Why Worry About Who Owns The Media?

[NinjaPoodle]

WHY WORRY ABOUT WHO OWNS THE MEDIA?
MoveOn Bulletin Op-Ed
by Eli Pariser

It's like something out of a nightmare, but it really happened: At
1:30 on a cold January night, a train containing hundreds of
thousands of gallons of toxic ammonia derails in Minot, North Dakota.
Town officials try to sound the emergency alert system, but it isn't
working. Desperate to warn townspeople about the poisonous white cloud bearing down on them, the officials call their local radio stations. But no one answers any of the phones for an hour and a half. According to the New York Times, three hundred people are hospitalized, some are partially blinded, and pets and livestock are killed.

Where were Minot's DJs on January 18th, 2002? Where was the late night station crew? As it turns out, six of the seven local radio
stations had recently been purchased by Clear Channel Communications, a radio giant with over 1,200 stations nationwide. Economies of scale dictated that most of the local staff be cut: Minot stations ran more or less on auto pilot, the programming largely dictated from further up the Clear Channel food chain. No one answered the phone because hardly anyone worked at the stations any more; the songs played in Minot were the same as those played on Clear Channel stations across
the Midwest.

Companies like Clear Channel argue that economies of scale allow them to cut costs while continuing to provide quality programming. But they do so at the expense of local coverage. It's not just about emergency warnings: media mergers are decreasing coverage of local political races, local small businesses, and local events. There are only a third as many owners of newspapers and TV stations as there were in the 1970s (about 600 now; over 1,500 then). It's harder and
harder for Americans to find out what's going on in their own back yards.

On June 2, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering relaxing or getting rid of rules to allow much more media concentration. While the actual rule changes are under wraps, they could allow enormous changes in the American media environment. For example, one company could be allowed to own ABC, CBS, and NBC. Almost certainly, media companies will be allowed to own newspapers and TV stations in the same town. We could be entering a new era of media megaliths.

Do you want one or two big companies acting as gatekeepers and controlling your access to news and entertainment? Most of us don't. And the airwaves explicitly belong to us -- the American people. We allow media companies to use them in exchange for their assurance that they're serving the public interest, and it's the FCC's job to make sure that's so. For the future of American journalism, and for the preservation of a diverse and local media, we have the hold the FCC to its mission. Otherwise, Minot's nightmare may become our national reality.

[Steeltrap]

Reading this isn't a surprise -- it's been coming for years. In the late 1980s, the FCC weakened the Fairness Doctrine, which required that if you broadcast a controversial point of view on the issue, you were required to present opposing views.

No Fairness Doctrine, IMO, led to Rush Limbaugh and the proliferation of rightist radio talk shows. His followers flocked to radio because they felt their point of view was igged by "mainstream media."

Many radio stations, regardless of format, have also cut out their public affairs programming, which was usually relegated to Sunday morning. KKBT-FM in Los Angeles, which is owned by Radio One, a black-run publicly traded company, still has public affairs.

It's a disservice. But money talks and BS walks.

[NinjaPoodle]

Originally posted by Steeltrap


It's a disservice. But money talks and BS walks.

Sad but true. It's the way of the world.

[SeriousSigma22]

That's very sad but true!

Serioussigma22