Tripping Up Big Media
This is an issue that has been concerning to me for quite some time now, and I was reminded of it after reading the UN thread.
So, what do you guys think about this issue? Should we reign in Big Media to preserve the free market of ideas in this country, or should we continue to allow corporate media consolidation to drag the US down the road towards becoming another Russia (where the citizenry only hears one-sided accounts of the news events that a handful of powerful individuals want them to hear)?
Through my own personal observation, it’s easy to recognize that many of these media conglomerates have a clear, underlying political agenda. Here are a few examples, and again, my main concern is with that handful of conglomerates that now control the majority of all media:
Viacom, Hearst: Liberal agenda, though pro-consolidation
AOL/Time Warner & Disney: moderate agenda, though pro-consolidation
Clear Channel, Hollinger, News Corp: Far-right agenda; pro-consolidation
One of my main concerns is that when you have consolidation of this nature, there are entire segments of the population who are practically shut out from other points of view in their local regions.
One conglomerate can control nearly everything that a local population center reads, views on television, and listens to on the radio by controlling that entire local media market. This is especially true in more rural areas.
The Internet is an obvious exception.
Another concern is media censorship by the conglomerates of their own particular newspaper, radio network/station, or television network/station holdings.
One recent example of this censorship in action is of course Clear Channel's censorship of Howard Stern when he chose to deviate from the company's desired political bent after being carried on their stations for many years.
Another example is when ABC tried to air an investigative story about Disney that showed the company in a negative light. The Disney board wasn't going to have any of it, and the ABC journalists were denied the ability of telling an important news story.
Both the Democrats and Republicans are to blame for letting this happen, but we do now have a bipartisan majority that recognizes this threat to democracy.
Tom Delay and Michael Powell are clearly bought-off obstacles to addressing this issue, but Delay is under criminal investigation for campaign finance abuses, and will hopefully be indicted soon.
Powell can be replaced when his term expires, though I don't know that Kerry would have the balls to take this issue on. I get the sense he would govern more like Clinton, and then of course if Bush wins he will reappoint Powell. Either way we may soon eventually end up with an AOLTimeWarnerClearChannelNewsCorpGEDisney that feeds us a constant, droning propaganda stream in all media markets.
In conclusion, if pill poppin’ Limbaugh is also now worried about this issue after what happened to Stern, if we can get NOW members to stand alongside NRA members, then I believe we have a very real chance of forming a broad consensus.
I also believe that what has happened to our media markets is clearly a strong case against deregulation.
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Last edited by DaveSZ on Mar-30-2004 at 10:22
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