- "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those
who own one."
-
- When legendary media critic A.J. Liebling issued that
warning some decades ago about the corrosive effect of media monopolies
on the 1st Amendment, media ownership was a great deal more varied than
it is today.
-
- Even then, it was far more concentrated in a few hands
than when the Bill of Rights was written, when "the press" was
a low-capital venture, and newspapers were easily launched by those who
had something to say. The founding fathers hardly anticipated today's media
market, in which journalism is a vehicle for mega-corporate profits, and
the diversity of opinion implied in the 1st Amendment is threatened less
by a king or the state and far more by the motives of media barons.
-
- Nowadays, media mega-mergers are the rage, and the Bush
administration is determined to remove legal barriers to media conglomeration
that long have prevented a few giant corporations from controlling all
of print and broadcast journalism. But can we count on the very news organizations
whose owners are zealously pursuing profit from those mergers to also objectively
cover the implications of media concentration for a free society?
-
- The initial signs aren't promising. When America Online
purchased Time Warner in the biggest media merger in U.S. history, there
was considerable analysis of the deal's business aspects but meager attention
to implications for a representative democracy of having a significant
portion of its media controlled by one corporation.
-
- Previously, one could assume that Time magazine, AOL
and CNN, as well as other parts of the new conglomerate, at least reflected
the voices of different owners, but that's no longer the case. Also, with
that merger, AOL went from being an outsider company demanding open access
to cable to being the second-largest cable operator. Suddenly it muted
its open access demand, leaving the perception that the news outlets now
assembled under the AOL banner might also have had a change of heart as
to what's important in the cable controversy.
-
- Most recently, the new Bush FCC appointees relaxed a
long-standing "dual network rule" barring one television network
from buying another. The result is that Viacom, which owns CBS, will have
a large stake in the UPN network. Will other broadcasters anticipating
similar deals permit their news organizations to voice dissenting opinions,
or launch investigations of the FCC's abandonment of its consumer watchdog
role?
-
- Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch has made clear his intention
to purchase DirecTV from General Motors. If he succeeds, he'll combine
the largest U.S. satellite broadcaster with his existing satellite network,
which is pervasive in much of the rest of the world. Will journalists laboring
in his vast empire dare raise troubling questions about the danger of one
man holding such overwhelming power in the world communications market?
-
- Further, Bush's new FCC chairman, Michael Powell, promises
to eliminate the 1975 prohibition against cross-ownership--a company owning
a TV station and newspaper in the same market. That might prove immensely
profitable to the Tribune Co., which, in purchasing the Times Mirror Co.
last year, acquired newspapers in three markets where Tribune already owned
television stations. But is cross-ownership healthy for independent journalism
in those markets, which include New York and Los Angeles? Will the news
outlets that are subsidiaries in the deal fully examine the journalistic
implications of media concentration? Or will they only report on the wonders
of what the owners celebrate as "convergence" or "synergy"?
-
- The answer suggested by the last election is that media
have difficulty covering themselves fully when the owners' financial interests
are seriously in play. How else can one explain the scant attention paid
to the difference between Al Gore--who opposed cross-ownership--and George
W. Bush on this issue?
-
- Also ignored in the coverage was the stake that media
moguls had in the Democrats not gaining control of Congress. Had that happened,
John Dingell (D-Mich.) would be chairing the House Commerce Committee,
which oversees the work of the FCC. Dingell was on record as opposing the
Tribune purchase of Times Mirror because such mergers lead to a "huge
concentration of power in a small group of hands."
-
- That's why Dingell and others believe that government
regulation to preserve a diverse media market is essential. The rules concerning
media ownership were not carelessly drawn up over the preceding decades
to inconvenience the media industry. Rather, they were designed to save
the media business from its worst instincts.
-
- Regulation is a reminder that there is a public interest
in the news media as in no other industry because corporate concentration
threatens the competition vital to an unfettered press. The free press
belongs to us all and not just to the few who own one.
-
-
- Robert Scheer Writes a Syndicated Column Web Site: Www.robertscheer.com
-
- MainPage
http://www.rense.com
-
-
-
- This
Site Served by TheHostPros
|