Followup on this thread from October. After touring the nation to hear citizens’ input at town meetings where the opinions expressed were overwhelmingly against the proposal to relax the rules preventing the same company from owning both a newspaper and a broadcast outlet in the same market, and after sharp criticism in Congressional committee hearings, and despite strong urgings to at least delay the vote (see here for all of that), the FCC went ahead with the vote – which came down along party lines, the 3 Pub commissioners, including Chairman Martin, voting for the change, the 2 Dems against.
Can Bush veto whatever Congress does about this? If so, then congressional action here will amount to, to borrow a phrase from Rev. Johnson in Blazing Saddles, “just jerking off”.
Congress should do it, but I fear the attempt will be pointless.
I’m always amazed that in this day of incredibly varied media (broadcast cable and TV, cable TV, satellite radio, the Internet, podcasts, alternative newspapers, traditional newspapers, blogs, etc.) that this relatively modest FCC proposal stirs up such anger. The government should have no regulation about media ownership. As it has shown in the past, it is easy to use those rules to intimidate speech it does not like. The ostensible reason for them (to somehow perpetuate differing views) is obsolete in this age of increasing technological choice.
My mistake. I heard the coverage this afternoon on WMNF Radio and heard clips of citizens excoriating Martin at the town meetings – particularly the last one, in Seattle; followed by the Representative for Seattle (forget his name) grilling Martin in a committee hearing for his apparent disregard of everything he heard on his tour; but apparently that was on RadioActivity, not the preceding show, Democracy Now! I’ll call the station during business hours tomorrow and see if there’s an online transcript to which I can link.
No, and the story didn’t cover that, only what happened at the town meetings.
Columbia Journalism Review Scroll down the left side and see what Time Warner owns. This is duplicated by 5 other companies. Nearly all the media in the country and soon to be the world is being swallowed up by huge corporations. If you believe for one second they wont be pushing their viewpoints you are naive. This is a serious problem. Do you think a whole bunch of newspapers owned by locals would serve their readers better.? Who knows the problems and answers ,those affected or Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta.
I agree. If this was 30 years ago, then I would possibly be concerned. In this day and age, with the internet, there is no way a private business can monopolize what you see and hear. You know when I read the local paper or watch local news? Never (or hardly ever)…
“Nearly all the media” is to be swallowed up by large corporations, huh? So no more blogs or alternative newspapers or podcasts or satellite radio? And how do you know they will be “pushing their viewpoints”? They will be putting out what’s profitable. Even the hated Clear Channel runs Air America (or ran it, is Air America still on the air?).
And who cares about broadcast TV and radio and newspapers? The vast majority of people have cable TV and access to the Internet. If the same person owns a local TV station and the local paper that doesn’t mean that people have no access to alernative viewpoints. And, given the decreasing profitability of newspapers, with the cap in place it’s likely that in ten to twenty years we’ll see far fewer local papers around. Without deep pockets to buy them and streamline their operation, newspapers will likely be unprofitable.
That’d be great – but even from your description, it’s far from definite that an overwhelming majority at these town meetings were against the proposal… and that would certainly not match the 2003 poll results you linked to, where only 50 ercent said they thought the effect would be negative.
Who owns cable TV. The only thing they do not run is the internet and they plan on taking care of that.
Newspapers average 18 to 20% profit. They are laying off reporters and cutting bureaus. They will process the news and ship it around the country.
There was an incident a couple years ago, where there was a train accident. It was not a big city. Hazardous chemicals were being released. Efforts were made to call the radio stations to get a notice aired. The station had no personnel it was run remotely from a distant location. Someone came in and checked the station now and then. Local news is disappearing.
That kind of story is important, but would carry more weight with a cite. (Actually, I think I remember reading about it – maybe in one of Al Franken’s books, but I’m not sure.)
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/english/200007/25/eng20000725_46370.html Newspapers are definitely a profitable business.
When the conglomerates took over TV they cut the reporting bureaus and laid off reporters. The local owners were often interested in providing the news. The new owners want to maximize profits. The quality of news and the differences in stories has diminished. Few stations have Washington or International bureaus any more. real news is slipping badly. I do not think that it is a good thing for America.
That makes no sense. Years ago, I had to wait until the 6pm evening news to see what was going on. Now, I can get up to the minute stories sent by text message to my cell phone at any time, from the site of my choice: conservative, liberal, libertarian, communist, or fascist, or neutral.
“Real news” is not slipping badly. If you are taking the old arrogant journalist view (I’m looking at you Walter Kronkite) then sure, you don’t have your old masters telling you what the “real” news is anymore. You can find out for yourself with blogs, podcasts, and diverse websites.
The old idea that if the local TV station and the local paper conspire to create a brain dead local population is over. You can read a news story from your home in Nome, AK about the price of vegetables in Rome, Italy. We don’t need government intrustion in this area…
Local TV has never been very good with the news. They do provide local slants to local stories. The network news used to be very good. they have turned to crap.
The internet is still available . Rest assured they will come for it. It is however work to winnow through the internets. how many take the time. Plus the internet is not available to all like TV.
An example of news control is,how many stations cable or network came out against the Iraq war. It was practically universal. All stations fell in line. I read counter opinions on the net but they were not numerous. i was convinced it was a lie but who else thought so. None of them did their homework and investigated. But the bureaus and reporters were long gone.
Terrestrial radio isn’t quite dead, but it’s very unhealthy.
These are the sorts of ownership numbers I’d expect from a slowly dying business model. Who listens to regular radio anymore? Okay, that’s an exagerration, many people still do - but it’s declining.
Are you suggesting that all news stations should stake out overtly political positions, and that the failure to do so constitutes evidence of “news control?”