Monday, February 16, 2004
The Five Sisters
Op-Ed Columnist: The Five Sisters: "If one huge corporation controlled both the production and the dissemination of most of our news and entertainment, couldn't it rule the world?
...
You don't have to be a populist to want to stop this rush by ever-fewer entities to dominate both the content and the conduit of what we see and hear and write and say. "
Safire's got it right; media centralization is unacceptable. The way that most average people get their news in such an apathetic way allows big media to control what people think. Because not every citizen lives up to the responsibilities of their citizenship, the government must act to keep media diverse so that a plurality of ideas will be distributed to the uncaring masses, not the messages of a handful of powerful men.
Oligarchy is not what I want to live under.
UPDATE: WaPo editorial on media mergers has a good point: technology can keep us free.
Fiber optic connections certainly would make the internet quite speedy, not to mention everything else we do when we communicate. I say bring it out, and let's have another choice.
However, I don't think that technology can be developed fast enough or in enough forms to counteract the rampant mergers of the oligopoly. We need government intervention, and an FCC chairman that isn't as short-sited as Michael Powell.
...
You don't have to be a populist to want to stop this rush by ever-fewer entities to dominate both the content and the conduit of what we see and hear and write and say. "
Safire's got it right; media centralization is unacceptable. The way that most average people get their news in such an apathetic way allows big media to control what people think. Because not every citizen lives up to the responsibilities of their citizenship, the government must act to keep media diverse so that a plurality of ideas will be distributed to the uncaring masses, not the messages of a handful of powerful men.
Oligarchy is not what I want to live under.
UPDATE: WaPo editorial on media mergers has a good point: technology can keep us free.
If Disney's shareholders accept the Comcast offer, versions of this question will be debated by antitrust regulators, by the Federal Communications Commission and no doubt by Congress. But so far there seems to be no policy reason to oppose this merger, which is similar in conception to the recent marriage between Rupert Murdoch's media empire and DirecTV's 12 million satellite subscribers. Having just allowed one such vertical union, regulators would be wrong to object to a second.
The green light for Comcast should, however, be coupled with parallel efforts. Regulators must avoid creating obstacles to the rollout of rival technologies that could shake up the TV oligopoly. Fiber-optic cable is one such rival, and phone companies such as Verizon say they need regulatory clarification to clear the way for investment in this infrastructure. Wireless connections or innovations as yet unimagined may create other TV contenders. Technological variety is the best guarantor of news and entertainment variety -- and the best way of ensuring that the new days of television turn out to be good new ones.
Fiber optic connections certainly would make the internet quite speedy, not to mention everything else we do when we communicate. I say bring it out, and let's have another choice.
However, I don't think that technology can be developed fast enough or in enough forms to counteract the rampant mergers of the oligopoly. We need government intervention, and an FCC chairman that isn't as short-sited as Michael Powell.
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