Archive for August, 2007
Friday, August 24th, 2007 by tkarr
The nation’s fourth-largest newspaper company is using a regional consolidation strategy to break the backs of local unions and lay off journalists and other staff.
Media News Group (MNG) — the national chain that owns 57 daily newspapers, regionally “clustered” throughout California, the Mountain West and the Northeast — solidified its control over Bay Area news by buying up the Contra Costa Times and the San Jose Mercury News in the wake of Knight-Ridder’s recent fire sale.
 Singleton: King of Cluster |
With the move, MNG now owns every daily newspaper in the region except the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner.
It’s trying to use this leverage to break the back of unions and jettison editorial staff.
Cluster, Consolidate and Cut
Earlier this summer, MNG management circulated a hit list of 46 Mercury News journalists to be laid off or not replaced. Typographers also lost 22 positions in San Jose when MNG outsourced production work to India and to nonunion contractors.
Other job cuts are reportedly on the horizon. But first MNG had to remove an obstacle.
In a letter to Newspaper Guild leaders earlier this month, Marshall Anstandig, the company’s attorney, stated that MNG’s corporate restructuring diminished the Guild’s representation to “significantly less than 50% of the newly consolidated editorial group.” In his view, this allows the company to dismiss the Guild as a bargaining representative of its employees.
“It follows [MNG CEO] Dean Singleton’s business pattern of cut, consolidate and cluster,” Guild organizer Amanda Ballantyne told Media Minutes this week. “But it was done in a way we believe to specifically bust the union, to get the union out of the whole scheme of things.”
Bad Local News: The Offspring of Inbreeding
The Newspaper Guild has filed several unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations board — alleging that MNG violated federal law when it refused to hire union workers and transferred jobs to non-union employees.
Spokespeople for newspaper giants like to sugar-coat these sorts of cost-cutting efforts with terms like “clustering” and “synergy.” In reality they translate to mean layoffs and cheapened news. Creating an inbred relationship between regional newsrooms degrades coverage, demoralizes staff and discourages readers.
We a recently received a letter from San Jose Mercury News reader who used to enjoy the paper with her morning cup of coffee.
“Since it has been taken over there is not much ‘news’ to read,” she writes. “[And] this was a paper that has won awards for journalistic investigation, and was highly respected. … My subscription is getting tenuous because my reason for reading the morning paper is being eroded daily.”
From Anger to Action
Canceling subscriptions is one form of reader activism. But there are perhaps more productive ways to improve local media.
“We desperately need rules to prevent one-size-fits-all news from becoming the standard in our communities,” FCC Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps wrote in a recent op-ed.
We need your input,” they wrote. “We believe we have the best chance in our generation to settle this issue of who will control our media and for what purposes.”
The FCC will soon decide whether to allow a small number of media giants to buy up more local media outlets across the land.
While this specific ruling may not stop MNG’s assault on quality journalism in the Bay Area, it has helped amplify calls for more accountable news at the local level.
This noise can be turned into action by urging the FCC to protect localism and supporting the Guild’s ongoing efforts to safeguard local journalism across the country.
– For more, listen to this week’s “Media Minutes“
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Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 by jstearns
Last week, Greenstone Media announced it was going off the air.
The women’s radio network was created two years ago as an alternative to traditional radio programs offering “nothing that remotely appeals to women except for nightly love song shows and moldy morning teams.” Greenstone Media aimed to “address the absence of female-friendly talk programming on commercial radio” with programming by and for women.
In a message to listeners, President and CEO Susan Ness suggested that Greenstone’s inability to compete in the radio marketplace was due not so much to the quality of their programs, but to the nature of the media system in the United States. She writes: “We developed fabulous shows, but we were not successful getting station carriage. Perhaps it was because we were ignorantly perceived as being too ‘feminist’ or too ‘political.’ … Or perhaps stations didn’t want to invest the time and resources to enable a new talk format to succeed.”
