In his June 2nd New York Times editorial FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps urged the Commission to compel broadcasters to serve the public, citing research from the Lear Center's 2004 Local News Archive Final Report. That report found only about 8 percent of local TV newscasts in the month before the last presidential election had any coverage whatsoever of local races, including those for the House of Representatives. Read a letter in the New York Times from one of the principal investigators on the 2004 report in response to Copps' editorial.
Watch or read Copps' keynote speech at the 2007 USC Annenberg Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism.


