(Announcements, Shameless Horn-Tooting)

U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle and Michael Copps of the Federal Communications Commission are among the featured speakers at a town hall-style meeting Monday in Pittsburgh.

Tube City Community Media Inc., parent corporation of The Tube City Almanac, has signed on as a co-sponsor of the event, called "Owning Our Airwaves: A Community Dialogue With Media Policymakers."

The event at Carnegie Mellon University in Oakland is being organized by Free Press, a non-partisan, non-profit organization based in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.

Founded in 2002 by Robert McChesney, a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Josh Silver, former director of development for the Smithsonian Institution, Free Press bills itself as the largest media-reform organization in the United States.

The organization's goals include promoting public media, quality journalism, more access to communications and diverse and independent ownership of news outlets.

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At Monday's event, a spokeswoman said, policymakers and community leaders will discuss the changes "needed to guarantee Pittsburgh residents access to in-depth investigative reporting and quality local news that promote government and corporate accountability and represent the diversity of the city."

Doyle, a Forest Hills Democrat whose district includes the Mon-Yough area, was instrumental in creation of the Local Community Radio Act, which would guarantee spaces on the FM dial for a special class of non-commercial, low-power radio stations.

The Pittsburgh discussion comes as the FCC reviews the regulations governing how many radio and TV stations that a single company may own nationwide, and in a particular city.

Other speakers will include:

• Deborah Acklin, president and CEO of WQED Multimedia;


• Marge Krueger, administrative director for the Communications Workers of America;


• Khari Mosley of Pittsburgh United;


• Jon Peha, assistant professor of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University and a former advisor to the FCC;


• Chris Ramirez of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists; and


• Matt Wood, policy director of Free Press;

The meeting is free and open to the public and will be held in the McConomy Auditorium of CMU's University Center, the student union, at 5020 Forbes Ave. Doors open at 6:30 and speakers take the stage at 7 p.m.