She points to media consolidation as a key reason that Greenstone failed. “The radio industry is also highly concentrated,” she notes, “and we could not get carriage on stations owned by most of the major radio groups. Our station affiliates were mostly in small markets, making it almost impossible to prove that the concept works.”
The media policies that are at the root of this consolidation are something that Susan Ness knows well, as she was once in charge of enforcing those rules. As a former FCC Commissioner, Ness is deeply familiar with the ways that Big Media have corrupted the policy process, pushing female and minority owners off the airwaves.
In Off the Dial, its landmark study of female and minority radio ownership, Free Press shows how consolidation cuts back the already limited number of chances for women and people of color to become media owners and promote diverse programming.
In a time when women own just 6 percent of all full-power commercial broadcast radio stations, Greenstone Media was a vital experiment designed to open new doors for women in radio. We are sorry to see them go.
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Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 by jstearns
Last month, the Media Management Center at Northwestern University published an in-depth study of Chicago’s local TV news experience. While designed to help station managers build their audience, the report offers some important insight on how well the big five TV stations are serving the public.
Click here to learn more about the study
With the Sept. 20 FCC media ownership hearing swiftly approaching, the findings in this report are an important reminder of the ways Big Media leave local communities underserved and under-represented.
A few of the findings include:
- Less than half of every local news program is devoted to news stories. Sports and weather each take up 9-10 percent of the newscast, and commercials take up almost 30 percent of the time.
- More than one-third of all news stories are about crimes, fires and accidents, while political coverage accounts for 15 percent.
- Although stories are geographically local, most news coverage has no direct effect on the lives of people in the viewing area.
- For every non-white person who is heard in a story, there are three white people.
- Women are outnumbered 2-to-1 in the news.
- People who are white, male and “official” dominate political coverage.
This is just a small sampling of the findings from this report. To read more about how Big Media in Chicago have pushed local communities out of the picture, visit http://www.stopbigmedia.com/=chicago_tv_study
The FCC is currently reviewing its media ownership laws, and the FCC hearing in Chicago is a unique opportunity for the public to have input into the policymaking process.
For more information on the hearing, visit www.StopBigMedia.com/=Chicago
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Thursday, August 9th, 2007 by tkarr
That more presidential candidates are speaking out against media consolidation should signal the importance of this issue in 2008 election cycle. But it’s a signal that’s not getting a clear reception in the newsrooms of the nation’s largest media companies.
The issue bubbled forth during a raucous presidential forum at last Saturday’s Yearly Kos Convention in Chicago, blogger Jason Rosenbaum rose before seven Democratic candidates to ask:
“With only a handful of companies controlling the majority of news and information Americans consume, media consolidation and a lack of diverse viewpoints in the news is threatening American democracy. How do you plan to support equal access to broadcast media?”
Senators Chris Dodd and Hillary Clinton took the bait. Dodd said that “consolidation ought to be one of the great concerns of every person in this country … I’ll do everything I can to see that that is broken up, as president of the United States.”
Clinton followed: “I think that we have got to do everything we can to open up our media environment … We have to have more competition, more voices and [keep] the Internet open so that we don’t put it in the domain of any one or a couple of the media or utility owners.” [UPDATE: Clinton raised the consolidation issue during a Thursday meeting with African American Columnists]
Sending a Signal to Big Media: Pay Attention
Over the past four years, millions of people have spoken out to Congress and the FCC against letting a few companies control so much of the national news agenda. These concerns became more acute over the summer as Rupert Murdoch circled Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal.
As so much media continues to fall into the hands of people with an overt political agenda, it’s no wonder candidates are seeking to push the problem into the limelight. But is the message really getting through?
We surveyed the 40 mainstream media outlets that covered the Saturday forum — including MSNBC, ABC, CBS, the New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post, Associated Press and local and regional conglomerate-owned newspapers — and not one mentioned the media consolidation question or the candidates’ reply.
“I thought it was the right question for the Yearly Kos because it’s not going to get asked at any mainstream network debate,” Rosenbaum said about his decision to question candidates during the blogger convention. “This event was the right format.”
