JOURNALISTS are instinctively libertarian, at least when it comes to journalism. We like the conversation about journalism and the federal government to begin and end with a robust defense of the First Amendment. That’s why journalists have not been leading participants in the debate over the Federal Communications Commission’s regulation of broadcasting, even though the future of our profession and its public mission is at stake.

But our profession needs to cast its reluctance to discuss broadcast regulation aside, and to let its voice be heard, loud and clear — on behalf of local reporting. The outcome of F.C.C. policy that matters most to us is not who owns what, but how much news gathering goes on.

On Tuesday, the F.C.C., in a close vote, decided to relax its rule against one company owning both broadcast and newspaper properties in a single market. Kevin J. Martin, the F.C.C. chairman, has offered a journalistic justification for this move: broadcast profits would help pay for the substantial news-gathering staffs at newspapers.

But local television and radio stations should be doing their own news gathering, rather than merely serving as support systems for news gathering by newspapers. Besides, if Mr. Martin were really so passionate about news gathering, he wouldn’t have restricted the F.C.C.’s action to media properties in big cities. Don’t small-town news organizations need help, too?

For a quarter-century, the F.C.C. has steadily moved toward the deregulation of broadcasting. This seems to have had the effect of reducing the resources available for original broadcast reporting, especially about public affairs.

There have been salutary countervailing trends — the Internet is great for opinion journalism and for broadening public access to information, though not very good yet as an economic support system for news gathering — but television and radio stations generally have smaller news staffs today than they did in the era before deregulation. That represents a real loss for American democracy.

As deans of journalism schools, we are devoting our working lives to the proposition that honest, aggressive, well-trained reporters and editors will be a powerful force for good in society. In broadcasting — still a heavily regulated industry and one in which some of the best news for journalism in recent decades has come through public-policy interventions like the creation of public radio and public television — we do not believe that the market can be absolutely trusted to provide the local news gathering that the American system needs to function at its best.

The F.C.C. ought to treat a broadcast licensee’s commitment of resources to original local reporting on public affairs as a key factor in its decisions about regulatory issues. Companies should be required to make a persuasive case that they will increase their commitment to local reporting if they get what they want — whether they aspire to own broadcast properties and newspapers in the same market; or, thanks to the onset of digital television, to turn every channel they control into several channels; or to expand their national market share in broadcasting or cable television.

For decades, holders of broadcast licenses had to make frequent, detailed arguments for their fitness to have their licenses renewed. They had to demonstrate a commitment to original reporting and to airtime for local public affairs.

The F.C.C. has always been lenient about renewing broadcast licenses, but it meant something that licensees had to go through a demanding renewal process. Now license renewal is so effortless it is known as “postcard renewal.” Even the pretense that there is a connection between the grant of a broadcast license and a promise to report on one’s community is all but gone.

This week’s moves by the F.C.C. are only the beginning of a contentious period in which Congress, the courts and other interested parties will vigorously discuss a range of issues involving the regulation of newspapers, cable television and broadcast television that will affect the future of journalism. Journalists, as advocates for local reporting, must become forceful participants in the debate.

— Roderick P. Hart, dean of the University of Texas journalism school; Alex S. Jones, director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy; Thomas Kunkel, dean of the University of Maryland journalism school; Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia Journalism School; John Levine, dean of the Northwestern journalism school; Dean Mills, dean of the University of Missouri journalism school; David M. Rubin, dean of the Syracuse school of public communications; and Ernest Wilson, dean of the University of Southern California school of communication.