"The fact that I even have to explain something so obvious speaks volumes of your ignorance of this topic."
The fact that you are complaining about (and wanting legislation to stop) "the press" from "controlling and shaping" its own editorical content speaks volumes of your ignorance of the Constitution. Besides, the consolidation you speak of is just not happening.
"So what you're saying is it's okay with you that media consolidation continue..."
Maybe if it was happening in the real world, this hypothetical situation might deserve more scrutiny. However, by objective measures (the counting of independent voices owned by different "publishers", it is not happening at all.
"...even though all manner of unbiased academic studies indicate it's bad for American democracy in a variety of ways. "
1) Show me one single unbiased study on this
2) This matter has nothing to do with democracy.
"I see you wear your brown shirt proudly."
Hard to do so when you are always wearing it at the marches demanding that publishers kneel to the Zod of government and give up their Constitional right to "control and shape" (your words) their own publications.
"With a statement like that I can assume you are also against Net Neutrality."
Interesting question. However, the only thing I have against "Network Neutrality" proposals is that they will likely be Trojans through which disastrous slightly-related initiatives will be foisted on us. Actually, I would fight the problem that "Network Neutrality" attempts to deal with a different way. Instead of meddling in the Big Telco/Cable attempts to crap up their pipes, I'd seek policies to encourage the creation of additional tubes in the Internets that don't have this problem. That's also the best approach to deal with perceived "media consolidation". Don't censor the existing ones. Instead, make it easier for new voices to enter.
"Maybe if you count every podunk newsletter, AM radio station and zine then the total number of owners is up, but if you look at the relevant media"
"Relevant" meaning only the media you subjectively have made the decision are important? With arbitrary criteria like this, how can you possibly lose an argument?
"the major sources which actually have substantial audiences"
Even more subjective: you are choosing those which are very popular, without regard to the actual number of media "voices". These voices are in the thousands: only you are miscounting.
I'm merely being accurate. TV, newpapers, radio, and magazines are in thousands of hands. This is only if you look at those who make the day to day decisions and / or set the overall direction for the media outlets. The top ones only.
"Why don't you count how many radio stations are now owned by the same large corporation [stateofthenewsmedia.org]"
Already did. This one large company you are thinking of controls less than 8% of the radio stations in the country. Do your research (and check a dictionary) before spouting such "krap".
"as well as how many newspapers a company could own in a single market"
What part of the First Amendment did the guys who actually restricted newspapers not understand?
"WTF does an increased number of "national news TV outlets" have do with the who controls the content of media. "
It has everything to do with it.
"Also, the percentage of people getting their news from television shrinks every year. This is media were talking about, in all its forms.
For media in all its forms, the idea of consolidation is a joke.
"you would see that the content, the substance of what is being delivered is governed and controlled by a smaller and smaller group of people"
It's not. We have almost twice as many national news TV outlets as we did 20 years ago. None have been lost/consolidated, other than that little ABC competitor to CNN that was hardly around at all. Next time.... count.
"(and i) assumed that you were against any theoretical law, therefore he asked you a theoretical question."
If this "theoretical situation" is not a realistic one at all, why bring it up except for sensationalism fallacious "slippery slope" arguments?
"if one company owned every TV station except one, and there was a law that prevented them from buying that one, how would that be silencing them?"
Rather like passing a law that puts an upper limit on how many newspapers the New York Times can sell. Well, there is indeed a difference between passing a law to censor someone to limit or curtail their speech, and passing a law to censor someone to completely silence their speech. I'll agree that while both situations are censorship even if one is not complete silencing.
"Number of stations is not the issue, so much as how much of the audience they account for"
Number of stations is the only issue. Why bring up the audience share unless you are looking to change legislation and policy to punish someone for daring to be too popular?"
"but because almost all of those stations are large stations in large markets, they account for a huge percentage (75% or so) of all listeners."
How is this a problem when they control a minority share of the stations?
"Wow! You mean instead of three interchangeable TV news sources, we now have six? Why, their opinions must collectively be twice as diverse!"
The three are not interchangable.
"Only, not, because they're all owned by titanic media conglomerates run by incredibly wealthy folks who, quite understandably, tend toward a conservative bent. (Fox is merely the most obvious about it.)"
Actually, some are owned by titanic media conglomerates with wealthy folks who have a liberal bent. Quite understandably.
"No, because there's a couple more sources for TV news, there's no consolidation to worry about!"
Exactly. Because there were just a couple in the beginning.
"Nevermind that there's lots of other kinds of news media -- radio stations and newspapers, for example -- which have undergone drastic consolidation in the past few decades"
It's more like deconsolidation. But 'nevermind', as you do not know much about this one either.
"No offense, but I hope you don't mean to say that all the boutique cable networks out there actually count."
