Big Media Myopia at the FCC

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/13/5801/

Big Media Myopia at the FCC
by Timothy Karr

Too often in the give-and-take of media policymaking, it’s government officials that are giving, corporate giants that are taking, and the public that’s left with nothing in the exchange.

This is certainly the case at the Federal Communications Commission, where Republican Chairman Kevin Martin is trying to brush aside mounds of evidence and ignore vast public opposition to hand a sweetheart deal to media owners with whom he seems to share a common agenda.

The decision in question — allowing one company to own broadcast station and a major daily newspaper in the same market — is so unpopular and wrong-headed that one wonders what really motivates Martin to defy common sense and the democratic process.

Despite intense pressure to stop his headlong rush for more consolidation, Martin has called for a vote next week the ban on “newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership” and let a few companies swallow up more local media in hundreds of cities and towns.

snip//

Big Media’s Drive-Thru

In the face of all of this, why is Martin still determined to push through his rule change?

The chairman himself wrote recently in a New York Times op-ed that he’s changing the rules to save journalism — that newspapers and television stations need to join up financially in order to survive editorially. (Never mind the legions of newsroom layoffs that have resulted from similarly merged “economies of scale.”)

That Martin is willing to employ blatant illogic to save us from ourselves shows what passes for public service in an agency that’s little more than a drive-thru for corporate giveaways.

That people are rising up in numbers to oppose him is a hopeful sign that “business as usual” at the FCC is destined for bankruptcy.

[Enthusiast]

1. I pray someone puts a stop to this bullshit. nt