Showdown at the FCC..or why the american people are grossly uninformed.

[Guest guest]

The concentration and domination of " news " by the corporate interests is turning

the major media into nothing more than a sales channel to sell corporate

interest's specific point of view to you, which is usually in direct opposition

to the individuals iown nterests in our societies. Still wonder why you don't

hear of vitamins and herbs on tv or newspaper, but get a daily helping of what

the newest drug or medical industry product you should buy disguised as health

news. This disinformation carries over to most aspects of our societies, which

affect each of us in most areas of our daily lives. We as a society better wake

up. Get most of your information from the web.It's the only place at this point

to get anywhere near the truth. Frank

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15796 Showdown at the FCCJeffrey

Chester and Don Hazen, AlterNet

May 1, 2003Viewed on May 6, 2003

 

The Bush Administration will soon hand the nation's biggest media conglomerates

a new give-away that will concentrate media ownership in fewer hands. On June 2,

the Federal Communications Commission, run by Michael Powell (son of Colin),

plans to end long-standing federal checks and balances on corporate media power.

 

Companies behind the measure include the powerhouses of corporate media power:

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp/Fox., General Electric/NBC, Viacom/CBS, Disney/ABC,

Tribune Corp and Clear Channel. Once the rules are swept away, expect to see

more mergers and buy-outs of radio and TV stations, major papers and even TV

networks. It will then soon be possible for a single conglomerate to control

most of a community's major media outlets, including cable systems and broadband

Internet service providers. There will be fewer owners nationally of all major

media outlets of communications.

 

Right-wing powerhouses are also likely to grow more powerful soon, unless

opposed. Rupert Murdoch's Fox is planning to take over the country's most

powerful satellite service, Direct TV. He will be able not only to control

access to millions of households, he will use it as a " Death Star " to further

expand his broadcast and cable TV empires. Meanwhile, liberals -- let alone

progressives -- have no ownership influence over any major media outlet.

 

This is all happening despite the fact that growing numbers of the public are

willing to stand up and express their unhappiness with the way media

conglomerates are using the public airwaves. As Neil Hickey describes in his

article, " The Gathering Storm Over Media Ownership, " in hearings across the

country there has been a huge outpouring of public concern and anxiety about the

direction of the media system.

 

Not surprisingly, the media conglomerates thirst for more control as they seek

to end media ownership limits. What all this means for our nation hasn't been

covered by the media. There has been no TV network news coverage on the

impending media give-away. Nor have the major dailies explained to readers what

their lobbyists are doing and how such changes will affect journalism, politics

and the public's First Amendment rights to a system fostering diversity of

viewpoints and expression.

 

A rare exception was a recent column in the New York Times by conservative

pundit William Safire arguing that the media system is hiding the real story

because it is unwilling to " expose the broadcast lobby's pressure on Congress

and the courts to allow station owners to gobble up more stations and cross-own

local newspapers, thereby to determine what information residents of a local

market receive. "

 

The proposed FCC rule changes will further weaken the ability of mainstream

journalism to serve as a critical public safeguard. Soon, reporters at

newspapers will have to pay attention to whether they get TV ratings, once their

papers become part of larger TV empires concerned about promoting advertising

and " brandwashing. " More importantly, the country will have even fewer

gatekeepers over the news and popular culture that informs much of public

consciousness. (Read more about this problem from media mogul Barry Diller, who

made many revealing statements to Bill Moyers on a recent edition of his program

NOW, on PBS.)

 

As recent TV coverage of the Iraq war illustrates, US media companies aren't

interested in providing a serious range of analysis and debate. " Embedded "

reporters present information from a point of view shared with U.S. soldiers.

News outlets hire retired military generals to dish up the prominent " expert "

point of view. Journalists regurgitate communiqués disseminated by the Pentagon.

Corporate TV stations avoid feeding viewers information and images they " don't

like " such as coverage of civilian casualties and protests. The network that 36

percent of people watch for their primary war coverage (Fox News, according to a

recent Gallup poll), is a deliberately conservative mouthpiece. Furthermore, for

the media companies to be heavily lobbying the Bush administration for

give-aways that will net them billions of dollars -- while they are providing

mostly uncritical coverage of the war -- gets to the crux of our media problem.

Danny Schechter of the Media Channel provides more details of this media

conglomerate war cheerleading collusion in " War Coverage Rewrites History. "

 

The FCC's Powell is also promoting massive consolidation in cable TV and with

online communications for this summer. Soon just two massive cable companies --

Comcast and AOL Time Warner -- may be legally permitted to own almost all of the

nation's cable TV systems. And Powell has already removed critical safeguards

that will enable cable and telephone giants to dominate high-speed Internet

access -- which has alarmed the ACLU (and even other monopolists like Microsoft

and Disney).

 

Some key members of Congress may be undergoing some reality therapy as citizens

are forcing them to confront the stark ramifications of the media deregulation

they have enabled. One overwhelming result of their actions, for example, is the

Clear Channel Communications buying spree (the company now owns more than 1200

radio stations), which has run roughshod over the nation's commercial radio

system, turning it into a wasteland of conformity and commercialism. In

contrast, back in 1996, the combined total of the number of stations owned by

the two largest radio chains was a mere 115. Eric Boehlert, as part of a

powerful and detailed series on Salon.com on media concentration, explains how

the Clear Channel situation may be producing a backlash.

 

A less known but also disturbing trend is represented by another conservative

company, Sinclair Broadcast Group, which, as Paul Schmelzer writes in " The Death

of Local News, " is pioneering the frightening model of local news from a central

sources thousands of miles away from the market. Meanwhile, perhaps unrelated to

media concentration, but clearly connected to the war, female voices have just

about disappeared from the media as documented by Caryl Rivers from Women's

ENews.

 

Despite all the bad news, Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project offers:

" These decisions in June are hardly the end of it. There is a real effort to

keep the FCC in check going forward. Cable ownership rules are up for review

this summer. There will be a spate of mergers after the rules change, and

organizing may be able to beat some of them back, and pushes for legislation to

gain back some of what has been lost. "

 

But in the big picture, unfortunately, elected officials have been silent about

what will be the most significant changes in media diversity rules since the

Reagan era. It's time to send Congress a message that they should speak up now

and defend the right to free speech, competition and ownership diversity in the

digital age. To make your voice heard go to MediaReform.net, a comprehensive

website that makes it easy for you to register your protest about the FCC's

media deregulation policies.

 

Don Hazen is the executive editor of AlterNet.org. Jeffrey Chester is the

director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

 

 

 

© 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

 

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