Blitzer Tries to Change the Channel
It seemed to resonate — at least with the candidates. On Tuesday, Sen. John Edwards brought the issue before the cameras again. During an appearance on CNN opposite a jumpy Wolf Blitzer, Edwards said:
“I don’t want to see Rupert Murdoch — or anybody else for that matter — owning every newspaper in America. What we have seen with consolidation of the media is not healthy for this country. We need divergent opinion expressed in this country and if the media is consolidated that runs completely contrary to that.”
Blitzer dodged the issue by shifting the discussion from policy to questions about proceeds from a book Edwards wrote for HarperCollins, a News Corp subsidiary.
Elsewhere, on Fox News, host Michelle Malkin disparaged Edwards’ concerns about her parent company by calling the candidate a “hypocrite” for accepting Murdoch money to publish the book. Neither Spitzer or Malkin cared to respond to Edwards specific concerns or to mention that the North Carolina Senator contributed all proceeds from the deal to charity.
“If you stand up to them and say consolidating the media is a bad thing, it’s an unhealthy thing, what they do is attack you,” Edwards replied. “They can continue to attack. They will not silence me. We are right about this. The media should not be consolidated and Rupert Murdoch should not own every newspaper in the United States of America”
Blitzer shifted gears quickly to close rank with CNN’s cable news rival and defend News Corp’s line of attack — ignoring the larger point about “unhealthy” consolidation at the hands of companies like CNN’s own parent Time Warner.
Crossing Party Lines
Rumblings about the threat of powerful media have been heard all along the campaign trail — from both Democratic and Republican contenders.
Over the past year, nearly every Democratic presidential candidate, including Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Joe Biden and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, have spoken out against efforts by phone and cable companies to stifle an open Internet and gut “Net Neutrality” — the fundamental principle that prevents network providers from discriminating against online content and services.
They have been joined by Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, who told Republican bloggers in May that Net Neutrality must be preserved. Candidates including Sen. John McCain and Rep. Ron Paul have also expressed support for a more democratic media, backing initiatives to protect Low Power FM and Internet radio.
But mainstream media has remained mute, perhaps loath to focus on issues that butt against the narrow interests of their owners .
MediaVote 2008
In this election though we have more media-savvy citizens — people like Rosenbaum — who find new ways to jam mainstream media and push this issue before the lens. More candidates should follow their lead and take a loud public stand that media conglomerates can’t ignore.
Big Media may try to keep this issue in the shadows. With more public activism, before the cameras and the candidates, we can be spark a broader public conversation in 2008 — one that exposes the many ways the special interests of Big Media owners infiltrates the news that they serve up to millions.
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Wednesday, August 8th, 2007 by jstearns
More than half a century after taking over his father’s Australian media business, Rupert Murdoch has built a media empire with unparalleled reach. But his ability to grow his holdings has been aided every step of the way by big money and bad policies.
A brief look at Murdoch’s march towards media consolidation highlights the ways in which he has consistently bent the rules, broken the law or simply made up new policies to build his media empire and get what he wants. It also offers a glimpse of where he might take the Wall Street Journal in the future.
In the Beginning
In the 1950s and 1960s, Murdoch launched his career as a media mogul. He began with the takeover of his father’s company, News Ltd., and then bought Sydney’s Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror. Four years later he launched the Australian, Australia’s first daily newspaper. During this period, Murdoch also bought London’s Sun, turning it into a tabloid.
Murdoch Arrives in the US
Murdoch arrived in the U.S. newspaper market in the 1970s, buying up the San Antonio Express and the San Antonio News (which he merged and then sold off in 1993). Three years later, he acquired the New York Post – once again transforming a reputable news source into a tabloid rag.
The 1980s were a period of major growth for Murdoch. In 1985, Murdoch became a U.S. citizen – a prerequisite to purchasing interests in U.S. television broadcasting. The next year, he purchased Metromedia, giving him control over television stations across the country. Murdoch then added the Times and Sunday Times in England, and the Chicago Sun-Times to his newspaper holdings (he later sold the Chicago Sun-Times because of cross ownership issues).
