Public Forum: Media Consolidation Threatens Democracy

The concentration of media ownership by an increasingly smaller number of global corporate conglomerates poses a threat to democracy, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter told a standing-room only audience at a Town Meeting on Media Ownership and the Pubic Airwaves held at St. John Fisher College Monday March 8. Federal Communications Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein -- one of the two commissioners who opposed the ownership rules changes passed by the FCC last June -- agreed, noting that the major corporate media have done very little to make the public aware of the issues that these changes have raised.

Slaughter and Adelstein were joined by Mary Anna Towler, co-publisher of City Newspaper; Richard Greene, owner and manager of WLVL-AM ( Lockport and Niagara County); Damone Richardson, director of survey research and strategy development for the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations; and Norm Silverstein, president and CEO of WXXI Public Broadcasting Corporation in Rochester. Dr. Lauren Vicker, chair of the communications department at St. John Fisher College, served as moderator.



Close to 800 people from Western and Central New York attended and many participated vigorously in the question and answer period following the presentation. A separate story covering the audience participation will follow shortly.



In her introduction to the panel, Slaughter pointed out that two-thirds of U.S. dailies have disappeared since 1973, and that three-quarters of U.S. cities have only one newspaper. In addition, one-third of locally-owned television stations have vanished, and nine out of ten radio stations changed hands in the five years following the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which expanded the proportion of radio and television stations a single company could own in a given media market.



In Rochester, Clear Channel Communications owns seven radio stations and one television station; Infinity owns four radio stations, and Entercom owns four others. In all, six global conglomerates own almost all of the media in the United States, and three control all of cable news, Slaughter said.



More information about who owns what media companies and the impact that has on public access to information can be found at Mediachannel.org and at MediaReform.net, as well as numerous other resources on the Internet.



A free and responsible government cannot exist without an informed citizenry, Slaughter said, quoting Bill Moyers. Without it, the oxygen goes out of democracy.

Slaughter cited several examples of significant information that has not been reported by the news media, including the fact that a $100,000 bribe was offered to a representative for a vote on the floor of the House, and that the labor department has determined that assembling a hamburger is now defined as a manufacturing job.



You cannot trust corporations to police themselves when their only concern is the bottom line, Slaughter added. Slaughter has sponsored legislation to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, which required that broadcast stations provide equal time to differing political viewpoints. Despite corporate views to the contrary, she argued that legally the public still owns the airwaves.



Adelstein and Slaughter both pointed to the unprecedented, bi-partisan public outcry that followed the announcement of the FCC rules changes, which were given only one very small public hearing prior to their passage.



More than two million cards, letters, and e-mails flooded Congress and the FCC in response to those changes, and the vast majority were highly critical of the FCCs actions, Slaughter said. These included people from all sides of the political spectrum, not just liberals.



People were outraged, Adelstein said.



Adelstein described an incident in North Dakota illustrating how concentrated media ownership actually caused serious injury to people. A train carrying toxic gas derailed in Minot, N.D., late in the evening. Police called the radio stations trying to get word out to people. Nobody answered the phones at any of the stations. One company owned all but one of the stations.



That company was Clear Channel Communications. Three hundred people were injured by the toxic gas. Thats what happens when you lose touch with the people, Adelstein said. The media have a sacred obligation to serve the public, he added. Information is not just another commodity to be sold.



Towler focused on the problem of concentrated newspaper ownership.



Gannett, which owns Rochesters only daily newspaper, the Democrat and Chronicle, is the largest newspaper chain in the country. It owns 101 dailies, 500 weeklies and 22 television stations. Through its various media channels, Gannett reaches approximately 17.8% of the American public, Towler said.



She explained the way Gannett likes to target a particular geographical area. For example, Gannett owns a daily newspaper in nearly every county that rims Nashville, Tenn. Size creates efficiencies, she added. Chains are able to negotiate lower newsprint costs and thus lower advertising rates, enabling them to compete for a greater portion of advertising dollars. That makes it more difficult for smaller newspapers to survive.



The consequences of reduced competition in media markets are that newspapers and news media in general become weaker, Towler added. Radio and television, and even public telvision stations, follow the lead of the dailies, she said.



The weaknesses in news coverage in a media market where there is little competition is not about the bottom line, Towler said. Gannett is making an annual profit of 25 percent and could easily afford to do better than it does.



Towler pointed to the Democrat and Chronicles "Day in the Life" series. The newspaper sends out 20 reporters to cover a day in the life of a town to write up what is essentially a feel good piece. Nothing bad is ever said, and no problems are addressed, she added. No feathers are ruffled. The Democrat and Chronicle also sent out four reporters to get Rochesterians reactions to the verdict in the Martha Stewart trial, Towler said.



Allowing cross-ownership of both newspapers and broadcast stations in a single media market -- which is what the FCC ownership rules changes allows -- is unconscionable, Towler said. The founders of our country knew that a free and rambunctious press is essential to freedom, she added. This is not just about journalism but about the course of liberty itself.



Norm Silverstein of WXXI discussed the importance of local ownership of broadcast stations, and the problem of cross-ownership of news media. Cross ownership has the potential to limit debate, he said. Watch any of the local news broadcasts and you see the same headlines and get the same information from each of them, he said.



Enterprise and investigative reporting have been almost completely eliminated, Silverstein said. He pointed out that decisions over what to do about Bob Lonsberrys racist remarks on WHAM were made in Texas. That incident drew unfavorable national attention to Rochester, he added.



Richard Greene, owner and manager of WLVL radio -- one of three independent radio stations in the Buffalo area -- argued that several FCC decisions that increased competition during the 1980s created conditions that led to the downfall of many independently owned stations. Greene said he has to provide local news coverage in order to position his station in competition with the big chains. He insisted that consolidation in fact saved many companies. Nonetheless he said that while the availability of more stations could hurt independent radio, more owners were needed.



Damone Richardson focused on the negative impact that consolidation has had on workers in the broadcast industry, particularly but not exclusively those affiliated with stations purchased by Clear Channel. While a small number of workers at the top end of the scale receive untold millions, the vast majority are at the bottom of the scale and are receiving barely subsistent wages, he said. He added that in most cases it was new technology contributing to the race to the bottom. The new technologies allow for standardization of content that can be broadcast globally from a single source.