MEDIA CONTACT: Pat Vaughan Tremmel at (847) 491-4892 or p-tremmel@northwestern.edu

March 25, 2003

Law School Forum on Media Ownership

CHICAGO --- Industry leaders, activists and academics will address new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations at the Midwest Public Forum on Media Ownership to be hosted by Northwestern University School of Law at 10 a.m. Wednesday, April 2, in Lincoln Hall, 357 E. Chicago Ave.

Michael J. Copps, Commissioner of the FCC, will be in attendance.

“The potential impact of the FCC’s regulatory changes on the media landscape and the free flow of information in our society is enormous,“ said James Speta, professor of law, specialist in telecommunications and antitrust law, and Northwestern’s Media and Entertainment Law Society faculty advisor. “We feel that Chicago and the Midwest region have much to contribute to the public debate on this issue.“

Organized by students in the Media and Entertainment Law Society at Northwestern in conjunction with local media groups, the forum is free and open to the public. The first of its kind in the Midwest, the forum was developed in response to FCC Chairman Michael Powell’s challenge, made at the Columbia University Forum, to “give us something we can use…[to] develop [media] ownership policies that truly serve the American public. “Attendees will have an opportunity to voice their opinions before the public and the FCC about the impact of proposed changes.

Academics, industry representatives, media and community activists, labor representatives and others will offer proposed solutions that will stand up to legal scrutiny and enhance the FCC’s stated values of diversity, localism and competition. A full list of speakers will be released prior to the event and will be available online at www.law.northwestern.edu/news/spring03/mediaownership.htm.

For more information, e-mail t-hayes2005@law.northwestern.edu or call 312-503-8470.