More on Media Consolidation

A few more links on the important FCC decision coming up in a few weeks (see our previous story for more). Common Cause has a good set of background information and advocacy. The Washington Post has a story about the decision, focusing on how independent television stations will be squeezed even harder. This article about ClearChannel is a useful primer about the future of mass media.

Comments

Another article

[DNS-and-BIND]

This article is also about Clear Channel. It's a great summation of why they are the way they are, and why that's a bad thing. Some choice quotes:

Every issue we discuss, every decision we make, comes down to a simple test: Will it increase ratings or revenue? If it doesn't, let's move on."

-- Bennett Zier, Clear Channel Radio Regional Vice-President

Do Something

[CrookedFinger]

MoveOn has a page where you can send a letter to your members of Congress and add your name to a petition to stop the June 2nd decision.

This decision has been long been made..

[msoftsucks]

The FCC has already decided that it will allow companies to own much more than they can now. The FCC director stated that this oh so important decision does not need any debate. He tried to shut down the debate by refusing to fund town meetings around the country debating this and informing the general public. He has definitely been bought by the likes of Clear Channel. This will further erode democracy in this country, and if you now hate DMCA and its ilk, wait until the next pass. Laws like DMCA and PATRIOT 2 get passed because there is a lack of healthy debate. It has been shown time and time again that Clear Channel refuses to report on such items. If you don't believe me, when was this particular debate even mentioned on any of Clear Channel's stations? The only time that I saw this reported was on a PBS program called "NOW with Bill Moyers". This was an excellent program that tried to look at the issue from all sides. You can find an in-depth discussion at http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/bigmedia.html
Little by little our rights are being taken away from us. Just look at all of the recent laws implemented, DMCA, copyrights, PATRIOT act etc.

We need to act now, before the decision has been rendered. Once it has, there is very little chance of getting it changed. What's at stake is the very nature of democracy in this country. There is no way to rectify this if a bad decision is made. How do we rectify this in 10 years from now, once Clear Channel has bought up the few remaining independent stations? Do we really expect that at that point, a healthy debate about breaking up Clear Channel will be allowed by Clear Channel?

Clear Channel says it needs to be allowed to buy the remaining independent stations in order to become profitable. If they haven't become profitable at this size, what makes us believe that will become profitable when they have taken over the rest? Lets face it folks, these guys are lying to us saying that they are not profitable. They are quite profitable now, and what's really driving this is pure greed at the expense of this country's core values. They are destroying this country at the expense of a few bucks. Enough is enough.