me: > how is Murdoch worse than William Randolph Hearst or Colonel McCormick > or the many reactionary media barons of previous generations? I don't > remember the US press doing very well during previous imperial wars.
Ralph Johansen: > Hi, Jim. You talkin to me? yup. One of these days I gotta get myself organizized. > I would say simply that there is a difference from reactionary media > moguls in our past. With the level of concentration and centralization > in media constantly increasing, it matters that much more who's skewing > the news, as well as how many remain in the game. Especially with the > stakes for US capital rising all the time and the range of options on > the table more ominous. I'm not sure that the more competitive entrepreneurial capitalist newspapers of the past were worse (or in any way better) than the more centralized capitalist newspapers of today. The old McCormicks, Hearsts, etc. used sensationalism to sell newspapers and used circulation to sell their politics. So what's new? Hearst pushed our previous "splendid little war" (against Spain), just as the modern New York TIMES (not owned by Murdoch, by the way) pushed our war against Iraq. In many ways, the media situation is _better_ now than a few years. If I want, I can easily read the London GUARDIAN or a lot of alternative sources (blogs, etc.) In the olden days, it is true, we had dailies like PM (before my time) and the Daily WORKER (crap). Those are gone, but it was their destruction by capitalist newspapers that was crucial, not the concentration and centralization of ownership. The decline and fall -- or even self-destruction -- of the old CP, the old SWP, the old SP, etc. were more important to creating the capitalist media monopoly than is Murdochization. > But of course, I realize when all major media are operated exclusively > for profit and operating as part of an oligopoly, there is never much > hope for maintenance of any significant level of investigative > journalism or objectivity on any vital topic. > > And what that does for people's level of information and defense of > their own interests is truly frightening. Which is why, with its level > of specificity I thought Pilger's talk worth sending. I agree with his > first paragraph: "Liberal Democracy is moving toward a form of corporate > dictatorship. This is an historic shift, and the media must not be > allowed to be its façade, but itself made into a popular, burning issue, > and subjected to direct action." there's a general movement from the old New Deal régime (the soft social democracy that prevailed in the US) in which co-opted labor was a junior partner with business and government to a resurrection of the Gilded Age previously seen during the late 19th century or the 1920s. I see changes in the media as reflecting that change, not being the main event. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
