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FCC Plan Will Result in Freedom Of or From the Press?
macduffman writes "Kevin Martin, Chairman of the FCC, has fired a volley in the war against media moguls ... or is it in the war against freedom of the press? An article in the Editor and Publisher describes the plan to ban cross-ownership in the same market (i.e., owning a newspaper and a broadcast station in the same city). Several waivers exist for some current ownerships, but would not be passed on to new owners. The plan calls for public comment beginning in mid-November, and the FCC would vote on it a month later." This follows an unpopular 2003 decision by the FCC that was eventually invalidated by the courts. At issue is the speed at which this complex decision is being carried out: "Media consolidation opponents said Wednesday that the chairman may be moving too fast. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said that one month for the public to consider the rule is not enough time. 'If that's his intention, it's going to subvert the public interest,' he said. 'The FCC needs to learn a lesson here from what happened previously.'" Update: 10/19 17:58 GMT by Z :Rewritten for clarity.
plain and neat. It is for ensuring nobody gets the nation in their grip by grabbing them on all fronts of media. Like hearst and so on in the past.
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If it's the case that it only applies to new ownership, then it doesn't really change things that much as the current set of media moguls is really what needs to be broken up. All this bill would effectively do is prevent serious competition to the current media empire, no?
All things are subject to interpretation, whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and n
I mean really. Who the hell cares about this? Do you honestly trust these mega media giants to bring you the "real" news anyhow? I mean for the guy that turns on FOX news for his "no spin" news show is still going to get the program served up to him in the way he is used to while the rest of us who want to know whats really going on in our country and the world will do like we always to and turn to BBC or even spiegel.de to here about it. Lets face it, the news in this country has not been real news in a long long long time and this new stance from the FCC is not going to change anything. Americans will continue to get there spoon fed candy covered news....just the way they like it ;)
Out of curiosity...
How does one address the lack of ownership by minorities and women? It seems to me that it would not be possible to "force" minorities and women to buy media outlets, nor would it be possible to force people to sell to them...
well, ok, maybe you could force people to sell to them, but how are you going to compensate them for the price difference that they would have gotten from someone else? And wouldn't a forced sale implicate the takings clause?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Doesn't it depend on the definition of "single market"? For example, Clearchannel owns radio stations all over the country. Would a single market be defined as the number of stations they own in:
a) a specific city or county or region or
b) the number of stations of a specific genre or
c) the number of stations of a specific genre in a specific area?
How are the media market sectors defined? In addition to those categories I mentioned above, you also have ethno-centric programming and demographics to contend with. This is akin to opening pandora's box imho.
This also worries me: "We should first address the appalling lack of ownership of media outlets by women and people of color." Does this mean that congress will be asked to pass affirmative action laws against media corporations? That's just silly, and also might be an ominous inroad towards state-controlled media. *shudder*
What motives prompted this, i.e.: Is Kevin Martin in somebody's pocket, or does he have a personal stake in it? Why else propose something so ludicrous? I'm all for ensuring against monopolies but isn't it a little too late and/or drastic to propose something like this?
There is simply too much glass..
For example, let's say Rupert Murdoch comes to dominate Smallville, USA. He could then elect to minimize coverage of certain local candidates in favor of ones who would reciprocate his favors if elected. Clearly this drives special interests over public interests. Such a monopoly is the antithesis of a free market.
Imagine if Microsoft controlled all news media in a town, and you objected to schools buying Microsoft products over using open source. Or Wal-Mart owned the media outlets in a town and supported candidates for office who did not object to destruction of local merchants by the big box. A fair system would have some amount of healthy competition between media, and their coverage, thus helping guard against such domination.
""We should first address the appalling lack of ownership of media outlets by women and people of color."
Why is there an inherent idea that women and people of color have an interest in ownership in every segment of society? How many people of color own companies in the tanning market? How many women own companies in the aftershave market? I realize this isn't a perfect comparison but could it be that women and "people of color" simply haven't attempted such ownership? The idea that equality means equal distribution is socialistic in nature. Equal treatment doesn't equate to equal distribution. Rather, it should mean equal access. If someone decides they have no interest in the access it's not "an appalling lack of ownership" it's an "appalling lack of interest."
