I’ve been reading Paul Starr’s “Freedom’s Power”, and while I have a ways to go yet, one thing has already struck me forcibly - the rise of the authoritarian right was aided by media consolidation. It’s not that Starr said this (he might have, I forget) but then when I think back over the last 30 years, it is clear media consolidation set the stage for failure of the media as an oversight mechanism.
Democrats must seek to reduce the power of individual media owners. Roll back the changes in law that have permitted such intense consolidation of media ownership. We have too few voices, and what voices are out there are owned by people who are not liberal in any sense of the world.
Whatever else Broder might be, he is owned by an illiberal institution that is part and parcel of the conservative movement. His rise to deanhood and parallels the consolidation of the media, and both abetted that consolidation, and is abetted by it.
Movement conservatives understood this long ago, I think. When you have the money to incrementally change the laws to allow consolidation, and then the money buy and control the press, you have the money to buy a party, as they have done. Finally, when you have the money and the press and the party, you can buy a nation.
Media consolidation has to go.
Jake
Front page
the Pot-Prozac-Novocain-Kalhua cocktail
Oh to read this…
Ha! I would have loved to talk to you on Tuesday when it was made public that News Corp had extended an offer to purchase the Dow Jones Co. It is not like I am a big fan of the Bancroft family (Dow Jones Co.), but if Murdoch (News Corp) takes over the Bancroft that would be like the twenty-first century equivalent of di Medici forming an alliance with the Pazzi to take over the known world of the fifteen century… on a mega scale… this is crazy and it must be stopped. I heard somewhere that the media is the nervous system of a democracy, and it appears the nervous system of our democracy has been nearly overtaken by one interest group!
In addition to this, we have this subtle paradigm shift… church is no longer the opium of the masses entertainment IS, and most people seek entertainment in the media. Entertainment as we have it now, is a Pot-Prozac-Novocain-Kalhua cocktail that exposes us to too much, too fast leaving us empty, numb and tired, too tired to focus on reality and address community problems. And who will address these community problems if not the people who live in the community? Oh wait that’s me!!!! [guff]
What do I do? What actions can a citizen take to stop this!?!? Does the book say anything about what to do to fight Media Consolidation, to fight the Entertainment circus…??? [No really does it?] Before we know it some of the books we read will not even be published.
About the merger attempt all I could come up with was to write an email to the Federal Communication Commission (Michael.Copps@fcc.gov) and the DOJ Antitrust division (antitrust.complaints@usdoj.gov), and requested others to do the same…
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i’m angry…