Here are my comments from the FCC hearing on media ownership last night in Tampa. It was exciting to get to speak, in my own words, to the commissioners in their flesh and blood — truly an opportunity to “seek redress of grievances,” even if Chairman Martin and Commissioner Adelstein were temporarily out of the room. I’ll be submitting my comments ex parte in writing. I expect to find some video of myself online soon. I was also quoted in stories in the Tampa Tribune and Orlando Weekly on the hearing.

In other news, this blog will be transitioning over to a general-purpose Web site for myself in the near future, since my term in the Student Senate ended in March. I just haven’t had a chance to make the switch yet, due to scholastic obligations. It’ll probably happen later this month.

Comments after the jump.
Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Gavin Baker, and I’m a student at the University of Florida. I’d like to thank the Commission for organizing this hearing — clearly, I appreciate this opportunity, because I drove two hours from Gainesville to be here.

I urge the Commission not to loosen its media ownership rules. Already, you’ve heard from a number of speakers on the sad state of the public interest in commercial broadcasting today. Myself, I don’t even listen. As a young person who wants to be connected with my local community, there’s nothing for me on commercial TV and radio — and so it goes for most of my friends. I find that problematic.

Now, if media are just a commodity in the market, then it’s not too troubling if I choose not to buy — but media are so much more. The media play an integral role in the community: in self-expression and communication among neighbors, not just a market but a marketplace of ideas, a gathering place for exploring our shared identity.

Spectrum is not square footage in a shopping mall: it’s a precious natural resource that the public owns. It belongs to us, but if the broadcast spectrum were a national park, it would be fenced off, 20 feet high, with barbed wire on top. We own it but we can’t use it: look, but you can’t go in; consume, but you may not produce.

That’s why I and much of my generation have fled the broadcast media. But we, and I, are not content to be excluded, to be consigned to the new media because the old media has abandoned us. We want it back.

The Commission can help us by rejecting rules that will mean more of the same — or really, worse than the same — and instead, put us on the track to more localism, more diversity, and a media that serve more than its market: a media that serve its community.

* I apologize for some of the inconsistencies in grammatical person when using the noun “media.” Technically, “media” is a plural noun (Latinized plural of “medium”), but it’s more common to use it in the singular, e.g. “the media is.” Accordingly, I tried to keep it straight, but I think I got tripped up on some of them. Anyway, you know what I mean.