Politics of the airwaves
This is not a very sexy issue, but I believe it is extremely important. Basically, the FCC is on
the verge of changing media ownership laws that will allow giant media companies to get even
bigger. Explicit censorship is not the only threat to a free press, which is the backbone of
democracy. Just as surely, unchecked media consolidation can silence the diversity of voices that
comprise this backbone. The big media outlets are being very quiet about this, so it's important
to get the word out otherwise. Send a note to your representatives about it:
http://www.moveon.org/stopthefcc/
Some scary examples of how media consolidation already affects us:
- Radio giant Clear Channel, which owns 60% of all radio stations in the country, sponsored
18 pro-war "Rally for America!" events and many of its stations pulled the Dixie Chicks from
their lineups after the band spoke out against the President. Thomas Hicks, the investment banker
primarily responsible for Clear Channel's rapid growth over the past 5 years, has close ties to
President Bush.
- Members of Congress say that they aren't hearing their constituents speak up on this issue -
they're only hearing the lobbyists paid by the media companies. This is chilling, but not
surprising, since the big media companies have provided little coverage of this issue, which affects
their own bottom line. 72% of respondents in a recent poll said they had "heard nothing at all"
about the new ownership proposals.
(http://journalism.org/resources/research/reports/fccsurvey/default.asp)
- In 1998, ABC News pulled the plug on an investigative piece that contended its parent company,
Disney had failed to thoroughly check the backgrounds of employees at its theme parks, which
resulted in the hiring of alleged paedophiles. A few days before, Michael Eisner told NPR that
ABC news should not report on its parent company.
(http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_bigmedia.html)
- Conflicts of interest between journalism and the financial interests of conglomerates will
continue. Check out this chart of media conglomerates and what else they own:
http://www.thenation.com/special/bigten.html
If you're interested, read the excellent coverage of this issue by Bill Moyers and the staff of NOW
on PBS at:
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/bigmedia.html
This is the kind of reporting - deep, unsensationalized, and sensitive to the public interest - that
could be further pushed out of the mainstream press under the new FCC rules.
What to do?
MoveOn.org has a nice system to send mail to your representatives about the issue:
http://www.moveon.org/stopthefcc/
or file a public comment directly with the FCC (its also easy) at:
http://www.fcc.gov/ownership/
Posted by madadam at May 12, 2003 11:20 AM