Works In Progress - August 2003 - FCC Deregulation, Iraq, and the Failure of the Media

The Senate has recently begun the process of reversing recent decisions made by the Federal Communications Commission to loosen media ownership rules, which allow massive consolidation of newspaper and broadcasting mega-conglomerates. Legislation, which cleared the Senate Commerce Committee in mid-June, would put a hold on further monopolization of information by restricting individual corporations from "grabbing" even larger shares of the news "market." Why should we care? A clear example can be seen in the "imperialist ambitions," to use policy planner Richard Haass's term, of the recent US invasion and subsequent military occupation of Iraq, a previously sovereign nation.

The inaccurate and sensationalized mainstream media coverage of the US military occupation of Iraq manipulated and controlled public opinion through the repetition of false or misleading claims, resulting in disproportionate support. For example polls carried out before the invasion by reliable sources indicated that 77% of Americans believed that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons and 85% acknowledged a link between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Of course these suspect beliefs are not nearly as disturbing as a New York Times/CBS poll that indicated 42% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the September 11 attacks. Recent developments point even further away from what many Americans believed leading up to the invasion.

However, we would be foolish to believe that these polls suggest that Americans are stupid or ignorant. To the contrary, they indicate a systematic failure of the mass media to convey accurately the information necessary to make reasoned and informed decisions that promote thoughtful, active civic participation. If this is the case, what is the problem and what can we do about it?

The main issue is control over information by a few mega-conglomerates that are largely dependent on advertising revenues and that function like any other corporation which is motivated by profits, rather than a desire to educatie the public or present diverse, well-informed opinions.

According to national surveys in 2000, 61% of Americans received their news from television (and 24% from newspapers). Right now five major corporations, General Electric, Viacom, AOL-Time Warner, Disney, and the News Corporation virtually monopolize electronic media, pulling in revenues ranging from $11.5 billion to $129.9 billion in 2001.

Beholden to shareholders and advertisers these media conglomerates are forced to make sure that "news" sells and that costs are kept low.

This is combined with the type of self-censorship illustrated by Dan Rather's declaration, "What we are talking about here - whether one wants to recognize it or not, or call it by its proper name or not - is a form of self-censorship. It starts with a feeling of patriotism within oneself. It carries through with a certain knowledge that the country as a whole...felt and continues to feel this surge of patriotism within themselves [sic]. And one finds oneself saying: 'I know the right question, but do you know what?

This is not exactly the right time to ask it." The result is poor reporting that relies heavily on White House press conferences and "expert sources," such as government and military officials, rather than down-and-dirty, old fashioned investigative journalism.

The consequences of a systematic failure by the media regarding a US invasion of Iraq have been severe, as the Bush administration seems to have pulled us into a "war without end" in which more and more Iraqi civilians and US soldiers are being killed without at clear or justified reasons.

Even as the New York Times continues following a "Hunt for WMDs" many people, especially Europeans, are beginning to realize that the claims by the Bush administration about weapons of mass destruction were at best misleading and at worst totally fabricated and that this type of modern "good colonization" will actually increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks, even according to the CIA. Although, at the present the mainstream media is able to downplay the violence being perpetrated against Iraqis, as the US becomes more repressive and Iraqis continue to struggle against their colonizers the mainstream media will be forced to focus on the misdeeds of the US government, unfortunately while asking such misplaced questions as "what went wrong?"

Of course this is not the only example of systematic failure (or bias) in the corporate media, and for this reason we must not only support the current move by the Senate Commerce Committee, but also suggest more progressive reforms that would allow more control of the news by civic participants instead of a few wealthy businesspersons. Media critic Robert McChesney suggests these reforms ought to include development of non-commercial, community-run, public-access television and radio systems which are distinct from public-service broadcasting and that are deeply rooted in local communities; stricter standards for commercial broadcasters, limits on advertising through regulation and taxation; assertion of existing anti-trust laws; and tax breaks and subsidies for media and production cooperatives.

On the other hand, we must recognize that trying to compete with the media monopoly through progressive alternative media can only take us so far. Taking back the media is not a question of trying to use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house, but rather the need to reclaim what is ours and remake it in our image.

Movement in this direction, through organizing, educating, and mobilizing would increase the access to accurate and important information and news absolutely necessary to the functioning of a healthy and meaningful democracy. Perhaps if we had already taken back our media the US push to militarily occupy Iraq could have been thwarted. Moreover, future attempts at "regime change" in places, such as Colombia or Venezuela could be stopped in their tracks.

http://www.thenation.com/special/bigten.html

Revenues of the top Media Corporations:

General Electric

$129.9 Billion 2001

AOL/Time Warner

$36.2 Billion 2001

The Walt Disney Company

$25.4 Billion 2001

Viacom

$20 Billion 2001

News Corporation

$11.6 Billion 2001