MEDIA DEREGULATION….Jonathan Dworkin of Aspasia writes about the media consolidation proposals currently being considered by the FCC:
I’m not usually a big fan of The Nation, but this article outlines nicely the enormous coalition now organizing to oppose FCC chair Michael Powell’s bid to make the media world safe for monopoly. As I’ve written repeatedly of late (here and here particularly), this is an issue that transcends party affiliation and has serious consequences for our democracy. If anti-monopoly policies are disgarded the potential for manipulation of the public is almost Orwellian in scale. It’s not as if this is the frozen orange juice industry. We’re talking about television and newspaper here.
He also emails to wonder why I haven’t blogged about this, and I have to admit that I don’t have an answer. Maybe it just seems kind of hopeless, the kind of thing that seems to be opposed by literally everyone except for the large corporations involved, but that’s nonetheless inevitable since modern Republicans really don’t care about anything except for the good opinion of large corporations. I’m sure they will be well rewarded for encouraging media monopolies with campaign contributions aplenty.
My, that sounds bitter, doesn’t it? Yes it does. Indeed it does.
