USCCB forum examines broadcasters' obligation to serve all audiences

Published: 2007-01-11

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Religious groups have to harness the unity in their diversity and work together to ensure that broadcasters respect their obligation to serve the needs of all viewers and listeners -- and not only those who are shareholders. This was a conclusion at a historic round-table forum on religion and broadcasting held January 9 at the WNET television studio in New York. Representatives from two dozen Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Islamic groups met with two commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission for a spirited discussion organized by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in cooperation with the National Council of Churches and the United Church of Christ. The effect of media consolidation, in which large companies own a variety of media outlets in a single market, according to Bishop Joseph A. Galante of Camden, N.J., a former chairman of the USCCB Committee on Communications, is "we get fed a steady diet of 'reality' programs and dreck. We have so dumbed-down our culture that we have a deadening of spirit."

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