What to do about the right-wing media?

[backscatter712]

I know. Fairness Doctrine. Force the media to give at least some airtime to our side - doesn't have to be 50-50 - the Fairness Doctrine historically gives quite a lot of leeway - all it does is prohibit broadcasters from allowing one side to monopolize the airwaves.

There's a problem: In order for the Fairness Doctrine to be brought back, Congress must pass a law to mandate it, and the Rethug Senators will throw a filibuster. President Obama has said that he opposed a blanket re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine. Realistically, it's not doable.

What else is there? Congress and President Obama needs to get on these as soon as possible once the stimulus package is signed into law.

Media ownership caps: The Bushies in the FCC, as well as their predecessors in the Clinton Administration, have been loosening ownership caps for some time now. As a result, six, yes six big corporations now own 90+% of the media outlets in the United States. That needs to change. The FCC needs to tighten the media ownership caps, and force the media conglomerates to sell their outlets, and not to each other. Ideally, the caps should be tightened down enough that there's room in the market for smaller media outlets. While we're at it , make sure barriers to entry are lowered. Imagine a Nova-M Television Network, or Air America TV. Change the market and smaller players can get in the game and play.

Network Neutrality: The Internet has been the Democratic Party's savior, providing a new alternative to traditional conservative-controlled TV, radio and newspaper. Barriers to entry are extremely low - I pay $10 a month and own my own web site. Without the Internet, we wouldn't have Democratic Underground, or other progressive sites like Daily Kos, Huffington Post, etc. etc. etc. Thanks to the Internet, we can get our message out there. The corporations want to change that. Comcast and other media companies want to turn the Internet into a toll road, give special priorities to those who pay, and block out everyone else. I can't afford to pay thousands of dollars of fees to Comcast and Verizon for them to allow my site to be seen by their subscribers. If the corporocracy has their way, the Internet would look like this...



Fortunately, President Obama is in favor of network neutrality and FCC ownership caps - these are realistic.

[T Wolf]

1. The corporate media is NEVER going to change for one simple reason - money. The owners are

simply using a (powerful) tool at their disposal to promote their interest - which is making money. And they enhance their bottom line by pushing policies that help them.

The only possible weakness is the individual people who spew the propaganda on air. So, it just makes sense that those individuals are the only possible targets. Make it costly for people to be a part of the message machine. If they had to worry about their own welfare and safety, and that of those they care about (their own), then just maybe, they would be less willing to continue acting like mini-Goebbels. As long as they are able to spread the lies with no risk, they will continue to do so.

The solution seems obvious.

[Jennicut]

2. Eh, they are becoming obsolete anyways. More and more people get

their news the way of the internet/blogs. I know I do.

[backscatter712]

3. I hardly watch TV anymore.

I canceled my cable, and I get my Internet through Qwest VDSL (decently faster than cable internet) and haven't looked back.

Cable TV is a wasteland - the cable news channels are little more than right-wing propaganda - you get Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Joe Scarborough, etc. etc. Previously decent channels like Discovery and the History channel have degenerated into showing nothing but UFOs, biblical apocalypse shows, ghost-hunters, Hitler documentaries and other tripe. Most of the other channels have nothing but reality trash TV because it's cheaper than making real shows.

The stuff I do want to watch I can download. I can get Olbermann and Maddow off the MSNBC web site, and I can get my Battlestar Galactica fix off their web site.

It's so not worth the $60 a month I spent just for digital cable. Adios.

[Jennicut]

7. I watch Discovery Channel and History Channel on occasion

but like you said its getting worse with its programming. The kids watch Nickolodian and Cartoon Network, the husband watche VH1. Other then that....I don't really have time to keep up with a weekly show. I watch the news sometimes. Most of cable tv is crap.

[Blue_Tires]

8. for me, it's worthless outside of pbs, the movie channels and sports...

oh, and LINK TV is good

[ericgtr]

4. As much as I hate the RW media I still can't support this

The dems need to get the message out on their own. We have people like Stewart, Olbermann and Maddow who have become powerful liberal voices for the people. I think the more the GOP is stifled the more they will thrive.

[backscatter712]

5. This isn't stifling anyone.

How does ownership caps stifle the GOP? They're still free to fling their poo, just on a more fair playing field.

And how would network neutrality stifle the GOP?

[ericgtr]

9. It says the dems need assistance to keep up with the GOP

It's not the right message to send.

[backscatter712]

16. What can I say? It's the Democrats who are being stifled.

You've seen the stats - Republicans outnumber Democrats two-to-one on the bobblehead shows. That's how big corporate media rolls. Don't tell be they're being balanced - they're actively working to forcefully quash the Democratic message.

Government censorship is wrong. So is corporate censorship.

[onenote]

6. Can we give up the "six big corporations now own 90+% of the media outlets" myth?

It does not help the argument that there is insufficient diversity in the media to make an utterly ridiculous and easily disproved assertion that 90 percent of the media outlets in the US are owned by six companies. Those six companies are usually identified as:

GE/NBC
Disney/ABC
CBS/Viacom (or national amusements)
Time Warner
News Corporation
Clear Channel

Now, let's take a look at these companies and the claimed "90 percent" of all media outlets:

Four of them (GE, Disney, Natl Amusements, and News Corp) control the four major broadcast networks. Leaving aside the fact that the networks share of the viewing audience has for some time been dropping like a rock, that is no small thing. But does it represent 90 percent of the media? Well, let's consider that these four companies own a total of around 50 television stations (out of more than 1700 fulll power stations in the US). Their networks of course have lots of affiliates -- around 850 -- closer to 1000 if you toss in the CW Network, MyNetworkTV and Telemundo). That leaves around 700 stations that aren't owned or affiliated with these companies. And that's not counting the more than 350 full power stations affiliated with PBS. And, it should be noted that most of those 1000 or so affiliates that aren't owned by the networks typically offer, in addition to the nightly network news programming, local news programming that they produce themselves (or acquire from sources other than the networks.)

