Linkmeister

Media or Medea?

Ah, but aren't viewers and readers now blessed with a whole new world of hot competition through cable and the Internet? That's the shucks-we're-no-monopolists line that Rupert Murdoch will take today in testimony before the pussycats of John McCain's Senate Commerce Committee.

The answer is no. Many artists, consumers, musicians and journalists know that such protestations of cable and Internet competition by the huge dominators of content and communication are malarkey. The overwhelming amount of news and entertainment comes via broadcast and print. Putting those outlets in fewer and bigger hands profits the few at the cost of the many.

That's William Safire in today's NYT, agreeing with me (and with CodePink Women for Peace and the National Rifle Association, Olympia Snowe and Ted Stevens, MoveOn and Media Alliance) about the upcoming media consolidation vote (June 2) by the FCC. Read Safire's column, read the other post I've made on this, check the links I've put up, and sign this petition to advise your Congresspeople that you don't want this to happen (unless you do). The public comments are running 90-10 or more against FCC approval, but Chairman Powell seems to be as yet unpersuaded by those numbers.

Here's a horror story that's been cited repeatedly on PBS, in Senate committee hearings, and on ABC News (incidentally, so far, ABC is the only network which has devoted even a minute to covering the upcoming vote on its nightly news broadcast):

"...in Minot, N.D., when a freight train derailed and released a dark cloud, officials sought to spread the alarm via radio stations only to discover that at six of them – all owned by Clear Channel – nobody answered the telephone for 90 minutes. Hundreds were hospitalized. Pets and livestock died."

That dark cloud turned out to be ammonia.

Let's let a Business Week article have the last word:

Among other things, Powell would allow more cross-ownership of local TV stations and newspapers by the same companies. He also would let a single company own TV stations covering 45% of the national viewing audience, up from 35% now. Powell plans a vote on June 2, and the three-person Republican majority on the commission seems certain to approve the proposed changes.

This isn't good policy. The U.S. needs greater concentration of the media market like a fast-food junkie needs more fat. What we read, hear, and watch is already determined to far too great an extent a half dozen giant conglomerates: AOL Time Warner, Viacom, Walt Disney, News Corp., General Electric, and Bertelsman. Yet Powell has held just one official public hearing on the proposed changes. And the specifics of the revisions being considered haven't been made public.

It's a lousy idea, and it should be stopped.

Posted by Linkmeister at May 22, 2003 08:37 AM