MEDIA OWNERSHIP
LEADING ACADEMICS DECRY FCC METHODOLOGY FOR LIFTING OWNERSHIP SAFEGUARDS
[Press Release] A group of nearly 300 academics have asked the FCC to
disclose its plans for a rulemaking "diversity index" and other quantitative
measures prior to its scheduled June 2 vote on media ownership deregulation.
The academics join a growing chorus of public interest organizations and
consumer groups critical of the FCC's plan to strip the ownership rules. "We
have grave doubts that any single measure can effectively analyze the
complexities of the media marketplace in terms of its impact on journalism,
citizen access to information, and competition," they wrote. University of
Illinois professor Robert McChesney added, "The existing media rules were
created to guarantee the citizens their basic rights to a diverse and
independent media. Chairman Powell seems focused solely on the impact of
media rules on the advertising marketplace, not the marketplace of ideas.
Regardless of the index or rule Mr. Powell chooses, hundreds of leading
scholars justifiably believe that any proposal should be first released for
scholarly review and comment."
[SOURCE: Center for Digital Democracy]
http://www.democraticmedia.org/news/academicsDecryFCC.html
View the letter and a list of signatories:
http://www.democraticmedia.org/resources/filings/Academic_letterFINAL.doc
MoveOn message:
["fair use," "teachable moment," "archival," Section 107(a), 1976
Copyright Act and 1998 Digital Millennium Act]
----Original Message Follows----
From: "Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org"
<moveon-help@list.moveon.org>
To: [suppressed]
Subject: Stop Media Monopoly Date: Thu, 8 May 2003 11:34:21 -0700 (PDT)
Dear MoveOn member,
On June 2, the Federal Communications Commission is planning on
authorizing sweeping changes to the American news media. The rule
changes could allow your local TV stations, newspaper, radio stations,
and cable provider to all be owned by one company. NBC, ABC, CBS and
Fox could have the same corporate parent. The resulting concentration
of ownership could be deeply destructive to our democracy.
When we talk to Congresspeople about this issue, their response is
usually the same: "We only hear from media lobbyists on this. It seems
like my constituents aren't very concerned with this issue." A few
thousand emails could permanently change that perception. Please join
us in asking Congress and the FCC to fight media deregulation at:
http://www.moveon.org/stopthefcc/
The radio landscape makes clear that concentration will hurt the
media. After the FCC and Congress relaxed radio ownership rules,
corporate giant Clear Channel Communications swept in and bought
hundreds of stations. Clear Channel has used its might to support
pro-war political rallies and conservative talk shows, keep anti-war
songs off its stations, coerce musicians into playing free promotional
concerts, and bully them into performing at its music venues. In many
towns that used to have a diverse array of radio options, Clear
Channel is now the only thing on the dial.
Monopoly power is a dangerous thing, and Congress is supposed to guard
against it. But the upcoming rule change could change the landscape
for all media and usher in an era in which a few corporations control
your access to news and entertainment. Please tell Congress and the
FCC to support a diverse, competitive media landscape by going to:
http://www.moveon.org/stopthefcc/
You can also automatically have your comments publicly filed at the
FCC.
Democracy is built on the idea that the views and beliefs of an
informed citizenry are the best basis for political decision-making.
Without access to fair and balanced news, the system simply doesn't
work. And media corporations can't be trusted to balance themselves:
news corporations have shown again and again that they're willing to
sacrifice journalism to improve the bottom line. That's why we need
many media entities -- to keep each other honest, and to provide the
information and ideas that make democracy happen.
Please join this critical campaign, and let Congress know you care.
Sincerely, --Eli Pariser MoveOn.org May 8th, 2003
P.S. Here's a copy of our recent bulletin on this subject. To sign up
for the bulletin, just click here:
http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/
_______________
SHOWDOWN AT THE FCC MoveOn Bulletin Friday, May 2, 2003 Co-Editors:
Don Hazen and Lakshmi Chaudry, AlterNet
Subscribe online at: http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/
You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking here:
http://moveon.org/s?i=1344-523214-K1ir6rNyIOg_qKRMY5Xr9A
CONTENTS: 1. Eli Pariser: Why Worry About Who Owns the Media? 2. Jeff
Chester: Showdown at the FCC 3. Neil Hickey: The Gathering Storm Over
Media Ownership 4. Bill Moyers: Barry Diller Takes On Media
Deregulation 5. Danny Schechter: The Media, the War, and Our Right to
Know 6. Eric Boehlert: Clear Channel's Big Stinking Deregulation Mess
7. Paul Schmelzer: The Death of Local News 8. Caryl Rivers: Where Have
All the Women Gone? 9. About the Bulletin
------------------------------
WHY WORRY ABOUT WHO OWNS THE MEDIA? MoveOn Bulletin Op-Ed by Eli
Pariser
It's like something out of a nightmare, but it really happened: At
1:30 on a cold January night, a train containing hundreds of thousands
of gallons of toxic ammonia derails in Minot, North Dakota. Town
officials try to sound the emergency alert system, but it isn't
working. Desperate to warn townspeople about the poisonous white cloud
bearing down on them, the officials call their local radio stations.
But no one answers any of the phones for an hour and a half. According
to the New York Times, three hundred people are hospitalized, some are
partially blinded, and pets and livestock are killed.
Where were Minot's DJs on January 18th, 2002? Where was the late night
station crew? As it turns out, six of the seven local radio stations
had recently been purchased by Clear Channel Communications, a radio
giant with over 1,200 stations nationwide. Economies of scale dictated
that most of the local staff be cut: Minot stations ran more or less
on auto pilot, the programming largely dictated from further up the
Clear Channel food chain. No one answered the phone because hardly
anyone worked at the stations any more; the songs played in Minot were
the same as those played on Clear Channel stations across the Midwest.
