Powered by the corporate press

We’ve come to expect recycled bluck from the media makers.

And why not?

Consider this example, ripped off from the San Francisco Chronicle’s coverage last week of a pending merger between General Electric (which brings “good things” like the NBC network, a bunch of TV stations, some aircraft engines, plastics and appliances “to life”) and Vivendi Universal (Universal Studios, Rolling Stone magazine, software makers Blizzard Entertainment, 18 record labels, a handful of theme parks, some movie theater chains and, oh yeah, Spencer Gifts).

Tim Goodman of the Chronicle writes this about GE/NBC/ Vivendi’s coming expanded vertical integration: “… It could mean that when the hit movie Seabiscuit (produced by Universal Pictures) comes to television, it would air on Bravo (owned by NBC) or USA Network (owned by Universal), followed by the inevitable bid to make the movie into a TV series (by Universal Television Group), with the pile being picked up by NBC … [and later] revived in the Brilliant but Canceled series of cable station Trio (owned by Universal), where its cult status leads to a Spanish version shown on Telemundo (owned by NBC) and the creation of a popular amusement park attraction at Universal Studios.”

Entertainment industry aside, there’s plenty of reason to distrust what we see on TV news, read in corporate chain newspapers and hear on the megalopolized radio. (For those who’ve just tuned in: Clear Channel Communications owns 1,200 radio stations broadcasting in all 50 states. It owns only 36 TV stations, but heck, it’s just getting started.)

If you’re up for an eye-opener, visit the Columbia Journalism Review’s site, “Who Owns What” (www.cjr.org/owners). There you’ll find more than you want to know about the companies controlling the flow of info into society’s collective soul. Consider AOL Time Warner. At Cjr.org, you’ll find that it owns a bunch of online “services” (including much of www.Amazon.com and about half the Internet service in China); 27 book/publishing outlets; 14 cable divisions (HBO, CNN); 15 film and TV production/distribution divisions; more than 75 magazines (Sports Illustrated, DC Comics, Fortune); more than 50 record labels (not including joint ventures with Sony, etc.); eight entertainment networks (TBS, TNT); three film production studios; a handful of sports teams and venues (Atlanta Braves, Philips Arena); and some educational ventures (CNN Newsroom provides newsie stuff for classroom use, and Turner Adventure Learning offers “electronic field trips for schools”). Whew.

What can be done?

Well, there are bits of OK news. Finagling by the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee last week blocked the FCC from raising its cap on the size of large broadcast TV networks. And a federal appeals court has issued an emergency stay preventing the FCC’s new rules (passed in June) allowing, say, NBC or Gannett (which owns the Reno Gazette-Journal) the ability to buy more TV stations in a given local market. There’s a finger in the dam. But water’s flooding over the top and around the sides.

All of this is a far cry from the play of ideas envisioned by those early U.S. leaders who saw the media as a potential watchdog over government and corporate power.

“It was supposed to be our media,” write the authors of Our Media Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media. Authors Robert McChesney and John Nichols describe the ideal media as envisioned by the likes of Thomas Jefferson: “A brilliant blossoming of divergent, disagreeing and disagreeable voices, organized with the purpose of informing and convincing an electorate and the democracy they would forge.”

We’ve come a long way, fellow couch potatoes.