Black Box Recorder

Analysis of new FCC regulations and the American media

Le Monde diplomatique has an interesting analysis on the state of the American media and the likely effects of the recent FCC move to deregulate the market. Long, but certainly worth reading in full. Some excerpts:

In 1996 the US Congress granted broadcasting frequencies worth some $70bn (and a lot more now) at no cost to the recipients. Viacom, Disney and General Electric - owners of the CBS, ABC and NBC networks - were the main beneficiaries. Protesting against the gift, Senator John McCain, a Republican, said during the congressional debate: "There will be hardly any talk of this decision on radio or TV because the radio and TV networks are the ones directly affected." In fact, during the nine months that elapsed between the introduction of the legislation and its final approval, the three main news networks devoted just 19 minutes to the subject.
...

Michael Powell keeps repeating "the market is my religion" - summing up the mindset of the administration, which has successfully merged religious fundamentalism and greed. Lack of political diversity hardly bothers Powell: "I'm not so sure that Disney and Murdoch's personal political interests are ever permitted by the board of directors or Wall Street to trump anything that would maximise value"... That "maximising value" may in itself be an ideological slant hardly seems to have crossed Powell's mind.

What do conglomerates say? Companies such as News Corporation and Viacom protest that existing regulations deprive them of their first amendment rights to free speech.
...

...as Bernie Sanders has argued, "the essential problem with television is not just a rightwing bias, it is not even the transformation of politics and government into entertainment and sensationalism, the constant bombardment of advertising. It's that the most important issues facing the middle-class and working people are rarely discussed." He points out that despite the economic boom of the 1990s, the average US worker now works longer hours for lower wages than 30 years ago. This is rarely investigated on television. Workers in unions earn 30% more than non-union people doing the same work. There are many programmes about how to get rich by investing in the stock market, but never any specials on how to form a union. The US has the most unfair distribution of wealth and income in the industrialised world, but few programmes stress that the richest 1% own more wealth than the bottom 95%.

People who criticize the idea that the press suffers from a "liberal" or, bog help us, a "left" bias are entirely correct. However, what they usually don't talk about so much is the effect this has on public "policy". By presenting "moderate" and even right-wing positions as overly "liberal" or "left", people like Limbaugh, Sullivan, and the rest of this gang make it possible for far-right, social Darwinistic types of legislation and policies to be adopted and seem "moderate" or just slightly to the right. That is the real danger of these authoritarian apologists.

But it's nothing to get too bent out of shape over - remember, it's a free press here in America.