Here’s Big Media coming - to drown out minority voices

Free Press, a national organization working to increase informed public participation in crucial media policy debates, has collected some important feedback on the big media issue. The ultimate aim of Free Press is to generate a range of policies that will produce a more competitive and public-interest-oriented media system with a strong non-profit and non-commercial sector.

Generally, the comments say big media won’t bring good things to life, big media doesn’t equal better media, new rules from it may hurt diversity, most citizens are opposed to further consolidation, and that diversity is crucial in media ownership.

AT&T that sells long distance, high speed Internet service, and phone and data products and services through its online brand web sites wants to buy out BellSouth that deals with local and long distance phone service, DSL Internet, Cingular Wireless, & DIRECTV service. AT&T is seeking government approval of this buyout and many citizens are opposed to this, according to Free Press.

Reports from John Eggerto of Broadcasting & Cable said over 160,000 comments from media had been filed in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which is reviewing the media ownership issue and the initial comment period ended yesterday.

Specifically, most Americans assumed there is complete freedom of the press. Cindy Rodrigue of Denver Post claimed it's not freedom when investigative reporters for the major networks can't delve into issues of corporate abuse because the parent company owns the subsidiary in question.

The Benton Foundation and the Social Science Research Council announced the release of four independent academic studies on the impact of media consolidation in the U.S. According to Hope Yen of Associated Press, new studies said easing government rules to allow more media consolidation would push out niche radio programming such as classical, jazz and gospel music while doing little to improve local TV coverage.

Brooks Boliek, a Hollywood Reporter, quoting a new study said easing the rules that generally bar a single company from owning a newspaper and broadcast outlet in a single local market would allow a handful of individuals to dominate news coverage in many communities across the nation.

Watchdog groups that opposed further relaxation of FCC limits on media ownership concluded that markets in a dozen states are heavily concentrated, according to David Hatch of National Journal

Recently, Kristal Brent Zook of the Nation and David Hinkley of New York Daily News reported that only the Democrats alone - FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein - arrived at Hunter College in New York City to listen to a crowd of 350 citizens mostly opposed to further consolidation of the media. They both warned that further expansion for media giants is not the way to get there. David Ferris of New York City Indy Media reported the same observation.

The Bay Area Indy Media reported that these two FCC commissioners will be in Oakland, California, to hear public comments on media ownership. The FCC is considering relaxing the rules that allow corporations to own even more media outlets that determine what can be seen, heard and read.

The economic harm from the AT&T and BellSouth merger, according to Mark Cooper of Miami Herald, is not in serious dispute. What maybe harmful is the kowtowing to these monopolies, he said.

All told, these comments point out that big media has detrimental effects, and primarily because from its nature, big media has the penchant for drowning out minority voices.

The following excerpts written by Ted Turner in 2004 is as relevant as it is today for a backgrounder of this issue. Turner is the founder of CNN and chairman of Turner Enterprises:

“Today, media companies are more concentrated than at any time over the past 40 years, thanks to a continual loosening of ownership rules by Washington. The media giants now own not only broadcast networks and local stations; they also own the cable companies that pipe in the signals of their competitors and the studios that produce most of the programming. To get a flavor of how consolidated the industry has become, consider this: In 1990, the major broadcast networks--ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox--fully or partially owned just 12.5 percent of the new series they aired. By 2000, it was 56.3 percent. Just two years later, it had surged to 77.5 percent.

“Unless we have a climate that will allow more independent media companies to survive, a dangerously high percentage of what we see--and what we don't see--will be shaped by the profit motives and political interests of large, publicly traded conglomerates.

“Today, the only way for media companies to survive is to own everything up and down the media chain--from broadcast and cable networks to the sitcoms, movies, and news broadcasts you see on those stations; to the production studios that make them; to the cable, satellite, and broadcast systems that bring the programs to your television set; to the Web sites you visit to read about those programs; to the way you log on to the Internet to view those pages. Big media today wants to own the faucet, pipeline, water, and the reservoir. The rain clouds come next.

“Consolidation has also meant a decline in the local focus of both news and programming. After analyzing 23,000 stories on 172 news programs over five years, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that big media news organizations relied more on syndicated feeds and were more likely to air national stories with no local connection.

“When media companies dominate their markets, it undercuts our democracy. Justice Hugo Black, in a landmark media-ownership case in 1945, wrote: ‘The First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public.’

“This is a fight about freedom--the freedom of independent entrepreneurs to start and run a media business, and the freedom of citizens to get news, information, and entertainment from a wide variety of sources, at least some of which are truly independent and not run by people facing the pressure of quarterly earnings reports. No one should underestimate the danger. Big media companies want to eliminate all ownership limits. With the removal of these limits, immense media power will pass into the hands of a very few corporations and individuals.

“The government was not doing its job. The role of the government ought to be like the role of a referee in boxing, keeping the big guys from killing the little guys. If the little guy gets knocked down, the referee should send the big guy to his corner, count the little guy out, and then help him back up. But today the government has cast down its duty, and media competition is less like boxing and more like professional wrestling: The wrestler and the referee are both kicking the guy on the canvas.

“At this late stage, media companies have grown so large and powerful, and their dominance has become so detrimental to the survival of small, emerging companies, that there remains only one alternative: bust up the big conglomerates.”