[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Showdown at the FCC

Fri May 2 13:45:39 CDT 2003

>From: "Eli Pariser, MoveOn.Org" <moveon-help at list.moveon.org>
>To: "Jay Mittenthal" <mitten at life.uiuc.edu>
>Subject: Showdown at the FCC
>Date: Fri,  2 May 2003 07:36:21 -0700 (PDT)
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>Dear MoveOn member,
>
>Some time ago, you signed up to receive the MoveOn Bulletin. Today marks 
>our re-launch of that service, in partnership with 
><http://www.alternet.org/>AlterNet. As we move toward an active campaign 
>on the Federal Communications Committee rule change, this bulletin 
>provides a great overview of what's at stake and how next month's decision 
>could shape the future of American journalism. I hope you enjoy it.
>
>--Eli
>
>
>
>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/>http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/
>
>You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking here:
><http://moveon.org/s?i=1334-1253932-umAo3OcfQhuGBFePVvZoqA>http://moveon.org/s?i=1334-1253932-umAo3OcfQhuGBFePVvZoqA 
>
>
>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/>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>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>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>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>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>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>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>http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15677 
>
>
>------------------------------
>
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