Media Reform Campaign
Report from Media Reform Network

The statement is often made that the U.S. media system offers the best of all possible worlds in terms of serving audiences. However, over the past half century, as the bottom line operating mode of the predominantly commercial system has intensified and public interest components have been dismantled, many government representatives, citizens' groups, academics, and concerned individuals have become involved in the movement to reform the system. A belief that broadcasters who use the public airwaves should be required to serve the public interest is at the root of the media reform movement.

Over the past century, the media reform movement has expanded and contracted periodically, often alongside the growth of new broadcasting media or in times of social crisis. Citizens fought very hard in the 1920s and 30s to regulate radio in the public interest; the same happened later with television. The current explosion of the media reform movement was partly triggered by the growth of antiwar activist networks who understood the power of the media to shape the public's perceptions in times of war; it has also been catalyzed by widespread outrage against the recent Federal Communications Commission decision to allow an even greater degree of media cross-ownership and consolidation.

In the current media environment, public, non-commercial, civic, and community media have been pushed further and further to the edges of the media system with fewer and fewer safeguards. The consolidation of media ownership, the elimination of regulation in the public interest, and the lack of public support for nonprofit and community alternatives are all key concerns for media reform activists. These structural developments all shape the media environment. Media reform activists believe that this kind of corporate media system based only on advertising profit leads to a narrowing of democratic debate and negative impacts on accurate media representations of women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ people, youth, the environment, and war. Some media activists are engaged in media literacy education, or training people how to interpret media with a critical eye; others produce and build networks for distribution of alternative media. Media reformists focus on bringing public pressure to bear on media outlets and owners, as well as government bodies and agencies, to create changes that will serve to enhance the democracy and diversity of the mass media public sphere.

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When Big Media gets bigger
From NOW, October 10, 2003
By Bill Moyers

Big Media companies keep getting bigger — with more and more power over our lives. This week's deal between General Electric (GE) and Vivendi means that GE'S NBC, which helped elect Arnold Schwarzenegger Governor of California, has just picked up not only Universal Studios, but the USA, Trio and Sci-fi cable channels to go with CNBC and MSNBC, all part now of a $43 billion dollar empire.

Then, there's radio. The non-partisan Center for Public Integrity is out with a new study showing that in each of 43 different cities a third of the radio stations are owned by a single company. No company's supposed to own more than eight in any market, but the media giants thumb their nose at the rules all the time. In 34 of those 43 markets, one company owns more than eight stations.

The big daddy of all is Clear Channel Communications — 1200 stations altogether. In Mansfield, Ohio, Clear Channel owns eleven of the seventeen radio stations in your town. In Corvallis, Oregon, over half of what people hear is decided by Clear Channel — seven of thirteen radio stations.

Cumulus Media is the second biggest radio empire. Cumulus, remember, banned the Dixie Chicks. Cumulus owns eight of the fifteen radio stations in Albany, Georgia.

It's a similar story in television. No single company is supposed to control more than one television station per city, except in some big markets. But look at what's happened in Wilmington, North Carolina, where there are three network affiliate stations — Fox, NBC and ABC. This year, the Fox station changed hands. On paper, the new owner was Southeastern Media Holdings. But then Southeastern Media announced that Raycom Media would help manage the company. Raycom already owns the NBC station, so it combined the two news departments and laid off much of the staff.

But hold on to your hat — Raycom and Southeastern Media Holdings turn out to be part of the same company. Now there's not only one less independent news operation in Wilmington, there's also one less media company.

The flimflam-ery goes on. In 33 other cities, stations that are supposed to be competitors have found clever ways to undermine the existing rules, mergers and takeovers, for example. Remember when Viacom married CBS and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp ponied up for the television stations owned by Chris-Craft? Those deals put both conglomerates in violation of the rule that no one company can control stations that reach more than thirty five percent of the total audience. But so what? The FCC just rolled over, winked, and gave both conglomerates temporary waivers of the rule.

A little time passed and this summer the FCC raised the limit to give the big guys what they wanted, anyway. But that giveaway brought protests from over two million citizens; they turned the FCC into a beseiged Bastille on the Potomac. Such indignation from the grass roots caused even the Senate to say, "Whoa, something's going on. People really care about this issue." And the Senate stopped the FCC in its tracks. There are enough votes to do the same in the House. But then, General Electric, owner of NBC; News Corp, owner of Fox; Viacom, owner of CBS; and Walt Disney, owner of ABC, brought on the hired guns ... the lobbyists ... to wage a Trojan War on Congress. A passel of former insiders moved through the revolving door, rolodex in tow, trading their influence for cash — top aides of the Senate Majority Leader, the House Majority Whip and of John Ashcroft himself.

Now the most powerful Republican in Congress, Tom Delay, the House Majority Leader, won't let a vote happen. The effort to reverse the FCC is dead in the water, sinking the democratic process with it.