Media Action Center is a group of of concerned residents throughout the U.S. led by former Emmy-winning broadcaster turned media reformer Sue Wilson. We have successfully influenced policy at the Federal Communications Commission and at local TV and Radio stations throughout the country for more than a decade to ensure We the People are truly served by the publicly owned airwaves. MAC has joined a current Petition to Deny the broadcast licenses of DISNEY ABC at the FCC to ensure We the People have a seat at our Public Interest table. We have also commented to answer the FCC's question, "Is the View Bonafide News?" (See below.) MAC earlier filed a successful Petition to Deny Entercom's license to broadcast on radio station KDND for killing a woman in a radio water drinking stunt; that forced Entercom to give up its $13.5 million license, and in 2000, educated the Supreme Court in FCC v Prometheus Radio on how multiple TV station with one corporate owner merely duplicate news stories on all its stations, a methodology currently being used in legal cases surrounding the Nexstar/TEGNA merger.

Find full journalistic coverage of the Supreme Court case and our Amicus brief, Sinclair Broadcasting's shell game, MAC's successful actions against Alex Jones, the Strange v Entercom trial and other public interest media issues at SueWilsonReports.com. See also Wilson's documentary "Broadcast Blues" which is more relevant today than when it premiered in 2009. Broadcast Blues.

Petition to Deny WJNO-AM, Home to Rush Limbaugh

January 2, 2012

At the last possible legal moment, the Media Action Center filed a petition to deny the broadcast license of Clear Channel Communication's WJNO in West Palm Beach, Florida, home to radio giant Rush Limbaugh.

Just as people get licenses to drive cars, radio stations get licenses from the Federal Communications Commission for the privilege of broadcasting to our local communities. Those licenses come up for renewal only every eight years.  The final date Florida community members could oppose the renewal of a station's license was January 1, 2012.  December 30, 2011, MAC Team Leader Milo Vannucci, a resident of West Palm Beach, filed a formal petition to deny the renewal of the license of WJNO-AM to Clear Channel Communications.  

The crux of the complaint is that by WJNO's airing nine times more "conservative" talk radio than "progressive" in an area predominately populated by Democrats, Clear Channel is effectively silencing the progressive voice in West Palm Beach, thereby denying the majority of the community its First Amendment rights to exercise free speech over the publicly owned airwaves.

The FCC is forced to act immediately on the petition, as the agency must either deny or agree to renew WJNO's broadcast license by February 1, 2012.  

Media Action Center members in West Palm Beach participated in the recent "Occupy Clear Channel" day of public files inspections, where people marched into Clear Channel radio stations across the country, exercising their rights as the owners of the radio airwaves to inspect the station's public files.