The FCC is starting up hearings as it considers whether to allow still more media consolidation, as in one company owning the local newspaper, five radio stations and two TV stations in the same town. Who on earth would think that is a healthy thing for a community? On the grander scale, how can it be healthy for a nation to get its primary news and information (also advertising and programming- often disguised propaganda) from just six multinational corporations, all of whom do their best to curry favor with the federal goverment : Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, Newscorp, GE. Some of those companies would just LOVE to own some of the larger newspaper chains along with their broadcast properties. For example, did you know GE, in addition to NBC-Universal, owns 28 TV stations across the country and seven cable channels, not to mention a major motion picture studio. Quite interesting holdings for the worlds largest manufacturer of jet aircraft engines and turbines.
I believe media ownership is a huge problem, whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or a tutu-wearing neocon. If you live in the USA, you are immersed in it:
cjr.org |
