:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 5.14.2003 ::

:: /. ::

Media consolidation

"A few more links on the important FCC decision coming up in a few weeks (see our previous story for more). Common Cause has a good set of background information and advocacy. The Washington Post has a story about the decision, focusing on how independent television stations will be squeezed even harder. This article about ClearChannel is a useful primer about the future of mass media."

Slashdot community discussion sample:

"These media conglomarates also come with a political point of view. In a very real sense they will determine who your next president or senator will be. It's hard enough to win an election while debating and fighting against another party. These media conglomarates throw a monkey wrench into the equation by constantly slanting news and commentary to favor their favored candidates. Now only are these corporations a threat to consumers but they are a threat to democracy itself." -Malcontent (40834)

"good cartoon [yahoo.com] on the topic" -TamMan2000 (578899)

"Over the past few decades or so the U.S. Government has learned many lessons about media coverage and international dealings. The whole dynamic has changed radically from the times of journalism in say Vietnam vs the "inbedded" reporters of this recent action. General Franks and Colin Powell, whos son is pushing he deal, "Cut their teeth" commanding forces in vietnam and they relaize that tight media control is the answer to help the people accept the actions of the government. This plan is another step in narrowing and refining the information that the public sees. With top political officers havving ties to large corporations, it's hard to tell the lines in which corporate money, goverment money are drawn. Be afraid." -scrow (620374)

[This is not a private fight... anyone can join.]

/. quote of the day:
"... with liberty and justice for all ... who can afford it."

ALSO:
From the book The Media Monopoly
by Ben H. Bagdikian
Published by Beacon Press, 1997

As the communications medium the public most depends on, television has become the nation's baby-sitter, chief news source, and ever-present entertainer. When broadcasters and their corporate sponsors fail to deal seriously, fairly, and regularly with the country's urgent issues, in a very real way they are using the nation's own property to rob its citizens of the knowledge necessary to cope with their most urgent needs and challenges.

The public needs a constant reminder:

The airwaves do not belong to the broadcasters. They do not belong to the advertisers. The owners, by law, are the people of the United States.

The Media Monopoly is in its 6th Edition (Paperback - March 2000).

Excerpts are available at Amazon.

From the Publisher:
When the first edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 1983, critics called Ben Bagdikian's warnings about the chilling effects of corporate ownership and mass advertising on the nation's news "alarmist." Since then, the number of corporations controlling most of America's daily newspapers, magazines, radio, television, books, and movies has dropped from fifty to ten to six. This edition features a dramatic new preface, detailing the media landscape as we enter the twenty-first century, and includes an entirely new examination of the implications of new technologies.


From PBS.org's Frontline:
Smoke in the eye: an interview with Ben Bagdikian

Q: WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHEN YOU SPEAK OF THE MEDIA MONOPOLY?

Bagdikian: Well the media is increasingly owned by a few very large multinational corporations. By the media, newspapers, magazines, books, movies, television and radio. This is growing. You know, we think of as our formative picture of monopolies, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, who dominated the media scene from the late 19th century when there was mass printing. But compared to those, the new media giants are a totally different magnitude, and they encompass more powerful media - radio, television for example. So that what we have is maybe anywhere from 20 to a half a dozen huge corporations who have the dominant media voice in the media absorbing world, especially in the developed world - and now, getting a foothold in the less developed world.

And that means that inevitably people who have such power see the world in a particular way. And when they have dominance, as with candy manufacturers and automobile manufacturers, the less competition there is, the more control they have on what economists would call price and quality. In cases of the media and when we're talking about the news, price is one thing, quality means how much and what kind of news will you give. And what we're seeing in the media now is a decrease in hard reporting as a proportion of the whole, and an increase of soft entertainment features - which are the least expensive to produce and the most revenue producing. Because if you look at the main section of any good newspaper, that's not where most of the ads go, because when you're in a very serious mood - your aunt has Alzheimers and you're reading about Alzheimers Disease or there's been a catastrophe someplace or there's a political development that you're very interested in - a lot of the ads, especially on especially on television, don't have much of an impact. But if you have it in the entertainment section, you are not in such a critical mood, you've having a good time. And like television commercials, they like fantasy programs. That's why even very popular serious documentaries don't make as much money, because in the midst of a documentary on the Rwandan slaughter, the ad for Pepsi saying you'll stay young forever is laughable. But in the middle of a sitcom, which is already laughable (laugh), it's just absorbed without any critical analysis. So that if you control the media, you have control over things of this sort. And now what we have in daily newspapers in the United States, we have about 15 hundred cities that have a daily paper.

And in 99 percent of those cities there is only one paper in their city of origin. And that's an enormous amount of control. They aren't all the same. Some are better than others and some are worse than others. But even the best has a degree of control over what they'll print or not print, that is greater than if they had to worry about an aggressive competitor across the street.

From The Progressive:
The 50-Year Swindle
by Ben Bagdikian

"Information is the currency of democracy." -Thomas Jefferson

posted by me

:: 8:01:00 PM [+] ::
...