Companies like Clear Channel argue that economies of scale allow them
to cut costs while continuing to provide quality programming. But they
do so at the expense of local coverage. It's not just about emergency
warnings: media mergers are decreasing coverage of local political
races, local small businesses, and local events. There are only a
third as many owners of newspapers and TV stations as there were in
the 1970s (about 600 now; over 1,500 then). It's harder and harder for
Americans to find out what's going on in their own back yards.
On June 2, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering
relaxing or getting rid of rules to allow much more media
concentration. While the actual rule changes are under wraps, they
could allow enormous changes in the American media environment. For
example, one company could be allowed to own ABC, CBS, and NBC. Almost
certainly, media companies will be allowed to own newspapers and TV
stations in the same town. We could be entering a new era of media
megaliths.
Do you want one or two big companies acting as gatekeepers and
controlling your access to news and entertainment? Most of us don't.
And the airwaves explicitly belong to us -- the American people. We
allow media companies to use them in exchange for their assurance that
they're serving the public interest, and it's the FCC's job to make
sure that's so. For the future of American journalism, and for the
preservation of a diverse and local media, we have the hold the FCC to
its mission. Otherwise, Minot's nightmare may become our national
reality.
------------------------------
Interested in taking on the FCC and other media-related concerns? Join
the MoveOn Media Corps, a group of over 29,000 committed Americans
working for a fair and balanced media. You can sign up now at:
http://www.moveon.org/mediacorps/
------------------------------
SHOWDOWN AT THE FCC Jeffrey Chester and Don Hazen, AlterNet Despite
wide protests and the Clear Channel debacle, the FCC is about to award
the nation's biggest media conglomerates a new give-away that will
further concentrate media ownership in fewer hands. The impact on the
American media landscape could be disastrous. Recent TV coverage of
the Iraq war already illustrates that US media companies aren't
interested in providing a serious range of analysis and debate. This
overview describes what's at stake and offers an introduction to the
following articles. http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15796
------------------------------
THE GATHERING STORM OVER MEDIA OWNERSHIP Neil Hickey, Columbia
Journalism Review CJR's editor-at-large explains just what is at stake
in this fight over media ownership. He provides an in-depth look at
the issues, and major players in a battle that is pitting journalists
against their bosses, breaking up old alliances, and gathering
momentum as the day of reckoning draws near. He traces the snowballing
trend of media consolidation and its implications for the future,
revealing just how the drive for profit is eroding diversity, local
control, and more importantly giving a few mega-corporations a
monopoly over the dissemination of news.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15654
------------------------------
BARRY DILLER TAKES ON MEDIA DEREGULATION Bill Moyers, Now with Bill
Moyers The founder of Fox Broadcasting and present CEO of USA Networks
is an unlikely but passionate opponent of plans to loosen media
ownership rules. In an interview with Bill Moyers, the media mogul
explains how deregulation creates corporations with "such overwhelming
power in the marketplace that everyone has to do essentially what they
say." Diller argues that government regulation is essential to prevent
media companies from controlling everything we see, read, and hear. As
he puts it, "Who else is gonna do it for us?"
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15768
------------------------------
THE MEDIA, THE WAR, AND OUR RIGHT TO KNOW Danny Schechter,
MediaChannel.org Why did the media do such a poor job of reporting on
the Iraq war? The boosterism of news anchors, the suppression of
antiwar views, and the sanitized images of war that defined television
coverage are not a simple matter of bias or ineptitude, says media
analyst Danny Schechter. He draws attention to the connection between
the decisions made by journalists and the lobbying efforts of owners
who will profit immensely from the upcoming FCC decision in June.
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/moveon.shtml
------------------------------
CLEAR CHANNEL'S BIG STINKING DEREGULATION MESS Eric Boehlert, Salon
Clear Channel, the radio and concert conglomerate, has been the
greatest beneficiary of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which
stripped all ownership limits in the radio industry. The rapacious
company, led by Bush supporter Lowry Mays, has grown from 40 stations
to 1,225 since then, and now uses its power to routinely bully
advertisers and record companies, and more recently censor antiwar
artists. However, as Eric Boehlert points out, its "success" may be
the most powerful weapon in the arsenal of media activists. Clear
Channel's stranglehold on the radio industry is the best and clearest
example of the effects of rampant deregulation.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15281
------------------------------
THE DEATH OF LOCAL NEWS Paul Schmelzer, AlterNet Meet the Sinclair
Broadcast Group, the "Clear Channel of local news." Since 1991, the
company has managed to acquire 62 television stations or 24 percent of
the national TV audience. The company's modus operandi is the
centralized production of homogenized, repackaged faux "local" news.
Its success offers an alarming glimpse of the post-deregulation world
in which all news may be produced in one giant newsroom and from a
single viewpoint -- which in Sinclair's case is wholeheartedly
conservative. http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15718.
------------------------------
WHERE HAVE ALL THE WOMEN GONE? Caryl Rivers, Women's Enews Once the
war on Iraq took center-stage in the headlines of newspapers and
magazines across the country, women writers became increasingly rare
in the media. In their place are mostly white men who write on a
narrow band of foreign policy issues, mostly recycling their views
over and over again. From the all-male line-ups in the op-ed pages of
the Washington Post and the New York Times to the dwindling female
bylines in the New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly, women's voices have
been caught in a "spiral of silence" that is unprecedented since the
pre-women's movement days.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15677
------------------------------
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