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To: Yogizuna who wrote (12575)	11/12/2003 10:20:55 PM
From: Ron	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17683

Cronkite Fears Media Mergers Threaten Democracy By John Nichols The Capital Times (Wisconsin) The most trusted name in news is worried about what is happening to the news media in America. "I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that," said Walter Cronkite, the former CBS News anchorman, whose name remains synonymous with American journalism. "The way that works is to have multiple owners, with the hope that the owners will have different viewpoints, and with the hope that the debate will help to air all sides, or at least most sides of the issues. But right now I think we're moving away from that approach." Speaking to The Capital Times before this weekend's National Conference on Media Reform, Cronkite said he is particularly concerned by the decision of the Federal Communications Commission to relax media ownership rules. By a 3-2 vote in June, the commission approved proposals that would permit a single media company to own television stations that reach up to 45 percent of American households, and that would permit a single media company to own the daily newspaper, several television stations and up to eight radio stations in the same community. "I think they made a mistake, I do indeed," Cronkite said of the FCC. "It seems to me that the rule change was negotiated and promulgated with the goal of creating even larger monopolies in the news-gathering business." With or without the FCC's ownership rule changes, the veteran television journalist says he sees monopolies developing at the local level. "We are coming closer to that (monopoly situations) today, even without the relaxation of the rules," Cronkite said. "In many communities, we have seen a lot of mergers already and that is disturbing. We have more and more one-newspaper towns, and that troubles me. I think that the failure of newspaper competition in a community is a very serious handicap to the dissemination of the knowledge that the citizens need to participate in a democracy." Cronkite stepped down as the CBS anchor in 1981. But he remains active as a journalist, writing a nationally syndicated column that appears weekly in The Capital Times and other newspapers. Much has changed since his days at the anchor desk, Cronkite said. And while he shies away from suggesting that everything was better in the good old days, he will say that he is troubled by the timidity of broadcast media when it comes to questioning those in power. If he were an anchorman today, would he try to speak out on the Iraq war? "Yes, yes I do. I think that right now it would be critical to do so," he said. "I think that right now we are in one of the most dangerous periods in our existence. Not since the Civil War has the state of our democracy been so doubtful. Our foreign policy has taken a very strange turn. And I do think I would try to say something about that." What exactly would he say? Cronkite said he would suggest that the Bush administration has "confused" other nations about the approach of the United States to foreign policy. "The policy we're following has involved us in a very expensive set of projects trying to export democracy at the end of a bayonet," he said. "That has caused a great deal of concern around the world and I think Americans need to understand this." In particular, Cronkite said, he would bluntly discuss his concerns about Bush's view of when it is appropriate to make war. full story: tvspy.com