But she was joined Thursday night by hundreds who overflowed Hamline University's Sundin Music Hall with a shared sense of urgency regarding mass media.

In a public forum brought by two commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission, people voiced concern, cynicism and frustration about the content delivered through the Twin Cities' major broadcasters and newspapers.

"The media plays a big role in the way people think, and I would like to see us get advertisers out of the media," Malerich said before the start of the forum. "Is it realistic to make at least one station ad-free? At least make it a goal."

Public concern over how the mass media conducts business certainly isn't new.

That concern heightened with the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the deregulation that allowed Clear Channel to purchase hundreds of television and radio stations around the country.

The concern reached another public pitch earlier this year when the FCC voted to loosen the restrictions on the number of stations one entity could own. Under massive public pressure, a federal court suspended the FCC's decision.

The two commissioners who dissented from the FCC's original decision, Michael Kopps and Jonathan Adelstein, were behind Thursday's forum.

Chris Spotted Eagle of Minneapolis criticized "programming that seduces us to be consumers. It's despicable and degrading to subject us to commercial propaganda, and for those who say 'Just turn off the tube,' you're incredibly naive."

Other speakers addressed the absence of farm and labor news in mainstream media.

Janis Lane-Ewart, executive director of the community-owned radio station KFAI-FM, was among the many advocating the broadening of the FM spectrum, expansion of low-power FM to open the airwaves to a diversity of voices, and the importance of more than one daily newspaper in both Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Rob Hubbard, whose grandfather began Hubbard Broadcasting, which owns KSTP-TV, Channel 5, told the audience it took entrepreneurs such as his grandfather to make broadcasting exist and evolve and become "a positive force in the community."

Hubbard pointed to the hours of public affairs programming mandated at every Hubbard-owned station and noted that some political candidates don't take advantage of the free time offered to them during the campaign season.

"It's important to remember that just because a station isn't owned locally doesn't mean it can't be run locally," Hubbard said.

Hubbard's call for a balance of public service and business interests was dwarfed by the streams of people from all over the Twin Cities who said they consider commerce and public service conflicting interests.

Lorena Duarte, editor of La Prensa de Minnesota, delivered her opening panelist comments in Spanish before telling the nearly universally English-speaking audience "that's how minority communities feel."

She continued, "Sensationalism sells. Whatever is sexy is on TV, and whatever scares you to death gets put on the front page of the newspaper."

Matt Peiken can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or 651-228-5440.