Why wouldn't they count? However, if you want to get into some more important (?) indicators, there are 66% more national networks now and twice as many national TV network news/public affairs operations.
Why not just COUNT first, before ignorantly blowing smoke? We can start with the national TV news outlets. 25 years ago, there was ABC, CBS, NBC. Now we have ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox, and enough misc. sources (C-SPAN counts for lot) to count for one more. That's twice as many. None of these owns the other. If you can count to 3, or count to 6, this one should be pretty obvious.
"Dude, Clear Channel and other giants practically vaporized any diversity in radio media"
How? They own less than 10% of the stations. They didn't do this, and they can't do this.
"It's about limiting one entity from owning a majority or all of the main media point in a location"
Can you show a place where this has happened? Or is even close to happening?
The movement is really all about censoring certain people. A little while back, when there was a controversy over rules changes, the opponents of relaxing ownership used as a main complaint the content of certain Sinclair Group content, and they used Murdoch as a poster boy (literally, on posters).
Dumbass. Why not check the real numbers next time?
"The example of "total control" was a comparison between current ownership limits, and what might happen if they were removed."
Do you have any sort of real example of where this is a real danger? Clear Channel is often mentioned, and they own 7% to 8% of questions. If they doubled the number of stations they own, they'd still have less than 20%.
"For the sort of thing I was referring to please see; Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama for direct action then the rest of the developing world for covert subversion of elections."
You will have to come up with better examples than that. The USSR invaded the first four countries you named. It actually succeeded in taking over 3 of the first 4. The US merely helped the nationalists throw out the colonialists. Panama, the last country you named, is interesting to name in a sentence with "subversion of elections". Noriega lost the election there, but with the help of Cuba (Soviets) he held on to power. The US intervened on behalf of the election winners.
"But, that's not the point I was making. I said abstinence is 100% effective and should be taught"
It's certainly not 100% effective. There is a certain matter of sexual assault. When this happens, the victims' choices of abstinence aren't taken into account, are they?. There have been numerous studies done about this, and the percentage numbers vary from 10% to 25%. Here is a typical one from Texas: "More than 12 percent of Texans have been
sexually assaulted."
"It's been large corporations, not commies, that have centralized media and propoganda."
Except the opposite has happened. In the last 25 or so years, the number of major national news outlets has just about doubled. There has been an explosion in alternative weekly newspapers. There's the new phenomenon of public access TV on cable.
I'm opposed to laws limiting ownership (I don't want anyone silenced, even if they are portrayed as having "bad" views that deserve censorship, such as the Sinclair Group).
However, I definitely want more of a diversity of voices. Low power FM radio station licenses should be made much easier to get for community radio.
"in Kashmir journalists have been attacked by both the police and radical seperatists"
>
By separatists, you mean those who have been trying to get Kashmir transfered to Pakistan? It has always been part of India.
"The U.S.S.R. was only half... or less... of why we were involved in Vietnam The other half was China, the traditional colonial overload of Vietnam."
The USSR was all of it, as they had Ho as their colonial general. Mainland China was not actually involved in Vietnam. They made their presence known a little later by instituting the Killing Fields in Cambodia.
"Israel produces wealth? Lets see how long their economy survives without help from the USA, shall we? At the very least they do not create enough wealth to keep their own country running."
It's hard to devote your country to peaceful pursuits when you constantly have to fend off attacks from neighboring countries that are so ill-minded that extermination of the Israelis is a top foreign policy goal. They recently had to spend a lot of money to fend off an invasion by Lebanon a few months ago. The Palestians, in a "fair and open" election, recently affirmed that wiping out 5 million Jews was "Job One". Even "peaceful" Dubai still states it wants this.
Do you have any more specifics? I'm curious as to when are the closest dates before and after 9/11/2006 that Saddam Hussein ordered his terrorists to attack American peacekeeping patrols.
Where did you get THAT idea? Free press is about reporting whatever the hell you want, even if the government or other such group has the opinion that it is not "factual". Thankfully, the First Amendment does not have a clause "....freedom of the press (as long as what it is saying is "true")..."
"On the other hand, hate speech is *not* free press"
The same is true of speech that someone thinks is "hate" as well as speech that someone thinks is "true".
"...It is unfounded opinions, based on biaised facts...."
Something which falls under "Freedom of the Press". It is in the same league.
Or you can find a country that, like China, does not overcharge high rip-off prices, but unlike China, has better enforcement on this. Then you neither pay now nor pay later.
Slashdot Mirror
"The fact that I even have to explain something so obvious speaks volumes of your ignorance of this topic."
The fact that you are complaining about (and wanting legislation to stop) "the press" from "controlling and shaping" its own editorical content speaks volumes of your ignorance of the Constitution. Besides, the consolidation you speak of is just not happening.
