Here's a post from Katie, one of our stellar new interns - Kirstin

Today the Center for American Progress held a panel on the Hill entitled "Local Media Diversity Matters to All Americans," focusing on diversity in ownership of media outlets and the focus (or lack thereof) on local news and public affairs. Moderator Mark Lloyd, of the Center for American Progress, debuted the Center's latest study of media diversity, "Local Media Diversity Matters: Measure Media Diversity According to Democratic Values, Not Market Values," which proposes a new "Metric for Local Media Diversity" which includes a series of measurements of local media diversity that utilize existing resources and are easy for the government to implement and the public to understand.

The panel started with a keynote address from Representative Xavier Becerra (D-CA), in which he spoke about the threat of media consolidation to media diversity and the need to reclaim the public airwaves.  Rep. Becerra also announced "this congress will be different"; specifically, Becerra assured us that this 110th Congress will be more firm and aggressive in its oversight of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is charged with protecting the public interest.