Conason on FCC's Powell in Salon:
- The driving forces behind Powell, in the White House and the Congress, are indeed highly ideological but hardly conservative in Safire's sense. Their ideology is corporate conservatism, which treats democracy as a procedural formality that should under no circumstances interfere with the prerogatives of business and wealth. Powell is a corporate conservative who sees his job as the expansion of those same prerogatives for the media mammoths. He worries more about their profit position than about the protection of the public interest. He knows that the deregulation of radio has led to the same hideous situation (or "problems," as he delicately puts it) that Powell promises won't result from these rules.
On Wednesday, Sen. John McCain has scheduled a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee at which all five FCC commissioners will testify on the new rules.
Article comments
1 - Ben
While the short terms effects of deregulation in Radio and TV have been disappointing, I don't see similar deregulation of print media as being that terrible. Newspapers have reputations and are scrutinized for integrity and scope every day. Informed readers, who are the only people who will care about corporate influence, are smart enough to discriminate between propaganda organs and forums for responsible journalism.
The tragedy of radio and TV deregulation was that there can only be so many broadcast stations in a given market. Radio dials only scan certain frequencies. Homogenous control slaughtered diversity of offerings as the media giants sought to offer services with "mass appeal" to each market. The only limitations to the number of weeklies, and dailies, in a given city derive from economics.
Print media is not limited to a market or a region. The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and a number of other newspapers are available in every city. The local newspapers have to compete with these papers by offering more distinctive and insightful journalism, or by tailoring themselves to a specific market by emphasizing local news.