"So what you're saying is it's okay with you that media consolidation continue..."
Maybe if it was happening in the real world, this hypothetical situation might deserve more scrutiny. However, by objective measures (the counting of independent voices owned by different "publishers", it is not happening at all.
"...even though all manner of unbiased academic studies indicate it's bad for American democracy in a variety of ways. "
1) Show me one single unbiased study on this
2) This matter has nothing to do with democracy.
"I see you wear your brown shirt proudly."
Hard to do so when you are always wearing it at the marches demanding that publishers kneel to the Zod of government and give up their Constitional right to "control and shape" (your words) their own publications.
"With a statement like that I can assume you are also against Net Neutrality."
Interesting question. However, the only thing I have against "Network Neutrality" proposals is that they will likely be Trojans through which disastrous slightly-related initiatives will be foisted on us. Actually, I would fight the problem that "Network Neutrality" attempts to deal with a different way. Instead of meddling in the Big Telco/Cable attempts to crap up their pipes, I'd seek policies to encourage the creation of additional tubes in the Internets that don't have this problem. That's also the best approach to deal with perceived "media consolidation". Don't censor the existing ones. Instead, make it easier for new voices to enter.
"Maybe if you count every podunk newsletter, AM radio station and zine then the total number of owners is up, but if you look at the relevant media"
"Relevant" meaning only the media you subjectively have made the decision are important? With arbitrary criteria like this, how can you possibly lose an argument?
"the major sources which actually have substantial audiences"
Even more subjective: you are choosing those which are very popular, without regard to the actual number of media "voices". These voices are in the thousands: only you are miscounting.
I'm merely being accurate. TV, newpapers, radio, and magazines are in thousands of hands. This is only if you look at those who make the day to day decisions and / or set the overall direction for the media outlets. The top ones only.
"Why don't you count how many radio stations are now owned by the same large corporation [stateofthenewsmedia.org]"
Already did. This one large company you are thinking of controls less than 8% of the radio stations in the country. Do your research (and check a dictionary) before spouting such "krap".
"as well as how many newspapers a company could own in a single market"
What part of the First Amendment did the guys who actually restricted newspapers not understand?
"WTF does an increased number of "national news TV outlets" have do with the who controls the content of media. "
It has everything to do with it.
"Also, the percentage of people getting their news from television shrinks every year. This is media were talking about, in all its forms.
For media in all its forms, the idea of consolidation is a joke.
"The daily mail is ridiculed here for being xenophobic and right right wing to the point of, again, not being news, but rather propoganda."
What then definese "news". Is that a term you use for the propaganda you happen to like?
"you would see that the content, the substance of what is being delivered is governed and controlled by a smaller and smaller group of people"
It's not. We have almost twice as many national news TV outlets as we did 20 years ago. None have been lost/consolidated, other than that little ABC competitor to CNN that was hardly around at all. Next time.... count.
"Now that tv, radio, newspapers and magazines can be under the same management, overall media ownership is in far fewer hands."
Is many thousands of hands "few"?
"(and i) assumed that you were against any theoretical law, therefore he asked you a theoretical question."
If this "theoretical situation" is not a realistic one at all, why bring it up except for sensationalism fallacious "slippery slope" arguments?
"if one company owned every TV station except one, and there was a law that prevented them from buying that one, how would that be silencing them?"
Rather like passing a law that puts an upper limit on how many newspapers the New York Times can sell. Well, there is indeed a difference between passing a law to censor someone to limit or curtail their speech, and passing a law to censor someone to completely silence their speech. I'll agree that while both situations are censorship even if one is not complete silencing.
"Number of stations is not the issue, so much as how much of the audience they account for"
Number of stations is the only issue. Why bring up the audience share unless you are looking to change legislation and policy to punish someone for daring to be too popular?"
"but because almost all of those stations are large stations in large markets, they account for a huge percentage (75% or so) of all listeners."
How is this a problem when they control a minority share of the stations?
"Wow! You mean instead of three interchangeable TV news sources, we now have six? Why, their opinions must collectively be twice as diverse!"
The three are not interchangable.
"Only, not, because they're all owned by titanic media conglomerates run by incredibly wealthy folks who, quite understandably, tend toward a conservative bent. (Fox is merely the most obvious about it.)"
Actually, some are owned by titanic media conglomerates with wealthy folks who have a liberal bent. Quite understandably.
"No, because there's a couple more sources for TV news, there's no consolidation to worry about!"
Exactly. Because there were just a couple in the beginning.
"Nevermind that there's lots of other kinds of news media -- radio stations and newspapers, for example -- which have undergone drastic consolidation in the past few decades"
It's more like deconsolidation. But 'nevermind', as you do not know much about this one either.
