WSJ Labels Media Reform Efforts As “Leftist”
This article is interesting for a number of reasons. Could they have possibly used the adjectives ‘left’ and ‘left-leaning’ more often in this piece?
Having personally attended this event, I can say that it clearly involved people from a wide range of the political spectrum, with some of the more bitter and outspoken critiques from folks coming from what would normally be termed ‘the right’ according to standard political terminology of the day. These people made their unhappiness with the current corporatized state of the media system quite clear.
Consistently referring to critical analysis of the current state of our media system is not an accident or oversight, as it serves to sow seeds of partisanship and inflammatory buzzwords out for those who would have an immediately negative or suspicious reaction to anything ‘left’. This then buys some time and political space for the corporate few who want to continue to control and dictate the public debate, and keep public scrutiny off of the systemic condition of ruling elites using the media to ‘manufacture consent.’ Effective actions being undertaken to question the control of our media system by oligarchic power can be discredited by the sweeping smear of ‘leftists. This is designed to trigger a negative knee jerk reaction to this effort by large percentages of Americans who are prone to this kind of simplistic ideological persuasion, successfully obscuring the ability of people to unite in their shared desire for a true open and equal playing field of civic communication for all citizens.
The Wall Street Journal
Nonprofit Takes On Big Media
By Amy Schatz
The Wall Street Journal
March 7, 2007Hundreds of liberal activists are expected to pack the pews tonight at the Broad Street Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Ohio, to protest a Bush administration plan. It has nothing to do with Iraq. It is about rules governing how many properties media companies should be allowed to own in local markets.
Kevin Martin, the Republican chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, wants to loosen existing ownership limits on newspapers and broadcasters to allow them to own both in most markets. But his efforts have stalled, the result of a surprisingly energetic grass-roots opposition campaign guided by Free Press, a nonprofit with offices in Washington and Northampton, Mass.
“Such changes could have a serious impact on the diversity of viewpoints and coverage of local issues in every community,” the group argues in fliers and an Internet site under its “STOP BIG MEDIA” campaign.
For a relatively low-profile organization, Free Press is on a roll. Four years ago, it used old-fashioned grassroots organizing, along with basic Internet tools, to help derail the FCC’s years-long effort to relax media ownership rules. Last year, the group thwarted a multi-million dollar lobbying effort by the Baby Bells to rewrite the nation’s telecom laws over “net neutrality,” the idea that Internet providers can’t discriminate against any Internet traffic.
Progressive, left-leaning grass-roots activists have gotten more attention for their opposition against the Iraq war, but their bigger impact may have been on national media regulations and telecom policies. By mobilizing the progressive left to focus on media and telecom issues, Free Press has effectively blocked some of the most-wanted issues on corporate wish-lists.
The Free Press success is all the more remarkable, given the array of big-name media companies pushing for change. Technology has changed the competitive landscape, said a coalition of media firms — including Belo Corp., CBS Corp., News Corp.’s Fox Entertainment Group and NBC Universal Inc. — in a December letter lobbying the FCC to ease the rules. The FCC “should modernize its local ownership rules to reflect these dynamic changes in the media marketplace,” they say.
Media reformers have been working on these issues for years, but “they’ve never had traction among grass-roots America before,” says Mike McCurry, former press secretary for President Clinton. Mr. McCurry drew scorn from left-leaning bloggers last year after he helped launch a public-relations effort on behalf of phone companies hoping to kill net-neutrality rules.
Free Press, which launched in 2003, has 300,000 members, about two dozen full-time employees and an annual budget of roughly $2.5 million. Last year, it raised more than $5 million in funding, mostly from liberal-leaning private foundations, including George Soros’s Open Society Institute. In 2005, almost half of its funding — $755,000 — came from the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, which at the time was overseen by its president, journalist Bill Moyers. This year, the group is hoping to raise $4.5 million and wants to hire more grass-roots organizers.
It is raising its ambitions as well. After stymieing efforts to loosen media rules, Free Press members believe they may be on the verge of changing the terms of the debate — to tightening regulations again.
“We’re going to use this opportunity to move the goal posts,” says Josh Silver, Free Press co-founder and executive director.
Unlike other watchdog groups that have focused on telecom and media-reform issues in the past, Free Press has successfully tapped into the grass-roots network dominated by MoveOn.org.
“We just have to remind them to talk about media reform, not the war,” says Amanda Ballantyne, Free Press’s field organizer who is in charge of getting people to show up tonight for the Columbus hearing, the 11th on the subject in the past two years. She helps coordinate similar events around the country, rounding up locals and tutoring them on the basics of media-ownership limits.
Recently, Ms. Ballantyne holed up at a Nashville Best Western for a week, trying to convince locals to attend an official FCC media-ownership hearing. With the help of local organizers, nearly 400 people showed up. Even with a strictly enforced two-minute time limit, it took seven hours for the FCC commissioners to listen to everyone.
