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The Media Crisis
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BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
by W. O.
Coach
For those who missed the FCC's 3 to 2 vote this week, on strictly partisan lines to relax restrictions on media ownership, be aware that the republicans have just scored another touchdown in their overt attempt to control our minds, souls and wallets.
Most Americans get their news from TV which is already controlled by fewer than ten media giants like AOL/Time Warner, Viacom and Newscorp. These corporations were instrumental in George W. Bush getting as many votes as he did in 2000 by giving him a pass on all his past indiscretions from business and personal failures, to nitpicking away at Al Gore with embellished stories claiming he was a serial liar and that he didn't even know how to dress himself.
If you're reading this on a progressive website, you know it was all crap. But now it just got worse. Now media moguls like Rupert Murdoch who owns Fox TV (fair and balanced), and several newspapers, can control the opinion and run point for his bud George W. Bush to any extent in any market he wants by buying up the competition. And this guy, with his "if it bleeds, it leads," style of journalism makes money and can well afford it. Already he's trying to buy the satellite company that services CNN.
This is serious stuff and counter-productive to serious journalism which is supposed to be about reporting the news without offering a politically motivated opinion.
As an example, Bill Clinton was forced to compromise and relax regulations in 1996 for radio for a republican-controlled Congress rather than let them do what they did this week to TV and newspapers. The result of this disaster was a company by the name of Clear Channel with tight ties to Bush and a substantial Bush campaign contributor, went from 40 radio stations to 1250. Clear Channel as most of you will recall, controls whose songs do and don't get played on their stations. They boycotted the popular country group the Dixie Chicks for exercising their first Amendment rights and criticizing Bush. They also organized pro-Iraq war rallies. This is not journalism, it's propaganda.
The British press and TV is lambasting Tony Blair, their Prime Minister, for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the supposed premise for this pre-emptive invasion. Other than a cursory story here and there, the US media is only starting to pick up this story.
The chairman of the FCC, Michael Powell, yes, son of that Colin Powell who presented plagiarized and forged documents to the UN Security Council, pushed this change in rules through with secret meetings and a minimum of public debate, a debate about our publicly owned airwaves. As a further outrage, it should be noted that Michael Powell and the other two appointed conservatives on the FCC board have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel benefits paid for by the very media companies they're supposed to be regulating.
It's tough to fight the deep pockets of the republicans in this age of money politics, particularly since they just got another windfall tax break, but it can be done. We need someone to list all the sponsors of these offending newspapers, radio and TV stations who slant the news right, and boycott the shit out of them.
After all, we are the majority.
There is no way George W. Bush would be enjoying his current job approval ratings if the media was doing it's job. It doesn't take much to imagine the squawking that would erupt from our fourth estate if it were Bill Clinton's ruinous domestic and foreign policies bringing the country down.
Mr. Powell steamrolled this ruling through while ignoring protests from Congress, interested media and other groups, and hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens. Clearly his priority was to set rules favoring big media with no interest in listening to the public, the very body he's supposed to be protecting. This leaves the public little choice but to fight back and hurt big media in their pocketbooks, by boycotting their sponsors.
It doesn't cost anything to watch network television, listen to the radio, or read newspapers on the internet, but it will certainly cost the sponsor of any program I find spinning Bush horse shit whom I will immediately e-mail announcing my status as an ex-customer.
A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
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