The FCC Investigates
In the early 1990s, the Federal Communications Commission launched an investigation into Murdoch’s News Corp. for its breach of media ownership rules. His television and newspaper purchases in the United States had put Murdoch in breach of cross-ownership laws.
Murdoch responded by mounting an enormous lobbying effort focused on the FCC and Congress – using intimidation and backroom deals to push through his agenda. Although the FCC found News Corp. in violation, Murdoch escaped unscathed and did not have to sell off any of his media properties.
During this time, Murdoch’s Fox Television network expanded dramatically when he purchased one-fifth of New World Communications. And in an effort to compete with CNN, Murdoch launched the 24-hour Fox News Channel.
Murdoch, Money, and Media Policy
By the late 1990s, Murdoch was investing heavily in the U.S. political process. The New York Times reported that, “Since 1997 Rupert Murdoch’s family and the News Corporation’s political action committees and its employees have given at least $4.76 million in federal campaign contributions.” The New York Times also revealed that Murdoch has paid an estimated $11 million to a fleet of lobbyists over the past 10 years.
In 2003, Congress was on the verge of setting new ownership limits that would have forced Murdoch to break up parts of his media empire. However, Murdoch — in collaboration with other broadcasters — mounted a dramatic lobbying effort. In the end, Congress increased the ownership limits so that one company could reach as much as 39 percent of American homes –the exact percentage Fox was reaching at that time.
Reforming the Media - Rolling Back Murdoch
Murdoch’s ability to grow his media empire – culminating in his latest purchase of the Wall Street Journal — is a stark reminder that our media policies are broken, and only public participation can fix them. We need to make our mark on this timeline, reinstating the vital public protections envisioned by America’s founders.
The Bancroft’s decision to sell to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. proves that a truly free press won’t emerge through business deals. Only through public input and good policy will be foster the kind of diverse and vibrant media that will serve our communities and enrich our democracy.
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Saturday, August 4th, 2007 by caaron
When Rupert Murdoch first announced his intention to buy the Wall Street Journal, the reaction from Washington was muted, to say the least. Now that the News Corp. kingpin’s takeover of Dow Jones is imminent, a few brave politicians have raised questions about whether one company – and one man – should control so much of the media.
Two leading presidential candidates already have jumped into the fray. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards challenged his fellow candidates to take on media consolidation:
News Corp’s purchase of the Dow Jones Co. and the Wall Street Journal should be the last straw when it comes to media consolidation. The basis of a strong democracy begins and ends with a strong, unbiased and fair media — all qualities which are pretty hard to subscribe to Fox News and News Corp. The reality is that Americans deserve more news outlets — not fewer. It’s time for all Democrats, including those running for president, to stand up and speak out against this merger and other forms of media consolidation.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd was the first candidate to sound the alarm about the deal’s devastating impact on quality journalism at the financial paper of record:
The power of the media is swiftly being limited to a few controlling hands, which poses a serious threat to our democracy. … I am concerned that it will be very difficult for the Journal to offer fair and balanced reporting under the pressures of a giant-media conglomerate.
So far, the rest of the presidential field — Democrats and Republicans — has been silent about Murdoch’s Journal bid. But with seven of the Democratic candidates in Chicago on Saturday for the YearlyKos Convention, now’s the perfect moment to show a united front against runaway consolidation and the “Fox Effect” on the news.
We’re especially eager to hear from Sen. Hillary Clinton – who was feted by Murdoch at a campaign fundraiser in May 2006 — on how her administration would stand up to the media conglomerates.
Meanwhile, in Washington, pressure is increasing on the Federal Communications Commission not to rubber-stamp this deal. In a sharply worded letter sent to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin on Friday, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) suggested we may need new rules to rein in national media concentration:
The proposed merger between News Corp. and Dow Jones raises the serious question of whether a single company’s concentration on a national scale should continue to be unfettered and unchecked. I believe the FCC should consider studying whether the public interest would be served if media cross-ownership rules existed at the national level.
