as if mass media was't homogeneous enough already:
"Come June 2, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to approve new rules that would allow even more consolidation in the media: TV networks would be permitted to buy more stations than they are now, a media company would be allowed to own as many as three TV stations in one city, and restrictions on cross-ownership between newspapers and broadcast stations would be lifted."
-lifted shamelessly from this Washington Post article.
I hope everyone likes Viacom and Clear Channel. It won't be long before they, alongside AOL, Disney, and Newscorp, own every single media outlet in your city. Yeah, sure, you get 200 cable channels. Owned by 10 compaines. Have you noticed how every radio station sounds the same and why your favorite DJ in Seattle sounds just like your friend's favorite DJ in Chicago? Here's a hint: he's the same guy with different monikers who prerecorded all his witty quips 3 days ago from a sampling of DJ banter scripted for him by your friends at Clear Channel. And how about yoru news coverage? You've got 8 24-hour news networks on TV, half a dozen newspapers in your average metro area, a whole mess of credible internet news sites. Except that instead of offering dissenting opinions or multiple angles on a story, all your news sources report what they're told to report and in what way by the same upper management guy. I'm as against big government and unnecessary regulation as the next guy, but I think the FCC needs to step up to the plate and take some action in the other direction. How long will it be before we're down to a single major media outlet. Where's your freedom of choice? Sure, it won't be a government-run single news feed like Iraq, it'll be corporate owned. But that hardly makes it any more reliable or honest.
So here's to the watered-down blandness that makes America's lowest-common-denominator corporate media machine great...
"Come June 2, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to approve new rules that would allow even more consolidation in the media: TV networks would be permitted to buy more stations than they are now, a media company would be allowed to own as many as three TV stations in one city, and restrictions on cross-ownership between newspapers and broadcast stations would be lifted."
-lifted shamelessly from this Washington Post article.
I hope everyone likes Viacom and Clear Channel. It won't be long before they, alongside AOL, Disney, and Newscorp, own every single media outlet in your city. Yeah, sure, you get 200 cable channels. Owned by 10 compaines. Have you noticed how every radio station sounds the same and why your favorite DJ in Seattle sounds just like your friend's favorite DJ in Chicago? Here's a hint: he's the same guy with different monikers who prerecorded all his witty quips 3 days ago from a sampling of DJ banter scripted for him by your friends at Clear Channel. And how about yoru news coverage? You've got 8 24-hour news networks on TV, half a dozen newspapers in your average metro area, a whole mess of credible internet news sites. Except that instead of offering dissenting opinions or multiple angles on a story, all your news sources report what they're told to report and in what way by the same upper management guy. I'm as against big government and unnecessary regulation as the next guy, but I think the FCC needs to step up to the plate and take some action in the other direction. How long will it be before we're down to a single major media outlet. Where's your freedom of choice? Sure, it won't be a government-run single news feed like Iraq, it'll be corporate owned. But that hardly makes it any more reliable or honest.
So here's to the watered-down blandness that makes America's lowest-common-denominator corporate media machine great...