In February, the group attracted more than 3,000 activists and bloggers to Memphis for three days of workshops and speeches from progressive and liberal heroes, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Mr. Moyers.
“If you watch TV news, it’s all car crashes, shootings and Brangelina. If we can’t create more hard-hitting journalism, then we have a real problem,” says Mr. Silver, a political activist who says he decided to form the group after becoming mad one night when a local newscast led with a story about the rising price of lobster. Local ownership of stations or newspapers leads to more accountability to citizens and better journalism, he says.
With the help of University of Illinois professor and media critic Robert McChesney, Mr. Silver soon launched a nonprofit group dedicated to media reform.
The current FCC chairman, Mr. Martin, had hoped to propose easing rules this year which would allow media companies to own newspapers and broadcast stations in most markets. But that proposal will have to wait until next year at least, FCC officials say. The agency will hold at least three more public hearings around the country and is awaiting 10 studies it commissioned on media-ownership issues, which have already cost more than $550,000.
The Wall Street Journal provides more evidence for the need for fundamental reform of our media system through their description of this event calling for the fundamental reform of our media system.
In regards to Josh Silver of Free Press commenting about working to move the goal posts. I would think that we don’t need to just move the goal posts, we need to change the entire playing field. You usually don’t win when you are playing the other team’s game. And this is a game where the rules and regulations have clearly not been written by and for the public interest, benefit and welfare. We currently have the best media policy that money can buy.
on March 17th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
You get free access to WSJ.com and those other subscription sites with a netpass from: http://news.congoo.com
This was on CNBC last week.
on March 17th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
WSJ Labels Media Reform Efforts As “Leftist”…
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on March 20th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I agree that many liberals are pushing for “media reform” simply to turn the tables on conservatives. Being with the National Association of Broadcasters, however, I would like to see the FCC reform its media ownership rules to level the playing field.
Consumers have more media choices today than ever before yet the FCC has shackled local stations’ ability to compete in modern day society. It is a myth that the media is too consolidated.
Thanks for the dialogue.
on March 20th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Having a representative of NAB tell you that it is a ‘myth’ that media ownership is too consolidated is like being told global warming is a myth by a representative of ExxonMobil.
There are certainly ample reasons for criticism of the FCC these days, as regular viewers and readers of USTV Media can attest to through our voicing of many of them. However, Mark’s statement that somehow the FCC is hindering “local” station’s ability to compete begs illumination.
What he is referring to here isn’t concerning the ability for a locally-owned station to be able to ‘compete’. What he means is a station located in your community to be acquired and used as a resource for the large scale corporate conglomerate to use as an acquired asset and advertising delivery device in order to increase short term shareholder profit. It has nothing to do with that local media resource serving its unique function as a public service entity providing the needed local information, dialogue and voice of, by and for the community.
When Mark says he wants to see the playing field ‘leveled’, he means that pretty much in the same way a B-52 ‘levels’ the field, by wiping out any opposition in its path. A more accurate description of what he means here is that he would like to see the playing field cleared of any obstacles and opposition to increased media asset acquisition by the large telecommunications corporations whose interests he represents at NAB.
After all, who is he trying to kid? He is trying to convince you that your local media resources, television, newspapers, and especially radio, have improved in quality and relevance to your local communities needs since deregulation has gone into effect. Do you think that is the case? He is also claiming through his critique here that these services would become even better if MORE of this consolidation took place. Mark would have you believe that local journalism, radio, etc… would improve if only those ‘onerous burdens’ which prevent one single corporation, located states away, from being allowed to purchase that resource. This would entail the gutting of half of the staff, replacing the local content with syndicated generic material which they can then distribute to numerous outlets, and funneling it in from a single information provider. This corporation can then establish economies of scale to then create a ‘wal-martization’ of information, where its all the same stuff packaged in all the same ways to everyone regionally, even nationally. This is what Mark wants you to believe when he calls for ‘competition.’
As for ‘consumers’ (there is that word again - its never ‘citizens’) having more choices, the premise of his statement is false. Do you have more choices if you now have 1,000 channels to choose from instead of 50, but instead of those 50 coming from 50 different owners, those 1,000 now come from literally FIVE?
