CI5472 Teaching Film, Television, and Media
Module 10: Studying the News ~ Newspaper or Print News
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Another major trend in newspapers is the increased concentration
of newspaper ownership by corporate conglomerates. For example,
the largest owner,
The Gannett Company owns 110 daily newspapers and 21
television stations. The second largest owner, Knight-Ridder
Digital, owns 31 daily newspapers as well as 83 local
and regional Web sites in 62 cities, including 20 of the top 30
U.S. markets. In 2002, ten companies owned newspapers with a distribution
of more than half of all readers (Staubhaar & LaRose, 2004).
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One danger in this increased concentration of ownership is the decline of any competition for news within local markets. With the drop in the number of different newspapers in a particular local area, there is less demand on newspapers to have to compete. Moreover, as newspapers and television stations own each other, they may combine their operations, as is the case with the newspaper and television station in Tampa, Florida. All of the results in a decline in the number and nature of alternative cultural and political perspectives, as local owners are more beholden to absent corporate owners to avoid controversy that might jeopardize profits. |
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This increased concentration is a result of the further deregulation of ownership rules passed under the 1996 Communications Act by Congress, as well as efforts by the FCC in 2003 to further relax the number of newspapers and stations that could be owned by the same owner. The current rules prevent one network from owning another network, limit the number of stations owned by one owner, prohibit owning both a local cable and TV station, and prohibit owning both newspaper and TV station. The corporations applied considerable pressure on the FCC through campaign contributions, paid junkets, and intense lobbying of FCC members, to loosen these rules, including rules related to ownership of radio stations, which, as was noted in Module 9, has also seen an increased concentration by owners such as Clear Channel Corporation. |
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For more information on newspaper ownership, the PBS program, NOW with Bill Moyers, has been covering this issue in many of its programs. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Click here for a list of which owners own what media. |
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In the Education Media Foundation video, Rich
Media, Poor Democracy, Robert McChesney examines the ways
in which journalism has been compromised by a focus on sensationalism
and lack of investigative reporting by the conglomerates such as
Disney, Sony, Viacom, News Corp, and Time Warner. |
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And, in another Education Media Foundation video, The Myth of the Liberal Media: The Propaganda Model of News, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman present their “propoganda model” of the news related to attempts by corporate and conservative interests to propogate their own ideological perspectives in news content and coverage. |
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In their book
Manufacturing Consent, they define this model as functioning
to filter the news in certain ways: |
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| Noam
Chomsky essay: What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream |
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Another factor influencing the increasingly conservative ideological focus of news editorial orienatation, particularly on op-ed pages is the rise in influence of conservative think-tanks shaping news. As documented by Trudy Lieberman, in Slanting the Story: The Forces That Shape the News (New Press, 2000), conservative think tanks and organizations exist, such as the: |
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There are also “liberal” think tanks, although, as Lieberman documents, they have lost the clout and influence they enjoyed in the 1970s: |
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As Lieberman documents, these think tanks and organizations have
acquired public relations and promotional skills at framing issues
for the media in conservative terms. They consistently provide newspapers
and policy makers with material and research, often in the form
of “research reports” or “surveys” that
give the appearance of being nonpartisan and “scholarly.”
The also provide newspapers with op-ed essays, as well as spokespersons
and “experts” who can be reached for comments or quotes
in news articles. Conservative critics of the Profile also cited
“failing” “report card” reports issued by
The Fordham Foundation, a conservative education organization, that
argues for the need for more traditional “content” standards
that could be measured with tests, leading to increased “accountability.”
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Lieberman notes that these think tanks and organizations are successful because they formulate definite, unambiguous messages which they then repeat, particularly regarding the “failures” of “liberal” causes, as well as the “liberal” media. (For a critique of the idea that the media are “too liberal,” see Eric Altermann, What Liberal Media?: The Truth about Bias and the News, Basic Books). Through this repetition, they can frame issues in their own terms. As a result, legislators have been able to pass various policies consistent with a more conservative agenda. |
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These think tanks and organizations received support from corporations to lobby for their interests, corporations who would prefer not to known as directly lobbying for their own benefits. They are largely funded by corporations who prefer that groups other than themselves promote their agendas. For example, when the Clinton health care model was proposed in 1993, the Heritage Foundation launched a major campaign to discredit the plan through providing newspapers with editorials and through television ads. Much of the funding for this work emanated from the insurance and pharmaceutical corporations who would be adversely affected by a national health insurance plan. |
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Lieberman cites the example of an attack on the Federal Drug Administration which succeeding in loosening FDA regulation of drug advertising and testing of new drugs. Various think-tanks began to circulate stories to the media about drugs being “withheld” from the market by FDA delays and regulations, drugs that would save people’s lives, but were not available due to “deadly overcaution.” They also criticized the FDA for its “bureaucratic delay” in testing drug safety. And, they posited the need to cut back on labeling of supplements, an emerging business. They provided newspapers with “reports” on drugs and health issues that cited their own “polls” of “doctors” who complained the that FDA approval process was too slow. All of this had a major influence on public opinion regarding the FDA, which was perceived to be preventing useful drugs from coming onto the market. |
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They also had a major hand in writing a bill in Congress that loosed FDA regulations, “The FDA Modernization and Accountability Act of 1997,” that passed Congress. After the bill went into effect, the FDA had to recall five different drugs that were prematurely approved and turned out to be dangerous. There was a marked increase in drug advertising, particularly on television, a 150% increase from 1997 to 2001, in which there was 2.7 billion in drug advertising, some of which had previously had not been allowed to air on television. The advertising itself was often misleading, now that restrictions had been lifted. This resulted in patients telling doctors that they “need” new drugs and an increase in drug sales. |
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In the Educational Media Foundation video, Constructing
Public Opinion: How Politicians and the Media Misrepresent the Public,
Justin Lewis describes the ways in which the media use polling data
to not simply reflect public opinion, but to also shape and construct
public opinion in ways that are consistent with the agendas of power
elites and the corporations that own the media. |
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The
Center for Media and Democracy’s PRWatch site |
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Media ownership and intellectual property. Another important issue related to news and media ownership has to do with the ways publishing corporations limit distribution of content through copyright laws. While copyright is an important legal protection, at the same time, copyright law can be used to limit distribution and authors’ right to circulate that information. These issues are discussed in a free online book copy of Lawrence Lessing’s Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity (Penguin Press). |
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Freedom of the press. Another primary issue
has to do with the declining freedom of the press due to government
attempts to control, limit, or censor news. A global survey of freedom
of the press in 193 countries conducted in 2003 by Freedom House,
"Freedom
of the Press 2004: A Global Survey of Media Independence,"
found that freedom of the press declined throughout the world. The
study indicated that 73 were rated “free,” 49 “partly
free,” and 71 “not free.” |
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Newspaper Ownership | |
