"This region ought to welcome the FCC to the Emerald City in proper Seattle fashion by flooding the e-mail inboxes of our congressional representatives, inviting every key person we know to Friday's hearing and, most of all, jamming the place with our bodies and voices."

So wrote a columnist for the Seattle Times today following the news that the Federal Communications Commission will hold its last of six hearings on its media ownership rules in Seattle's Great Hall this Friday.

Despite the fact that the FCC has only given one week's notice for the gathering, media activists are doing their best to fulfill the Times' wish.

The Reclaim the Media group has been running workshops on media ownership policy to prepare speakers for the event. One teach-in will be broadcast on Hollow Earth Radio on Thursday evening starting at 7:30 pm PST.

Listening sponsored radio station KPFA in Berkeley, California, will send its veteran public affairs host Larry Bensky up to Seattle to cover the event live in partnership with the city's KBCS.

"The FCC's rule changes could drastically reduce the diversity of perspectives available in American media. By giving the public only five days' notice to prepare for this hearing, the FCC appears to be trying to conduct its business under cover of darkness," KPFA's Interim General Manager Lemlem Rijio declared in a press statement. "KPFA's job is to bring in the floodlights."

The short notice the FCC has given for the hearing has stoked fears that the agency's chair, Kevin Martin, will soon propose relaxing the agency's media ownership limits. The Commission's regulations forbid an entity from owning a newspaper and a television station in the same market without an FCC waiver. They also put restrictions on owning more than one television station in a city.

Op-ed pieces from neighboring newspapers echo the Seattle Times' perspective.

"Studies have repeatedly shown that media consolidation leads to less coverage of all things local, from the news to music," warned the Portland Mercury this week. "While we have seen some small gains recently in local radio playing Portland music, we need more independent, community-minded, locally programmed, homegrown broadcast options—not fewer. This is a sentiment that the FCC and our elected representatives need to hear."

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