DEREGULATION CONCENTRATES MEDIA OWNERSHIP
United States: an unfree press
This month the Federal Communications Commission, despite sharp party-affiliated divisions, voted to relax key media ownership restrictions in the United States, permitting greater concentration of companies. The once admired standards of American journalism have been shamed by scandals at the New York Times and by over-close, compliant relationships with political power before, during and after the war in Iraq.
By SERGE HALIMI
THE news director of the rightwing French TV network, TF1, which is not known for its independence, said earlier this year: "Those famous United States networks we have heard so much about as examples of professional integrity are acting like propaganda tools for the Bush administration. They have lost all critical distance" (1). But what happened to the US media did not start with President George Bush II. As Bernie Sanders, one of the most progressive members of the US House of Representatives, said: "One of our best-kept secrets is the degree to which a handful of huge corporations control the flow of information in the US. Whether it is television, radio, news papers, magazines, books or the internet, a few giant conglomerates are determining what we see, hear and read. And the situation is likely to become much worse" (2).
In 1983 the US had roughly 1,700 daily newspapers, 11,000 magazines, 9,000 radio and 1,000 television stations, and 2,500 book publishers. At that time 50 multinationals, "all interlocked in common financial interest with other massive industries and with a few dominant international banks" (3), controlled the majority of the big outlets. Clearly, something had to be done. And so it was. But not what you would expect.
In 1996 the US Congress granted broadcasting frequencies worth some $70bn (and a lot more now) at no cost to the recipients. Viacom, Disney and General Electric - owners of the CBS, ABC and NBC networks - were the main beneficiaries. Protesting against the gift, Senator John McCain, a Republican, said during the congressional debate: "There will be hardly any talk of this decision on radio or TV because the radio and TV networks are the ones directly affected." In fact, during the nine months that elapsed between the introduction of the legislation and its final approval, the three main news networks devoted just 19 minutes to the subject. The question of whether the largest communications companies could afford to pay for the frequencies that the US government awarded them was never raised at all.
There is always a payoff for deeds such as these. Between 1996 and 2000, while Bill Clinton was president, the 50 largest media corpor ations and four of their trade associations spent more than $111m to lobby Congress and the White House. They poured political contributions into the coffers of the two parties. And as everyone knows, under the US system of political financing, "those who sign the cheques write the laws".
SINCE the 1980s control of the US media has grown ever more concentrated. By 1996 the two largest radio chains owned 115 stations. Today they own more than 1,400. Meanwhile the number of station owners has dwindled by a third. This year 10 giant companies reign over the information age (4). Three companies own half of the stations in the US. Clearly, something has to be done. And it will be. But, again, not what you would expect.
According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which largely determines US media policy, large conglomerates are too restricted by legal limits on market share. So the solution is a sweeping deregulation of the field, to be announced this month. A US Federal Court has ordered the FCC to reconsider its rule preventing broadcasters from reaching more than 35% of households in the US. Since everyone knows that FCC chairman Michael Powell, who was appointed by President Bush and is the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, opposes such limits, the court order will encourage big broadcasters to swallow smaller ones.
The FCC is reconsidering many of the rules that have previously preserved some media diversity, such as the regulation preventing the owners of a broadcast station from buying a newspaper in the same city, and vice versa, or from owning more than one TV station in the same market. This cross-ownership ban guarantees that communities will not find that their only local daily paper has been bought by one of the television networks. Also at stake is the regulation barring major television networks - ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC - from merging with each other. Michael Powell keeps repeating "the market is my religion" - summing up the mindset of the administration, which has successfully merged religious fundamentalism and greed. Lack of political diversity hardly bothers Powell: "I'm not so sure that Disney and Murdoch's personal political interests are ever permitted by the board of directors or Wall Street to trump anything that would maximise value" (5). That "maximising value" may in itself be an ideological slant hardly seems to have crossed Powell's mind.
What do conglomerates say? Companies such as News Corporation and Viacom protest that existing regulations deprive them of their first amendment rights to free speech. The rollback of the last checks on media consolidation seems likely. A further drop in quality and originality is therefore likely when newspapers are absorbed by the television industry or when journalists tailor their skills toward producing "content" which can immediately be used for television (6).
Mergers and cooperation between former competitors are multiplying: The Washington Post, which lost regular foreign distribution of its stories because the New York Times forced a buyout of the Post's stake in the International Herald Tribune, will have its stories in the European and Asian editions of the Wall Street Journal. The Post has a similar arrangement with NBC, which features Post reporting on its MSNBC and CNBC cable television channels. During the war in Iraq, it was very hard to tell which outlet, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post or NBC, was the most hawkish.
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