As a repository of information, the report is clearly useful, but to limit suggestions of government interference in media management, the prologue circumscribes its standing with the caveat that Waldman (and not the FCC) took responsibility for aligning the findings from the working group, and that the conclusions in the report "do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Communication Commission, its Commissioners or any individual Bureaus or Offices." Nonetheless, this is an ambitious appraisal of the evolving universe of news, underwritten by the FCC, which could make its findings more influential in official circles than the reams of other such studies.

Overall, the report, from the opening paragraph to its closing peroration, makes the point that we are in a proverbial best-of-times and worst-of-times era for news:

In most ways today's media landscape is more vibrant than ever, offering faster and cheaper distribution networks, fewer barriers to entry and more ways to consume information. Choice abounds. Local TV stations, newspapers and a flood of innovative web start-ups are now using a dazzling array of digital tools to improve the way they gather and disseminate the news—nationally or internationally, but block by block. Yet, in part, because of the digital revolution, serious problems have arisen as well. Most significant among them: in many communities we now face a shortage of local, professional accountability reporting. This is likely to lead to the kinds of problems that are, not surprisingly, associated with a lack of accountability—more government waste, more local corruption, less effective schools and other serious community problems. The independent watchdog function that the Founding Fathers envisioned for journalism—going so far as to call it crucial to a healthy democracy—is in some cases at risk at the local level.

Given that the report was mandated by a major government agency, there was potential for it to produce recommendations of some consequence from its extensive research. A Wall Street Journal piece on the eve of study's release reflected an apparent downgrading of a possible government role in tackling the problems the working group identified. "My expectation has been that when we were finally turning the commission's attention to media, we'd have a program and a plan to address the news and information needs of the country and a specific plan for those areas where the FCC can be active," said Michael Copps, a Democratic commissioner. "It's fair to say that I'd have written a significantly different report," he added, presumably with guidelines for more public service journalism from parts of the media industry that are subject in any way to FCC jurisdiction.

The report does assert that "it would be public policy malpractice to simply assume that the current (voluminous) set of public policies about communications—some crafted before there was an Internet—are well suited for the 21st century." But the actual recommendations are modest: greater transparency about information required by the FCC; targeting more government advertising toward local media; and expanding broadband access (which the Obama administration has set as a priority).