http://www.americanfreepress.net/12_11_02/Media_Giants_Crave/media_giants_crave.html
Media Giants Crave ABSOLUTE Control
Some populist critics of the major media giants in America say that “The Media Is the Enemy,” Well, if other people have their way, the wealth and power of the mass media and its concentration in increasingly fewer hands will be greater than ever before.
Exclusive To American Free Press
By Michael Collins Piper
If you think that the masters of the American media —men such as Edgar Bronfman, Sumner Redstone, Rupert Murdoch, S.I. Newhouse, Mortimer Zuckerman, Lawrence Tisch and others—are rich and powerful now, just wait till you see what the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has in store for them.
The FCC is considering loosening or doing away entirely with regulations that limit the number of newspapers and radio and television outlets that a single company can own.
Americans have until Jan. 2—no later—to register their opposition with the FCC. (See accompanying information on how to contact the FCC on page 20.)
Although all of this is being proposed in the name of “the free market,” this would be a major boon to the increasingly smaller number of global corporate media giants that are swallowing up once independent local newspapers and broadcast outlets across America and around the world.
Such a move would also give expanded political clout to the already immensely powerful lords of the media allowing them—for example—to own a major television station and newspaper in the same town or city, thereby effectively having a monopoly on local news coverage.
Advocates of “deregulation” say that because so many Americans now have access to the Internet and can thereby call up many news sources—literally, worldwide—that there is no longer any need for “out of date” regulations.
In addition, advocates say that because of the expansion of satellite and cable television, previous concerns about the concentration of media ownership are no longer valid.
While it is true that the Internet has provided a communications/outreach explosion of unprecedented proportions—just in the last several years alone—most Americans get the bulk of their news and information from their local “mainstream” newspapers and television and radio which are themselves increasingly being grabbed up by major media monopolies.
For example, in the small city of Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, the New York-based Newhouse family controls the major daily newspaper, The Patriot. The Newhouse family’s Advance Communications also controls a number of smaller weekly newspapers in both suburban and rural “bedroom” counties surrounding Harrisburg. Most of those people have no idea that their “local” newspaper is actually owned by a national media conglomerate held tightly in the hands of a super-powerful billionaire family.
Americans who use the Internet for “other” information tend to frequent the web sites of “major” widely-publicized and “fashionable” newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times.
However, what many of those who fancy themselves to be “in the know” because they access multiple “big name” newspapers do not realize is that the owners of The Chicago Tribune, for example, are also the owners of The Los Angeles Times and New York’s Long Island-based Newsday and The Hartford (Connecticut) Courant, to mention several in the Tribune Co.’s stable.
So many readers who think they are getting “alternative” information from other news sources are victims of the growing media monopoly that prefers to keep its concentration of elite ownership out of the realm of public understanding and discussion.
As one would expect from an appointed bureaucrat with high-level political connections, the FCC’s chairman Michael Powell—son of Secretary of State Colin Powell—is taking a non-committal position on the controversial issue. Unfortunately, the issue is only “controversial” to those who are aware of the issue, since the matter has been largely relegated to the business pages of the major metropolitan dailies.
The concept of media ownership and control being increasingly taken into the hands of fewer and fewer families and financial groups is not widely debated or understood.
There is something you can do about it: make your voice heard. You have until Jan. 2 to contact the FCC and tell the commissioners that you are opposed to all plans to loosen current ownership restrictions. Urge the commissioners to tighten current standards and restrict the growth of the media monopoly in America.
