The Importance of Local Broadcasters

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRAMER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate so much this opportunity that we have this evening to inform and to educate my colleagues in the House, fellow Members of Congress, and even the American people through C-SPAN, about the importance of local radio and television broadcasters. They are important not only to our country, but I want to talk about how important they are to our communities--the communities we live in, the communities they live in, the communities they work in.

For decades, these broadcasters have been the first ones to respond to disasters and emergencies. They have saved numerous lives by their ability to be on the scene and to broadcast widely. They have helped communities pick up the pieces after a natural disaster or a manmade disaster. The broadcasters of our country, of our communities, have played a vital role in the quality of life in our communities.

I have been blessed throughout my career not just in public service but in other positions to work with local broadcasters hosting telethons to help find cures for diseases like muscular dystrophy, cancer, and many other diseases that our communities have tackled together.

Now, we need to remember that these radio and television stations are not monolithic corporations. They are owned and run and managed by our friends and neighbors, the people that we see every day.

Today is a big day. It is an appropriate day to celebrate--not just inform and educate but celebrate--the role of America's broadcasters in our communities. Because today, hundreds of Members of Congress were able to meet with their local television and radio station personalities and managers and representatives. Today, nearly 600 broadcasters came to Capitol Hill to tell their story of public service and to remind their Representatives of their role.

You may not know that these broadcasters are required by statute to serve the public interest. When I hear about the stories they cover, when I see the types of stories they cover, the lives they have touched, the service that they are providing, I am heartened to know that we have a vibrant, thriving system of local broadcasting in this country.

Unlike many other countries around the world, where national and regional news is what is available to their citizens, here in the United States, here in places like North Dakota and Texas and Arkansas and others, we have a system of local radio and TV stations so folks living in the same community are bound together by weather events, sporting events, news of the day, and human interest, all provided by an accurate local source.

I know in North Dakota we have seen weather emergencies where information from our local broadcasters was all that was available for those suffering the impacts of a storm. Several years ago, I myself, with my family, in 1984, spent all night--this was before cell phones, I know--spent all night in a car in a blizzard that came upon North Dakota suddenly. We were just off the interstate. The only communication we had was through KFGO Radio, which won a Peabody that year for broadcasting to us and to several others that were stranded in that storm.

So, today, we are going to hear a number of stories from Members of Congress across the country also touched by their local TV and radio stations. I thank them for sharing stories about their local stations. I will share some of mine as we go throughout this Special Order, but I want to call on somebody who knows a fair bit about broadcasting, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Crawford).

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Mr. CRAMER. If the gentleman wouldn't mind, I would like to ask a question. I know we didn't rehearse this, but in this era of all kinds of new information technologies available and ways of getting information, streaming and cell phones and smartphones and the like, maybe you could just share a minute or two about why it is still important, what role the broadcaster, the free, over-the-air broadcast through the public spectrum, why that matters in this era of new IT.

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Mr. CRAMER. I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I especially thank him for raising the football illustration, just because it is an opportunity--while he wondered if it was important in North Dakota, North Dakotans have become very accustomed to coming to Texas for football games because, for the last 4 years, the North Dakota State University football team has won the national FCS championship game in Frisco, Texas.

Thank you for reminding us of that, and we look forward to a trip next year, perhaps.

That said, I appreciate what you raised about how many broadcast stations really--they are tools of the First Amendment, and they are also, obviously, an important part of the First Amendment because that is where they derive their rights to express and to broadcast.

Where would politicians be without broadcasting debates? So I appreciate that as well.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline), just to let everybody know this is obviously a very important bipartisan Special Order because it a very important bipartisan issue.

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Mr. CRAMER. I appreciate the gentleman's recognition of that and the very thorough list of examples of the incredible public service that our broadcasters do in the Northeast. Thank you very much for that.

It occurs to me, Mr. Speaker, as I listen to my colleagues talk about the importance of local broadcasters that they really have multiple public service roles.

Certainly it is a public service to be able to give the news, to deliver the sporting games, to deliver the weather, to deliver emergency information for public safety, to let people know what is going on in the community. That is an important service. But the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) brings up, of course, many other charitable things.

I have participated in many charitable events that were good, that raised decent money for important causes. But when a broadcaster gets involved, it adds value; it raises awareness; it sometimes brings celebrity to it. And you can see a charity lifted up by virtue of the fact that a local TV station or a local radio station or, in some cases, multiple stations took on the cause--not because there is anything in it for the broadcast station, not because there is anything in it for the managers. Sure, sometimes there are programs that have a sales component to it that you can go out and sell, but by and large, these are pure acts of public service, pure acts of charity that with just a little bit of airtime, just a little bit of local personality that is attached to a cause can validate the cause, elevate the cause, bring awareness to the cause, and create momentum for a cause that generates all kinds of other private sector involvement, whether it is volunteers or money--in most cases, both. We can solve a lot of problems when we get a broadcaster involved.

I have had the opportunity to be part of a very special program that I know a lot of my colleagues have been a part of, whether out here or back at home, and that is Honor Flights. It was a local broadcaster in Fargo, North Dakota, that saw a national story about the Honor Flight program that flies World War II veterans to see the memorial built in their honor.