NAB has a lot of power, and represents in essence the interests of those 5 major players. They are quite happy to see the power of those entities maintained, if not increased (which is their corporate duty, of course. To increase profit share for their private stockholders). And acquiring more media resources, especially those used in the non-commercial public sector, is essential if they are going to fulfill their one and only purpose for existence… To maximize profit in the minimum amount of time. Providing you with choice, and especially a media system that provides for VOICE, is of absolutely no concern to the major entities represented by NAB.
on March 20th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
I am not a “leftist liberal.” However, I agree wholeheartedly with Andy, his
depth of perception surpasses any argument or counter argument that has been made here, or that I have read elsewhere. It is obvious from the choice of the term consumer as opposed to citizen, indicates that the concern is more for capital revenue, rather than citizen obligation and service to the end user. The FCC is not being an impartial arbiter in this whole enterprise, as it should be.
on March 21st, 2007 at 9:58 am
So you do not believe that ipods, cable, satellite, blogs and other online resources, are not choices for citizens? I don’t understand how you can claim there are not more choices. With regard to broadcasters, multiple studies have shown that the diversity of programming formats aired by radio stations has increased significantly in the past decade.
Local content is the lifeblood of broadcasting. Amber alerts and severe weather warnings are critical emergency services that tv and radio stations provide and all the new choices out there make it difficult to provide these free services. This is the reality and the regulations need to be adjusted to this reality.
on March 21st, 2007 at 5:39 pm
So you do not believe that ipods, cable, satellite, blogs and other online resources, are not choices for citizens? I don’t understand how you can claim there are not more choices.
Of course these different media platforms provide more ‘choices’, but what are you choosing? To be able to get the same information and content owned by only a handful of people in a thousand different ways? That’s choice? It is supposed to be a ‘marketplace of ideas’, not a shopping mall of ways you can ‘choose’ to receive a single idea.
Mark doesn’t seem to understand the concept of vertical integration at all. Or perhaps he does, but because he is in the employ of an organization which actively supports policy to increase the ability of small amounts of media owners to control ever larger amounts of media content, he can’t or, worse, won’t recognize these factors. As the great American Writer Sinclair Lewis once pointed out, ““It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding.”
As for vertical integration In the media realm, that is where one single entity controls both the content being produced as well as the delivery mechanisms. Such as a movie company also owning theaters, music producers owning radio stations, etc… Figures such as Barry Diller and noted television producer Norman Lear are amongst just some of the many noted public critics of this ever growing trend and the destructive effects it is having on the health and well-being of our media system and how we get our information (the essential life blood of a democratic society).
His reference to the increasing adoption of new technologies being made available thanks to the revolutionizing effect of the internet, and expanding development of digital technologies is a good point. It is quite correct that these things are creating whole new vistas of opportunity for creation and distribution of information, and do serve as potentially liberating for decentralizing our information and communication processes in our nation.
However, Mark doesn’t seem to want to take something quite important and obvious into account. The very potential he is celebrating here as examples proving his point that media consolidation is a ‘myth’, is negated by the fact that these behemoth media corporations are working continuously to eliminate the public barriers preventing them from taking control over these same new media resources. The battle over ‘net neutrality’ is exhibit A in demonstrating this process at work. Much of this issue has been well-documented on our website at ustvmedia.org, and I invite you to peruse the information for yourself.
What good is it to have a thousand new sources of media and producers of content, if they all have to go through the gatekeeper of a private, unaccountable corporation (complete with their own tollbooth to get on that wonderful new information highway). This private corporation then is free to behave like a mafia boss, deciding who gets preferential treatment, who gets to be seen over whom, who gets to even be on the network or has access to it.
With regard to broadcasters, multiple studies have shown that the diversity of programming formats aired by radio stations has increased significantly in the past decade.
Sure, there are more ‘formats’ available via radio today, thanks in large part to the explosion of internet radio, and with expanding digital broadcasting signals that allow for more channel space over the airwaves. But again, we return to the same point. Who is programming these formats, and what is being included in them? The same company owning all of the stations playing this ‘different’ material, playing the same 100 songs, many of which produced and owned in part or even in whole by the same company owning the transmission outlet? All being pumped in by ‘corporate’ headquarters four states away, to all 35 of their stations they own in your state. Yeah, choice alright.
All of which makes Mark’s last statement most refreshing in how much I agree with it, but also a little confusing…
Local content is the lifeblood of broadcasting. Amber alerts and severe weather warnings are critical emergency services that tv and radio stations provide and all the new choices out there make it difficult to provide these free services. This is the reality and the regulations need to be adjusted to this reality.
Local content is indeed the lifeblood of broadcasting. So why then is the National Association of Broadcasters, which Mark represents, lobbying to see local ownership protections gutted and expanding the ability for megamedia corporations to take over control of your local media services? The BS pushed by the corporations which Mark’s group represents, that somehow stripping local control will enhance the quality of local media services has been proven to be a fraud through numerous studies. One of these, commissioned by former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, was shelved and kept from public view. This was done when the data in it showed conclusively that the effects of eliminating regulations over media ownership caps had the exact opposite effect from what Powell, and interests represented by NAB claimed it would have.
- Andy Valeri
USTV Media