Those four companies have other media interests of course. News Corp in particular owns a number of cable networks, including Fox News. Most of the other networks are sports or entertainment oriented. News Corp also owns the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal. They have no radio stations but do have a syndicated Fox radio network. NOt sure how many radio stations carry it. GE owns a lot of cable networks, including several news-oriented networks (CBNBC, MSNBC). GE has no newspapers, no news magazines, no radio properties. ABC also has a lot of cable networks, although almost all are sports and entertaintment oriented, not news. They sold all their radio stations and their radio network a few years ago (its still called ABC radio network but they don't own it anymore), they do still distribute syndicated ABC News radio programming. ABC also doesn't own any newspapers or news magazines. Nat'l Amusements owns around 140 radio stations and the CBS radio network which has around 1000 affiliates (out of the 11,000 commercial radio stations in the US). They have no newspapers, no news magazines. They have (through Viacom) a bunch of cable networks like Showtime and MTV, but no cable news programming.

Based on the above, it seems pretty hard to figure how one gets to the 90 percent control claim. And looking at Time Warner and Clear Channel help you get there. Time Warner owns a lot of cable networks, including CNN. It also owns Time Magazine. But it owns no newspapers and no radio properties. It also owns a lot of cable systems, but it will stop owning those sometime in the next few weeks under a spin off that will leave Time Warner and Time Warner Cable completely separate companies -- no overlap in management. Clear Channel is the biggest radio station owner in the country, but it has no television properties, no news magazines, no newspapers. I'm not sure exactly how many radio stations Clear owns -- last I saw it was between 900 and 1000. That's a lot, but not exactly 90 percent of the 11,000 commercial radio stations licensed in the US (there are also between 1500 and 2000 full power noncommercial radio stations in the US).

If that isn't enough to debunk the 90 percent myth, consider the following: of the top ten newspapers in the US, only two are controlled by any of the six companies identified as cotnrolling 90 percent of the media -- the WSJournal and the New York Post, both controlled by Murdoch's News Corp. Even more noteworthy, if you look at the list of the top 100 newspapers in the US, you discover that none of them are controlled by the six companies listed, except for the aformentioned WSJ and the New York Post. There also are three natianal news magazines -- only one, Time, is controlled by the six companies identified. Also, in considering what constitutes the "media" we shouldn't ignore cable systems and DBS companies. Only one of the six listed companies owns cable systems and/or DBS companies. Out of the close to 100 million pay tv subscribers in the US, Time Warner Cable (soon to be independent of Mr. Bewkes and Time Warner Inc) has around 13 million subscribers I think. (Its smaller than both Comcast and DirecTV and about the same size as Dish Network).

My point isn't that everything is sweetness and delight in the media business. Its that the claim that six companies control 90 percent of everything is nonsense and making nonsensical claims doesn't help address the real issues. Even you buy the notion that the Chairman of GE spends his day overseeing what gets reported on affilates of the GE owned Telemundo network, media diversity has been an issue in this country a long time and those that think its appreciably worse now than at some earlier time are fooling themselves.

When were the glory days of a robustly diverse media? Back in the 70s when there were only three networks and when a far greater percentage of the television stations in the country (there were only around 700 stations then -- a thousand less than today) were affiliated with one of those networks. Newspapers were definitely healthier back in the 70s and tHere is too much newspaper/television cross ownership today, but there was more cross ownership back in the 70s and today there are two national newspapers (USA Today and WSJ) whereas back in the 70s there was only one. There were around 5000 fewer commercial radio stations and half as many noncommercial stations as today. There were no cable networks back then, and virtually noone had any access to foreign sources of news and information. I grew up in a very large (top ten) market and could choose between three network stations, a pbs station and one "independent" station that featured mostly syndicated re-runs. Today, via cable, I have access to around a dozen local stations, including multiple PBS stations. There were three daily newspapers back then, although only one was worth a damn. Today I can choose between two papers, only one of which is worth a damn. There are more radio stations today, including a lot more foreign language stations. There was one all news radio station. Today there are two or three and while I think all of them are commonly owned, at least they're no longer owned by the local newspaper, as was the case when I was a kid.

Again, I'm not saying that the lack of diversity in the media isn't a problem. Just that its not a new problem and exagerrating it isn't the route to actually dealing with it.

[Life Long Dem]

10. Do you work with them?

And then hope they don't set you up or frame you like blogo? But then Blogo is still working with MSM.

Or do you get Dean in to balance things some.

[baldguy]

11. Bright lights are a wonderful disinfectant.

[Life Long Dem]

12. Works both ways.

[baldguy]

13. Yes, it does.

People who oppose media transparency usually have something to hide.

[Life Long Dem]

14. Yes they do

[Life Long Dem]

15. Obama's transparency and accountability is in the right direction

More media play on this would help