-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Antitrust & the Media
Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 21:58:39 -0400
From: enrique <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Newsgroups:
alt.politics.usa.republican,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.greens,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.liberalism,alt.politics.media,alt.journalism,talk.politics.misc
May 22, 2000
Antitrust & the Media--I
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This spring the topic of antitrust returned to the headlines after a long
absence as the government pursued and won (for the time being) its case
against Microsoft and, in a more muted way, as Time Warner and Disney got
into a fight over distribution that is part of a high-stakes battle for
control of access to America's homes. Let's hope that the two cases will
reinvigorate the notion of antitrust in our political culture. Over the
past year or two there have been rumblings that antitrust should go beyond
its current narrow application to firms that have virtual monopolies in
markets and return to its original populist purpose of breaking up
concentrated wealth as a cancer on democratic governance.
If this takes place, most experts argue, corporate media will be first on
any target list. After a decade of deal-making, the US system is now
dominated by nine massive media conglomerates. Although not one is a
monopoly of any one national market à la Microsoft or Standard Oil, these
are closed markets for all intents and purposes. And, as the AOL/Time
Warner marriage highlighted, these firms have largely tamed the
commercialized Internet. It is not merely their economic power, or even
their cultural power, that causes concern. It is their political power.
They have grown so large that they are close to being untamable by government.
On Capitol Hill progressive legislators like Senator Paul Wellstone have
announced their support for applying antitrust to the existing media
system. "There's no question that we have to start talking in a serious way
about media, about media mergers and monopolies, about the balance between
public and commercial television, about how we can encourage more diversity
in ownership and in content, about the role that media plays in a democracy
where most people don't vote," says Wellstone. Nor is this an issue with
appeal only to the left. When Time Warner briefly removed Disney's ABC from
its cable offerings in several cities in early May, New York City Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani told reporters, "This is an example of what happens when
you allow monopolies to get too big and they become too predatory and then
the consumer is hurt. For the life of me, I can't figure out why the
Justice Department has spent so much time on Microsoft and so little on
this industry."
Applying antitrust to media will not be enough. Even with an enlightened
policy of media ownership in the digital age, there would still be too much
power in the hands of owners and advertisers. That is why antitrust must be
complemented by an aggressive and wide-ranging program to establish a
viable nonprofit and noncommercial media sector. But using antitrust powers
would at least be a beginning.
Robert W. McChesney
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Robert W. McChesney, a professor at the University of Illinois, is the
author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy (Illinois).
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Respectfully,
Jay Fenello,
New Media Strategies
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http://www.fenello.com 770-392-9480
Aligning with Purpose(sm) ... for a Better World
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"If we want to change the world, we have to
begin by changing ourselves" -- Deepak Chopra
