Media Musings: Media outlets must stay independent
Barry Diller is one of the major architects of the new media world, where five international corporations own and operate and control the media. He’s always been an independent thinker about media and what they do and is now at the zenith of his career and power. And Barry Diller is worried about the future and about democracy.
Diller told a group of media leaders recently that he wanted more government regulation of TV because it had walked away from one of its major obligations: to care about the public interest, which translates into informing our nation, and the world.
He points to 1996 as the crucial turning point. The marketplace was already shifting toward monopolies, which is what happens in a free booter capitalistic structure. That year, federal law changed, allowing even more concentration, like Clear Channel owning 1,200 -plus radio stations.
Diller believed the Federal Communications Commission would still be pro-active, and press for a public interest requirement that had waned under the Reagan and Clinton administrations. Knowing that monopoly and convergence was well under way, Diller told Bill Moyers on “Now” that he knew the FCC would do its job. It hasn’t. And Diller is worried that it will fail the citizens again.
Now, the FCC will take a vote in June that would end cross-ownership of broadcast outlets by daily newspapers, which Diller says the American people don’t know about or, perhaps, understand the ramifications of the vote.
Under the Michael Powell leadership model, there’s no concern for informing the people or worrying about the ramifications to the democracy. Powell and his advocates often point to the hundreds of channels available on cable. Let’s see: Because I have access to 45 movie channels and 25 sports channels, the democracy is safe, correct? That’s ridiculous.
Diller joins a growing chorus of academics and media insiders in sounding the alarm. What’s new in Diller’s argument, though, is where he wants to build a new system of obligation: the so-called “pipes” which carry the messages – cable, satellite radio and television. Those pipes are owned by mega-corporations, such as the recent purchase of DirecTV by Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch is now a greater force than ever.
This is the man who learned directly from the leadership in China that it did not like the British Broadcasting Co.’s coverage of China being delivered by his satellite. Murdoch had a simple solution: he dropped the BBC immediately.
Media rely on new ideas and people to keep audiences. Yet today, Diller reported, instead of dozens of independent TV sitcom producers, there’s only a handful. That is the direct result of media concentration.
Moyers: Does that mean someone like a Ted Turner could not today create and build a CNN?
Diller: Yes, because a big guy would buy him out immediately and have the power to use the pipes to deliver the new network.
That’s the way it’s working now. Only a cockeyed optimist believes the FCC will be pro-active. Sadly, the ball game may already be over.
KICK: To The Tennessean, for producing a large page 1 story on Sunday that led us to a 12-page section on the marathon. If anyone wonders why civic journalism is a tortured idea as to what new journalism should be, there’s no better proof than that editorial decision.
Here is a hugely profitable Gannett newspapers dishing out a stunningly mediocre Sunday paper on a routine basis giving us an Issues section loaded constantly with wire copy and special sections that are a waste of newsprint.
(Ed Kimbrell is a professor in MTSU’s School of Journalism.)