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps is already on the record urging his colleagues not to abandon their responsibility to protect the public interest:
What’s good for shareholders of huge media conglomerates isn’t always what’s good for the public interest or our civic dialogue. We should immediately conduct a careful factual and legal analysis of the transaction to determine how it implicates specific FCC rules and our overarching statutory obligation to protect the public interest. I hope nobody views this as a slam-dunk.
Given the power big media exerts over the election process — through both its campaign coverage and pipeline for political advertising — it’s not surprising that most candidates have kept quiet. But it’s time more politicians found their backbone on this issue.
Go here to send a message to your members of Congress and tell them that Murdoch’s Journal is bad for journalism and democracy.
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Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 by jstearns
Some of the most compelling responses to the news of Rupert Murdoch’s deal to buy the Wall Street Journal and parent company Dow Jones have come from the online videos flooding YouTube and other video sites. Bloggers, documentary makers, activists and concerned citizens are using the emerging online video medium to start a public debate on Murdoch’s takeover in a way that was nearly impossible just a few years ago.
Below are just a few examples:
Video 1: Murdoch doesn’t just play a “billionaire tyrant” on TV – watch this video released by Free Press after news of the Dow Jones takeover broke and find out why this deal is bad for journalism and worse for democracy:
http://www.youtube.com/v/mf8Gi3SwfxY
Video 2: The DocFactory reviews Murdoch’s long history in the media business, with a particular emphasis on how Murdoch has maneuvered around key media policies and regulations.
http://www.youtube.com/v/o13vy_HByU4
Video 3: In this short video, the folks at Headzup imagine what Murdoch has in store for the Wall Street Journal:
http://www.youtube.com/v/eKk0JqSwN5I
Video 4: Using Myspace and the Wall Street Journal as a hook, Face 2 Face goes out on the street to get average people to talk about Murdoch, media ownership and editorial independence.
http://www.youtube.com/v/UE1OKzXR4vo
If you want to make your voice heard about Murdoch’s takeover of the Wall Street Journal, visit www.freepress.net/murdoch
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Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 by jhoward
Yesterday, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. sealed the deal on the $5 billion dollar buyout of Dow Jones — a powerful reminder of how media consolidation is constantly eroding the foundational structures of our democracy.
Learn more about Murdoch’s takeover
America’s founders understood that a truly free press — enlivened by diverse perspectives and beholden to the public interest — is the keystone to a flourishing democracy. With the purchase of the Dow Jones Co. and its flagship Wall Street Journal another vital voice is brought under the umbrella of one conglomerate — and one man — that already controls too much of what Americans see, hear and read every day.
Since Rupert Murdoch’s offer was made public, volumes have been written on what this historic deal might mean to journalism in America. A fair bit of the criticism and concern surrounding News Corp.’s bid for Dow Jones has focused on Murdoch himself and his well-documented penchant for employing his media outlets to advance his personal and business interests.
Above all, we ought to be most concerned with the health of our media system. Media consolidation, by its nature, diminishes the diversity of voices represented in our media or with access to the airwaves. With fewer points of view available, those select few with an outlet increase their capacity to shape public opinion, politics and daily life. It is easy to make Murdoch a target, but this deal is not about one man so much as it is about a whole system of policies that creates a rich media but a poor democracy.
Some may say we should just let the market take its course. But today’s media system isn’t simply the evolutionary result of “market forces at work.” It’s the result of policies created by Congress and enforced by the FCC. Without those policies, Murdoch couldn’t have built his media empire. Only by restoring public input in the policymaking process, can we reverse this trend and make America’s media a healthier place where a marketplace of ideas and the free market can co-exist.
We can’t change Rupert Murdoch. But we can change the policies that allow companies like News Corp. to control our media. We can create new policies that foster the kind of diverse, accessible and vibrant media that our country’s founders imagined and our democracy needs.
For more information on the Murdoch takeover, visit www.freepress.net/Murdoch
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