Does Big Media Need to Get Even Bigger?

Posted August 6th, 2006 by Craig Aaron

That’s the question tackled by Robert W. McChesney of Free Press and Norman Lear, the famed TV producer and founder of People for the American Way, in a must-read op-ed in Saturday’s Los Angeles Times.

They warn that if FCC Chairman Kevin Martin gets his way, “the last vestiges of local media competition would be swept away, smoothing the way for ‘media company towns’ in which News Corp. or, yes, the Tribune Co.” — owner of the LAT — “could dominate public discourse.”

Then they break down why “what’s good for Big Media’s bottom line isn’t always good for the rest of us”:

The first casualty of “media company towns” would be journalism. When one firm owns most of a city’s news outlets, who needs a bunch of competing newsrooms? Investigative reporting and extensive local coverage requires a costly staff. It’s far cheaper to syndicate fare from headquarters than to support a diversity of local voices. If your readers and viewers don’t like it, where else are they going to go? … Once the big chains start selling and swapping their properties to build up larger fiefdoms, the already declining number of independent and minority owners will be further squeezed out.

And they blow up the myth of “deregulation”:

Industry and Wall Street propaganda says local media can’t compete without further consolidation. Yet media companies already enjoy higher profit margins than most industries. They say we must deregulate. But radio and TV station ownership is by definition regulated — these are the public airwaves and there are only so many channels available in a community. The only question is on whose behalf will Washington make the rules: major media companies or the public?

Well, maybe there’s one more question: Will more major media outlets with a financial stake the outcome actually cover this fight over the future of local media?

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