13 November 2007, Chairman Kevin J. Martin proposed a revision to the Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Rule.
Under Chairman Martin’s plan, all markets will be open to one company combining broadcast properties with cable, the newspaper (already a monopoly in most places), even the Internet Service Provider. The Chairman's proposal could propel a frenzy of competition-stifling mergers across the land.
The telecommunication industry will be further consolidated. Though the proposal is for the biggest twenty markets there is enough loopholes to drive a Mack truck through. You think we have poor news service and poor programming now, wait until this proposal goes through.
Frankly discussing media bias is taking the eye off the prize. We should be discussing the subjects to sustain a strong and vibrant representative Republic. The Republic can only survive by having an informed citizenry. An informed citizenry is directly related to the vitality of our fourth estate, the Press, in all its derivatives.
-- Modified on 11/14/2007 8:33:19 PM
A quote from this is telling:
"The Zogby/Lear Center survey shows that the difference between conservatives and liberals goes much deeper than politics, involving much deeper patterns of thinking and behavior. It’s almost like the Reds and the Blues are living in parallel universes. Liberals say they like entertainment with a political flavor, while conservatives eschew such programming out of suspicion that it is tainted with a liberal bias. Instead, they favor news or reality television. And conservatives love sports programming, in part because there’s no way to inject liberalism into a football game. . ."
Some observations I've made reading it:
1) I have a hypothesis that the real antagonisms between conservatives and liberals is actually over the media. The liberals embrace it, the conservatives don't. Out of this, I think other trust issues arise;
2) While the survey puts the percent of liberals at 39, and conservatives at 37, the moderates are placed at 24 percent. For apparent reasons, that group, who Zogby calls "the purples" are most important in making political decisions.
Unfortunate to say, they seem to be the worst informed of the three groups!
13 November 2007, Chairman Kevin J. Martin proposed a revision to the Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Rule.
Under Chairman Martin’s plan, all markets will be open to one company combining broadcast properties with cable, the newspaper (already a monopoly in most places), even the Internet Service Provider. The Chairman's proposal could propel a frenzy of competition-stifling mergers across the land.
The telecommunication industry will be further consolidated. Though the proposal is for the biggest twenty markets there is enough loopholes to drive a Mack truck through. You think we have poor news service and poor programming now, wait until this proposal goes through.
Frankly discussing media bias is taking the eye off the prize. We should be discussing the subjects to sustain a strong and vibrant representative Republic. The Republic can only survive by having an informed citizenry. An informed citizenry is directly related to the vitality of our fourth estate, the Press, in all its derivatives.
-- Modified on 11/14/2007 8:33:19 PM