American Politics Journal

Q: Why Does the Beltway Press Corps Hate Clinton-Gore and Worship the GOP?
A: FOLLOW THE MONEY
Plus! Boo-hoo-hoo! They’re picking on poor Dubya (sniff)!
by Tamara Baker

April 30, 2001 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (APJP) -- If any of you are wondering why the Beltway press and the broadcast media are so blatantly anti-Democrat and pro-Republican, I have three words for you:

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Simply put, the Pubbies have promised to make life ever-so-much-more lucrative for corporate media by encouraging them to buy up each other. And if that means that consumers' media options shrink at an accelerated pace, leaving them only the GOP-approved press… why, that's just too bad.

As reported two weeks ago in The New York Times, after years of litigation and lobbying, the nation's largest broadcasters, cable companies and other media outlets have gotten the illegal Cheney junta to gut federal rules that restrict the media companies' growth and ability to dominate new markets.

To quote from the story referenced above:

In a marked departure from decades of Supreme Court opinions on the
subject, the agency and the appeals court have become significantly
more sympathetic to the free- speech rights of corporations and more
skeptical of the role of government in promoting diversity in mass
media.

Consumer groups say the regulations that are being rolled back have
been crucial instruments for promoting a diversity of viewpoints in
the news and entertainment businesses. The companies reply that
technologies iincluding the Internet have made the rules obsolete.

The next industry victory is expected this week, when the communications
agency is scheduled to relax a rule that for decades has prohibited one
television network from buying another.

And that's exactly what happened: Rupert Murdoch is now free to buy up whatever Steve Case doesn't want.

That's not all. Soon, the FCC will eviscerate 26-year-old regulations restricting a company from owning a television station and a newspaper in the same market. Conservative Canadian newspaper mogul Conrad Black, who already owns the Los Angeles Times as well as several other American papers, can now commence building his own broadcast empire in earnest, going head-to-head with Rupert Murdoch in a race to see who can emulate Joseph Goebbels the closest.

It used to be that most every city's newspaper was owned and operated as a homegrown, stand-alone enterprise rather than part of some faceless monolith. Those days are long gone, and fewer than ten corporate owners -- whose basic viewpoints are largely in lock-step agreement -- now control the vast majority of what Americans read in the paper or watch on TV.

The oxygen of democracy, a free, vital and varied national press, is being cut off.

Don't believe me? Well, how about getting a taste of what Robert Scheer, one of the LA Times's last remaining columnists daring enough to question the wisdom of giving his boss Conrad Black carte blanche, has to say on the subject:

But is cross-ownership healthy for independent journalism in those
markets, which include New York and Los Angeles? Will the news
outlets that are subsidiaries in the deal fully examine the
journalistic implications of media concentration? Or will they only
report on the wonders of what the owners celebrate as "convergence"
or "synergy"?

The answer suggested by the last election is that media have
difficulty covering themselves fully when the owners' financial
interests are seriously in play. How else can one explain the scant
attention paid to the difference between Al Gore--who opposed
cross-ownership--and George W. Bush on this issue?

As Robert Scheer reports, it wasn't just Al Gore, but the entire Democratic Party, that the media moguls had -- and have -- a vested interest in undermining:

Also ignored in the coverage was the stake that media moguls had in
the Democrats not gaining control of Congress. Had that happened,
John Dingell (D-Mich.) would be chairing the House Commerce
Committee, which oversees the work of the FCC. Dingell was on
record as opposing the Tribune purchase of Times Mirror because
such mergers lead to a "huge concentration of power in a small group
of hands."

That's why Dingell and others believe that government regulation to
preserve a diverse media market is essential. The rules concerning
media ownership were not carelessly drawn up over the preceding
decades to inconvenience the media industry. Rather, they were
designed to save the media business from its worst instincts.

Readers, I highly suggest that you hunt down and copy in full the two articles URLed above. Then, the next time you are chided by someone for your 'paranoid' belief that the corporate media is totally in the GOP's corner, just show them those two pieces, and tell them to follow the money.

No sooner did I send off my corporate media screed than I saw a vomitous little tidbit in USAToday's print edition to the effect that Poor Widdle Usurper Boy's being picked on by that Nasty Liberal Media.

Seems that a group made up of corporate journalists, the "Project for Excellence in Journalism", has decided that they've just been too MEAN to that poor old Shrubbie-wubbie. And after he gave them all those cool nicknames, too!

We all know why they're announcing this "study", don't we? It's to cover their asses. They want to give themselves an excuse for totally eliminating all non-laudatory pro-Shrub propaganda from the airwaves and the papers.

Excuse me while I hurl my undigested breakfast out the window.

This is the SAME media, folks, that flat-out refused to cover Usurper Boy's having been AWOL for damned near two years (already, more TV play has been given to the unprovable smear against Bob Kerrey than was ever given to the documented-to-a-fare-thee-well AWOL case on Bush).

This is the SAME media that refuses to provide decent -- or ANY -- TV coverage of the ongoing hearings and investigations concerning what the hell happened in Florida.

This is the SAME media that gleefully regurgitated any anti-Clinton/Gore story it could, regardless of whether or not it had the tiniest basis in reality, while sweeping under the rug Republican naughtiness such as (to name a VERY few) Bob Dole's, Henry Hyde's, Newt Gingrich's, Bob Livingston's, and Dan Burton's mistresses and shady financial deals.

There once was a time when I might have trusted the self-policing of mainstream media. Not now. Not when mainstream media speaks with one voice and reads from one set of talking points. Not when fewer than ten nearly-identical conglomerates own most of the daily papers in this country.

This is beyond fox-in-the-henhouse, folks. It's true CYA, Corporate Media Style.



Home • Latest • Archive • Search