rather than market values, as is its current wont. (Host: Mark Cohen)


The job of prosecutors is to do justice but, argues Angela Jordan Davis, their power to charge citizens with crimes is largely unchecked and their process for making charging decisions largely hidden from the public. Now a law professor at American University’s law school, Davis previously served as the director of the Public Defender Service in the District of Columbia. She finds that prosecutors’ subconscious racial and class bias, and occasional abusive conduct, like failing to disclose evidence helpful to defendants, too often results in Arbitrary Justice, which happens to be the title of her new book. She chats with Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin about some high profile cases in the news, including the Duke lacrosse players unjustly accused of rape, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez’s purge of US attorneys who were insufficiently loyal to the White House. (Host: Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin)


What was just a few years ago an obscure issue of interest to but a handful of scientists and even fewer policy wonks, climate change is now the stuff of daily street conversation. Cindy Schwartz, director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, tells Mike Tidwell she’s never seen an environmental issue seize the public imagination as has climate change. She attributes the sudden awareness to the convergence of two events: Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, and the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. The effect has been a flurry of state legislation, such as Maryland’s Clean Cars bill. And Schwartz anticipates that more legislation and more far-reaching legislation will be forthcoming. (Host: Mike Tidwell)

Music by WAMMIE winning blues woman Melanie Mason.

And poetry by Rose Solari ("My Mother's Elephant") and Grace Cavalieri ("Nettie").


This movie is part of the collection: Coffee House TV

Director: Ally Potter
Producer: Mark Cohen
Production Company: MPD PRODUCTIONS, INC.
Sponsor: www.coffeehousetv.org
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Keywords: broadcasting; media; FCC; prosecutor; environment; climate
Contact Information: Mark Cohen markc@coffeehousetv.org

Creative Commons license: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

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