So WDAY radio and television took it on in Fargo and created the Red River Valley Honor Flight and flew four flights of veterans. During that time, they broadcast leading up to it to bring awareness so that the veterans, themselves, could sign up. Then they broadcast the trips themselves to bring awareness and to honor these men and women, these heroes of the Greatest Generation and then, of course, brought the celebration home in a way that you couldn't do without that involvement.

That resulted in another Honor Flight chapter being raised up in Bismarck, where I live, and I became the chairman of the Roughrider Honor Flight. We had five flights out of Bismarck.

The KX television network in North Dakota became our broadcast partner. Not only did they help by raising awareness, which helped me raise money, which helped us get more veterans signing up, but it got the whole community involved. At the end of it all, they provided a video documentary of the experience so that every veteran and their families who participated had that wonderful memory in a DVD that they could watch for the rest of their lives.

Just this last weekend, I was on a radio show in Fargo called ``Heroes of the Heartland.'' It is on for an

hour every Saturday, where a local veteran hosts the show, and it is all about veterans. I hope the show wins an award for what it does for veterans.

While I was on the show answering questions about legislation dealing with veterans' issues, people would call in and say: Did you know that the VA in Fargo is holding a public information meeting in a neighboring city on Saturday at whatever time, where veterans can come and air their grievances or give their appreciation or learn about the VA? And I thought: Wow, how cool is this, that because somebody knew of something, not only was the radio station there able to spread the information, but the listener became the newsmaker. They became the broadcaster.

That is the other neat thing about local radio, especially: it provides an opportunity where everybody is a broadcaster. If you see an accident or you find bad weather or you see something happen that you want to alert the public about, you have that opportunity now with new media, meaning broadcast media. So it was an honor to be on ``Heroes of the Heartland.''

I have the great privilege of representing the entire State of North Dakota. That is a big congressional district. Now, it is not as big as Montana or Wyoming or Alaska, but it is pretty big. I try to have a lot of town halls, like many of us do. We have a lot of town halls. But I have the opportunity, working with broadcast partners now, where every week I have a 1-hour talk radio town hall on multiple stations. KFYR-AM 550 in Bismarck was sort of the flagship station. KPLC out in Dickinson carries it. AM 1100 The Flag is really where it was birthed, in Fargo. KTGO up in the Bakken, the heart of the Bakken, in Tioga, carries the talk radio town hall.

People have the opportunity to either call me live on the air and ask a question or call on an 800 number and leave a message for me if they can't call during the show itself. It is broadcast statewide, and then it is broadcast again in the evening on delay. It provides a great opportunity for me to be in touch with my constituents and for them to talk to me and for me to be able to talk to them.

As you can tell, Mr. Speaker, I am a big advocate for free over-the-air broadcast media, whether it is radio or television--or certainly both. And I think that even in the new media era, and I appreciated the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Crawford's thoughts on this, that we have this opportunity still, but that there is still an important role for free broadcast radio and television, that even with all the new media, that it only, in fact, enhances the importance of free over-the-air broadcasts.

With that, I yield to another Member from Texas.

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Mr. CRAMER. If the gentleman from Texas would yield, you raised an important point that I hadn't thought about that is sort of natural and obvious, and that is, if you are going to be a good local broadcaster, obviously you have to be a good local citizen.

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Mr. CRAMER. You raise very important points.

Again, I appreciate the reminder that, while we are, today, educating, informing, and celebrating local broadcasting, it is at risk; that we can take our eye off the ball, that we can assume or presume some things and wake up one day and find out that when that accident happens on the railroad tracks or the storm is coming that suddenly there is nobody there to tell us about it.

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Mr. CRAMER. Well, you are a very articulate spokesman and advocate on behalf of local broadcasting, and I appreciate your taking the time and your expertise. By the way, you did pose it in the form of a question. I suppose some people can look at Congress and say: There is a group that can be wrong more than half the time and keep their jobs too. But at any rate, I have noticed that if you stay in good contact through your broadcast community with your constituents that helps as well.

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Mr. CRAMER. Well, it is very important because as I said, Mr. Speaker, at the beginning, over 600 broadcasters are in town today calling on the Members of Congress, calling on us, reminding us of the important role that they play in public safety, in public information, in public service, in many ways, in many ways, not just in delivering the news, weather, and sports and being active in our communities and elevating those important causes that make for a quality community, contributing their talent, contributing their, of course, their broadcast spectrum, which is really the people's. I think that is really an important point that we sometimes forget--that there is a reason that broadcasters have this legal obligation to public service because the people own the airwaves, and we rent them, if you will.

It is important that broadcasters and Congress stay in close touch because, as the gentleman from Texas pointed out, this is a fragile relationship, and we can sometimes take them for granted while presuming that there will always be other ways to communicate when we know, in fact, that when the lights go out, when the electricity goes off, when a storm hits, whatever the case may be, as long as you have a car radio and a good battery, or you have a battery-operated radio and the broadcasters are on the air, you can always get that information from your local, reliable, familiar, friendly broadcasters.

So with that, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time and I appreciate my colleagues from both sides of the aisle from across our country who have taken the time today to help inform, educate, and celebrate the American broadcaster.

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