"No offense, but I hope you don't mean to say that all the boutique cable networks out there actually count."
/public affairs operations.
Why wouldn't they count? However, if you want to get into some more important (?) indicators, there are 66% more national networks now and twice as many national TV network news
Why not just COUNT first, before ignorantly blowing smoke? We can start with the national TV news outlets. 25 years ago, there was ABC, CBS, NBC. Now we have ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox, and enough misc. sources (C-SPAN counts for lot) to count for one more. That's twice as many. None of these owns the other. If you can count to 3, or count to 6, this one should be pretty obvious.
"Dude, Clear Channel and other giants practically vaporized any diversity in radio media"
How? They own less than 10% of the stations. They didn't do this, and they can't do this.
"It's about limiting one entity from owning a majority or all of the main media point in a location"
Can you show a place where this has happened? Or is even close to happening? The movement is really all about censoring certain people. A little while back, when there was a controversy over rules changes, the opponents of relaxing ownership used as a main complaint the content of certain Sinclair Group content, and they used Murdoch as a poster boy (literally, on posters). Dumbass. Why not check the real numbers next time?
"The example of "total control" was a comparison between current ownership limits, and what might happen if they were removed."
Do you have any sort of real example of where this is a real danger? Clear Channel is often mentioned, and they own 7% to 8% of questions. If they doubled the number of stations they own, they'd still have less than 20%.
"For the sort of thing I was referring to please see; Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama for direct action then the rest of the developing world for covert subversion of elections."
You will have to come up with better examples than that. The USSR invaded the first four countries you named. It actually succeeded in taking over 3 of the first 4. The US merely helped the nationalists throw out the colonialists. Panama, the last country you named, is interesting to name in a sentence with "subversion of elections". Noriega lost the election there, but with the help of Cuba (Soviets) he held on to power. The US intervened on behalf of the election winners.
"But, that's not the point I was making. I said abstinence is 100% effective and should be taught"
It's certainly not 100% effective. There is a certain matter of sexual assault. When this happens, the victims' choices of abstinence aren't taken into account, are they?. There have been numerous studies done about this, and the percentage numbers vary from 10% to 25%. Here is a typical one from Texas: "More than 12 percent of Texans have been sexually assaulted."
"If somebody owns all the TV stations, newspapers, and radio stations, they are silenced how exactly?"
Who are you speaking of specifically? I don't know of any such entity in the US.
"It's been large corporations, not commies, that have centralized media and propoganda."
Except the opposite has happened. In the last 25 or so years, the number of major national news outlets has just about doubled. There has been an explosion in alternative weekly newspapers. There's the new phenomenon of public access TV on cable.
I'm opposed to laws limiting ownership (I don't want anyone silenced, even if they are portrayed as having "bad" views that deserve censorship, such as the Sinclair Group).
However, I definitely want more of a diversity of voices. Low power FM radio station licenses should be made much easier to get for community radio.
"in Kashmir journalists have been attacked by both the police and radical seperatists"
>
By separatists, you mean those who have been trying to get Kashmir transfered to Pakistan? It has always been part of India.
"The U.S.S.R. was only half... or less... of why we were involved in Vietnam The other half was China, the traditional colonial overload of Vietnam."
The USSR was all of it, as they had Ho as their colonial general. Mainland China was not actually involved in Vietnam. They made their presence known a little later by instituting the Killing Fields in Cambodia.
"Israel produces wealth? Lets see how long their economy survives without help from the USA, shall we? At the very least they do not create enough wealth to keep their own country running."
It's hard to devote your country to peaceful pursuits when you constantly have to fend off attacks from neighboring countries that are so ill-minded that extermination of the Israelis is a top foreign policy goal. They recently had to spend a lot of money to fend off an invasion by Lebanon a few months ago. The Palestians, in a "fair and open" election, recently affirmed that wiping out 5 million Jews was "Job One". Even "peaceful" Dubai still states it wants this.
Do you have any more specifics? I'm curious as to when are the closest dates before and after 9/11/2006 that Saddam Hussein ordered his terrorists to attack American peacekeeping patrols.
"Free press is about reporting facts"
Where did you get THAT idea? Free press is about reporting whatever the hell you want, even if the government or other such group has the opinion that it is not "factual". Thankfully, the First Amendment does not have a clause "....freedom of the press (as long as what it is saying is "true")..."
"On the other hand, hate speech is *not* free press"
The same is true of speech that someone thinks is "hate" as well as speech that someone thinks is "true".
"...It is unfounded opinions, based on biaised facts...."
Something which falls under "Freedom of the Press". It is in the same league.
"You can pay now or you can pay later."
Or you can find a country that, like China, does not overcharge high rip-off prices, but unlike China, has better enforcement on this. Then you neither pay now nor pay later.