Media
Vultures Are Coming: Freedom Of Expression At Risk
10 January 2010By Ramzy Baroud
As you flip through a range of channels on your TV or
browse through a stack of newspapers and magazines at
a newsstand, you may feel lucky about living in a
world where such a plethora of viewpoints is
available. It might also seem that the apparent
increase in media choices also increases the chances
for the public interest to be understood and served
fairly. Unfortunately, this is far from the case. The
media world is shrinking by the day.
Welcome to 2010.
The coming year might go down in history as that of
major media consolidation, as in concentration of
media ownership in the hands of a few large
conglomerates and powerful media moguls. Predictions
regarding mergers of media companies are very bleak,
and to a degree frightening.
In his Los Angeles Times article “2010 predictions:
Another turbulent year ahead for media”, Joe Flint
determines that the debate in the media world “over
which is king –content or distribution” was settled in
2009. As a result, a new wave of mergers is likely to
follow. Giant media will guzzle other giant media,
which had already swallowed less enormous media
companies, who in turn had .. well, you get the point.
When US President Thomas Jefferson made his famous
assertion that “the only security of all is in a free
press,” he hardly had media consolidation in mind.
Giant media companies reflect the giant, albeit
specific business interests of their owners and their
advertisers. Neither News Corp nor Viacom are
dedicating their services to serving the public. Such
companies are dedicated only to financial growth, even
at the expense of what matters, or should matter most
to the majority of their consumers. In other words,
while media companies proudly propagate the value of
democracy, as they gain from a very specific
interpretation of it, they are neither democratic nor
representative.
How will democracy, mass participation or public
interest be served by the Comcast Corp.’s purchase of
NBC’s Universal or the Disney Company’s acquisition of
Marvel Entertainment Inc.? The media industry has
turned into a jungle, where the survival of the
fittest is determined not by value of content, or by
contribution to society, but rather by ‘smart’
business deals that ensure survival in an increasingly
demanding media market.
Times are changing. The Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) was in fact established with a clear
mandate (the Communications Act of 1934) to operate in
the benefit of “public convenience, interest, or
necessity.” Whether the FCC lived up to that mandate
or faltered in some of its responsibilities, the fact
remains that the FCC is now part and parcel of the
incessant efforts aimed at concentrating the ownership
of the media in fewer hands. More, even the courts
that kept the FCC in check might possibly concede in
favor of more media consolidation.
“Get ready for a flood of media consolidation deals,”
Ira Teinowitz wrote in theWrap.com. The reason is
simple, but requires a short detour.
In the mid 1990’s, the FCC began relaxing its
regulations on media ownership. In 1996 a process of
“deregulation” led to a wave of mergers, as thousands
of radio stations were sold to a few larger companies,
and TV ownership became more concentrated than ever
before. In 2003, the FCC once again moved to
deregulate US laws regarding media, and this time the
new media ownership laws targeted local media across
the US. Fortunately, a US court moved in to thwart the
FCC’s concessions that seemed to mainly serve large
media conglomerates. But the United States Court of
Appeals for the Third Circuit’s decision is being
challenged once more.
The economic recession in the US has hit many
newspapers hard. One hundred and fifty newspapers have
either gone out of business altogether or are now
online, the Seattle PI and the Christian Science
Monitor being major examples. Thousands of media
outlets across the US are barely breaking even and
many are struggling to come up with a viable business
model, with little hope on the horizon.
The time is ripe for media vultures to make their
move. In 2007, the court blocked the FCC’s attempt to
change the rules of ownership. Now it is reconsidering
that decision. “A three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit
Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, which had put the
stay in effect…ordered the FCC and consumer groups to
‘show cause’ by mid January (2010) why the stay should
not be dropped.”
If the rules are reversed, the mergers and further
media consolidation will affect the top twenty markets
in the US. Knowing what we know about the history of
encroachment of large media companies, we can only
guess that this is just the beginning of further
concentration of media ownership, and subsequently the
stifling of freedom of expression for the large
majority of people, especially those whose opinion is
not consistent with the business (or political and
ideological) interests of media owners and their
benefactors.
Unfortunately, this trend is not confined to the US.
The economic recession is global, and giant media
companies are not operating within specific geographic
boundaries.
“The Spanish media sector saw the start of a wave of
consolidation amid signs that at least two of them
were close to announcing a tie-up,” reported the
Financial Times on December 17. This seems to be a
repeated media-related news story in various
countries. More, the media consolidation is felt in
all media sectors, including film, music and others.
The continuation of this trend is terrible news for
public interest, civil society and democracy as a
whole. We must resist shameless efforts of the few at
owning everything we see, hear and read. By owning all
the influences that shape our views of our
surroundings and the world at large, the public will
soon be forced to surrender every available outlet of
expression, and eventually its very self-definition.
Yes, even the way we define ourselves will ultimately
be determined by a billionaire in some penthouse, who
makes his wealth selling us packaged lies as news and
trash as entertainment.
- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an
internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of
PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is "My Father
Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto
Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.
©
EsinIslam.Com
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