In the past several years, the FCC has removed many of the rules that kept companies from buying up too much of our media — our TV stations, radio stations, and newspapers. It used to be that a single corporation could only own a limited number of media outlets. What that meant was that the viewpoints we got about the news were sufficiently diverse so we could get a good idea of the whole picture. But with fewer and fewer corporations buying up all the media outlets — with the FCC’s approval — the news we get is increasingly homogenized.
It’ll stay that way until we have proper competition back in the media. Not competition as in no-regulation free capitalism but competition as in all the different media outlets in a town being owned by different companies and espousing different viewpoints.
The founding fathers recognized that a free press was vital to our democracy. If we the people are not sufficiently informed about the issues, we cannot make good decisions about voting and exercising our rights as citizens. I argue that with the increasing media consolidation, our press is becoming less free by the minute, and endangering our democracy.
If you don’t want to see more lifting of rules against media consolidation by the FCC, please contact the FCC, your Congressmen, and the White House by December 11, which is the end of the public comment period. The FCC Chairman wants to put this into effect as of December 18 of this year.
Find out more about Media Consolidation and the Bill Moyer’s Journal episode on PBS discussing the topic.