G, the point isn’t the School Lunch Program, it’s the fact that giving the government the power to determine who can own media sources indirectly puts media sources under the influence of government. Government’s ability to regulate and/or control purse strings can have an enormous warping effect; why, for instance, is the USA the only Western nation with a drinking age of 21 in every state? Because the federal government controls the purse strings of interstate highway construction.
In Canada, we have a fairly heavily regulated media that, to my eyes, is probably WORSE than yours. The quality of radio and television broadcasting is generally poorer; even the much-vaunted CBC produces 95% garbage, with its shining jewel being, ironically, sportscasting, something it excels at (and always has.) Canadian radio licenses are controlled by the CRTC, which is about fifteen years behind the demographic and most disturbingly is visibly and obviously influenced by the political desires of whomever’s in power in Ottawa and goes to great lengths to screw the public over in favour of whatever millionaire/billionaire is the Prime Minister’s golfing buddy. Newspapers? Last year the editor of the Ottawa Citizen was fired for running an editorial critical of the Prime Minister, because the owners of the paper are his buddies. You tell me how regulation’s helping.
With respect to media I STILL see no evidence presented that there is a positive correlation between media ownership restrictions and the quality of discourse - or, as you rather strangely claimed, “intellectual pursuits.”
I think that Reagan was a blight on the country, but it should be noted, in the interest of accuracy, that it was some mid-level or low-level appointee in the Department that wanted to change the rules so that ketchup was included as a vegetable–and there was no “hard” push to make the change. It was floated as an idea, leaked by an opponent to the news media, and dropped as a political embarassment.
I suspect that december is alluding to something more along the lines that RickJay indicated, with the Feds threatening to withhold funds for other programs if the appropriate guidelines were not followed for the lunch funds.
I would say that it’s because the USA is the most puritanical Western nation. But whatever the reason, it is ideological rather than systematic. France doesn’t have a nationwide drinking age of 21 because they don’t want one. If their government changed their minds they could simply pass a law. There would be no need for to blackmail/bribe the subordinate political units into going along.
The point is, everyone and everything is under the influence of government. And that is as it should be. No one should be above the law. If you wish to bemoan that fact of life that’s your business; I would suggest a better allocation of resources might be to attempt to reform the government. Doing without isn’t an option.
Should there be? More to the point, what is the incentive ever going to be to “broadcast different viewpoints” if there’s no money in it?
Okay, so I still don’t see any influence of giant corporations. Stations play what they play because it makes money. Sounds normal.
So, what is Britney’s political view? Most music doesn’t have a political view, unless you get very strange and say that if it mentions sex it’s liberal but if it mentions a pickup truck it’s conservative.
But small stations can even less afford to piss people off. I haven’t seen any great news outlets around here. Where are they?
Yes, you said that before. I don’t think you’ve proved the case, though.
Why? They have less legal firepower, less money, and less influence. If people are worried that the corporations will have a political bias, well at least they might talk about half of the politicians in a substantive way.
All radio stations being vanilla may be boring, but it isn’t evil. It isn’t evil if all bookstores are Barnes and Noble, either, though it’s boring.
People love to talk about the independence of small companies, but I haven’t seen much evidence that locally owned radio stations take any more risks than the megacorporations, or that they can actually afford such risks more than megacorporations. Yes, megacorps have to answer to skittish shareholders, but little companies have to pay the electricity bill–which isn’t going to happen if they piss off the world.
(Note: There may be reasons to be against these types of mergers, but I haven’t seen them enumerated yet.)
There is a lot more diversity of programming and ownership of broadcast media outlets then there was 25 years ago when just about everything was owned by either ABC, CBS, or NBC.
They and their affiliates effectively controlled the airwaves. The onset of cable was what allowed Ted Turner to grow his empire, and is in large part responsible for the diversity we have today.
Unfortunately, in reality this fight is really about Foxnews and Rush Limbaugh, IMO.
Diversity on the airwaves and cable stations is very high, and I think the politically motivated attacks against these two groups are without merit.
This is such an obvious non-sequitur that I’m surprised that so few people have called you on it. What does restricting ownership in a particular market have to do with restricting speech?
It’s absolutely ridiculous to argue this on grounds of free speech: you’re just picking that issue because it sounds good. The principle you should be defending is the free market: the right for people to own things without the government stepping in and saying “no, no, you own too much for OUR tastes.”
The fact is, even if people feel like corporations owning certain things is bad for our “culture” then guess what. “Our culture” can do something other than listen to them. The radio and television are not the be-all and end-all of human experience. I think what people are really scared of here is that they think the vast majority of Americans are incredibly stupid, and will believe whatever the media tells them, and only focus on those issues that the media decides are important, and so on. I don’t know whether this is really true or not, but I do know that even if you think they ARE so stupid, they have a RIGHT to be that stupid.
One of the rules slated to be relaxed has to do with restrictions on owning both a newspaper and a TV station in a single market. So, if Apos already owns Apos TV in Dopeville, he would be restricted from starting up or buying a newspaper there. That rule limits Apos’s freedom to communicate to the public, doesn’t it?
No. You could say that your refusal to make me lord and master of all United States restricts my freedom to communicate with my loyal subjects, and that’d be just as silly. People have a right to speak and communicate with each other all they want, and nothing in these particular regulations restricts anyone from saying anything (though the FCC does so in other fora, which is bad). But being able to say whatever you want, and being able to own whatever you want, are two entirely different things.
There are far far better grounds to make a case for deregulation than sloppily re-interpreting important rights like free speech.
Ordinary anti-trust law would prevent a single entity from taking over the airwaves.
Fifty years ago, the airwaves were dominated by just three entities: CBS, NBC and ABC. Restrictions on co-ownership may have been needed then. Today the public has dozens and dozens of choices of radio and TV stations. The number is growing, as technology makes more choices available.
yeah adaher, it just happens that around the beaches of Long Island, New York, most places are “Private Property”, but try to declare Pacific Beach in California a “Private Property”.
Please clarify whether the airwaves have “Property Rights”. Since when the airwaves became a capitalist’s “Real Estate”?
I say the airwaves belong to ALL people, not just a select Media Moguls. A free society should not become a slave of a bunch of Media Moguls. We already have too many people turning to Fox as if it was “News”. Do we really want to perpetuate that bullshit?
IMHO, if you think Carl Rove sold us Bush, and consequently Bush bullshitted us into invading Iraq – you have seen nothing yet. Just wait and see how today’s FCC ruling will translate into roves of Americans going to the poles in 2004 and re-elect Bush.
Does anyone see anything resembling “discourse” on local television NOW?
The fact is, local television will only become a slightly worse mess than it already is, once these changes come to pass. Stations today cover national and generic news based on feeds from their affiliated networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN) and wire services (AP). Local content is determined largely by research. Your local station is obsessed with “breaking news” and crime and health reports and weather because their research says that’s what you will watch.
Regardless of ownership, local TV will follow that research. The only real change is that centralization will eliminate jobs from the local stations.