Monday, May 12, 2003

Watchdog or Lapdog? QUOTE OF THE DAY "If we want to save our democracy, we have to press the media to do its constitutionally protected job as a watchdog on people in power. We must insist that all views be given access, and that concerns of critics of this administration be heard and debated". - - Danny Schechter (The News Dissector) http://64.224.42.246/weblog/dannylog.cfm MAY 12th IN HISTORY: 1974 - - The New York Times reports that remarks by President Nixon alluding to SEC staff members as "Jewboys" & Judge John Sirica as a "Wop" were deleted from the public transcript of a conversation recorded in the Oval Office on 28 February 1973. Nixon a bigot? Surprise, surprise. RHINO HERE: Come June 2, the government agency responsible for licensing OUR airwaves, the F.C.C. (Federal Communications Commission) plans to authorize sweeping changes to media. These changes could allow your local TV stations, newspapers, radio stations & cable provider to all be owned by the same company. Under these proposed rules, NBC, ABC, CBS & Fox could eventually have the same corporate parent. Obviously, the resulting concentration of ownership could be deeply destructive to our democracy. The FCC is supposed to oversee OUR airwaves for the good of the PUBLIC INTEREST. Congress is supposed to guard against monopoly power. But the upcoming rule change could change the landscape for all media & usher in an era in which a few corporations control our access to news & entertainment. Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is entitled, WHY WORRY ABOUT WHO OWNS THE MEDIA? written by MoveOn internet political action group's Eli Pariser. It's a short to the point summary of why this issue is so important. Before that article are several one paragraph summaries with links to some great articles on different aspects of the dangers of these new FCC proposed rules. I urge you to inform yourself, inform your circle of friends, and join me and thousands of MoveOn members in asking Congress and the FCC to support a diverse, competitive media landscape by going to the Move On website where you can automatically have your comments publicly filed at the FCC. GO TO: http://www.moveon.org/stopthefcc When the folks at MoveOn.org talk to Congresspeople about this issue, the response is usually the same: "We only hear from media lobbyists on this. It seems like my constituents aren't very concerned with this issue." A few thousand emails could permanently change that perception. Please join this critical campaign, and let Congress know you care. 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 7:23:22 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Why Worry About Who Owns The Media? WHY WORRY ABOUT WHO OWNS THE MEDIA? MoveOn Bulletin Op-Ed, by Eli Pariser , 5/2/03 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/ "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. 7:02:56 AM    comment

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