Well this is the problem with Press.
a. If it is not interesting people wont pay attention to it.
b. Going to much in depth looses people interest in the topic
c. less people interested means loss of revenue.
d. Loss of revenue means you can loose you job.
e. if you make it interesting you need to cut the depth and trigger emotions
f. to trigger emotions you need to make a Good guy who has been harmed and a Bad guy causing the harm.
g. The person being portrait as a bad guy doesn't like being a bad guy so he shows how the good guy isn't that good.
h. the previous good guy does the same in retaliation.
i. creating interest boosting sales and company gets stronger.
Option for this problem is to create Government controled media. Which has its problems too.
a. If you are paid by the government and the person controlling your purse strings does something wrong you will turn a blind eye to it.
b. Government can control what is shown and what isn't, even if it isn't an official rule.
c. Failure to do so will cost jobs.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
its anti-monopoly regulation and it is necessary. if such regulations werent around, united states would be controlled by around 4-5 big robber barons as of now. up to now there was not a regulation for individual media channels for this. this new thing is good.
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Call BS if you like. Your option.
Go to Media Matters, or one of the right-wing websites and get a load of what accuracy means today. If you're looking to bloggers for news, you're hosed. These are opinions, not journalism. My RSS/Atom reader gets 50 different sites every eight minutes. Local content in my 'major' market has been a monopoly for years. Heaven help you if you're a suburb, or a rural community. But this ruling doesn't affect them-- it's about major market competition.
You have to take EVERYTHING with a grain of salt these days; the integrity of print media and daily news are at a formulaic all-time low. You trust these guys? I don't.
In major markets, there are lots of the same bubble-headed bleached-blonds on TV (thank you, Don Henley) spouting the same foo at 6pm and 11pm. Then there are the morning shows. The rest are network fillers and commercials. This, this is quality? I can watch 900+ cable channels, and it's still a wasteland.
If you're a suburb of a major market, you're screwed for local news. Where are you going to get the news on a local level? The FCC's decision doesn't affect you, it only dries up competition in major markets-- that's where the money is.
TV 'anchors' are stars now. They don't get the news. They get make-up jobs and Lexus rides, and show up, looking pretty, when the mayor turns a shovel some place. Parts of the community? Nope. Entertainment. And it's been that way for two decades now.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Would you ban all franchises, then, on the same basis? Or perhaps a company that owns a hardware store on one end of town and a home decor store on the other?
This is defintely a straw man. Unlike the case of most franchises, radio stations, and newspapers are a limited public resource (newspapers are a limited resource only because of the government bureaucracy that must be waded through in order to have one). Further, unlike a hardware store, they both naturally affect public opinion about them because they're media sources - so they're natural monopolies. Monopolies do bad things when they're confined to a region, but they get really bad when the get bigger.
It makes zero business sense, either in media or most any other industry.
This is where your argument falls apart. I'd go so far as to say that it profitability and productivity actually goes down when you go beyond a certain size in almost every industry because the people "running the show" become necessarily less detached from their target market and the people doing the work become detached from a profit-motive (because income isn't really tied to profitability and/or doing what they love). The only thing it does is make a few people very, very rich most of the time. The exception to this is commodities that everyone wants exactly the same way, like milk, gasoline, eggs, internet access, etc.
I think this is especially true of radio stations - which have local community listeners. The local operators are the ones who should be making the decisions because they're the ones who know their audience. Further, every area needs pretty much the same equipment. It's not like corporations get a big boost in efficiency because they're a corporation.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
This is more akin to old-school reporting, where biases are secondary to substantive programming. I can't speak to your local station's programming, obviously, but this seems to be true of the national programs such as "All Things Considered", where I'd challenge you to find someone actually portraying any figure anywhere as "evil". Fox News, by contrast, penetrates every story with subjective statements, and applies a much more obvious filter in terms of what they actually bother to report. I'm not basing that on NPR(hopefully obviously), I'm basing it on observations derived from my own consumption patterns, which involve media from many sources, some of which are international.
This will get modded as flamebait I'm sure...but I thought all the NAU nutters were on Digg