Until now, this hasn't been the best year for media mogul Rupert Murdoch. For one, none of the Republicans who'd been on the payroll of his Fox News Channel -- not Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum or Mike Huckabee or Sarah Palin -- became this year's GOP nominee for president.
Oh sure, when Mitt Romney got the nod instead, Murdoch's TV and newspaper empire backed him big time but, on Election Night, Fox pundits like Dick Morris and Karl Rove -- the top GOP strategist and fundraiser -- had to eat crow as Barack Obama won a second term in the White House despite their predictions of a Republican landslide. (When the network called Ohio and the election for Obama, a desperate Rove tried to keep Fox statisticians from doing their job until the facts couldn't be ignored or denied. New York magazine reports that Fox News programming chief Bill Shine now "has sent out orders mandating that producers must get permission before booking Rove or Morris.")
On top of all that, just this week Murdoch's News Corp announced the shutdown of The Daily, its multi-million dollar attempt at a national iPad newspaper. And last week in London, the thousand-page report of an independent inquiry into the gross misconduct of the British press came out -- that big scandal over reporters illegally hacking into people's cell phones and committing other assorted forms of corruption, including bribery. Murdoch's gossip sheet, The News of the World, was right at the center of it, the worst offender. The fallout cost Murdoch the biggest business deal of his career -- the multi-billion buyout of satellite TV giant BSkyB -- and the report attacked his now-defunct News of the World for its "failure of management" and "general lack of respect for individual privacy and dignity."
But Murdoch's luck may be changing. Despite Fox News' moonlighting as the propaganda ministry of the Republican Party, President Obama's team may be making it possible for Sir Rupert to increase his power, perversely rewarding the man who did his best to make sure Barack Obama didn't have a second term. The Federal Communications Commission could be preparing him one big Christmas present, the kind of gift that keeps on giving -- unless we all get together and do something about it.
All indications are that Murdoch has his eye on two of the last remaining big newspapers in America -- the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, each owned by the now bankrupt Tribune Company. He could add one or both to his impressive portfolio, but even though the media mogul is splitting News Corp into two separately traded companies -- one for its print entities, the other for TV and film -- he would still come under current rules restricting media companies from owning newspapers and TV and radio stations in the same town. However, the FCC may be planning to suspend those rules, paving the way for Murdoch's takeover of either of the two papers.
In prior years, the FCC has granted waivers to the rules, but this latest move on their part would be more permanent, allowing a monolithic corporation like News Corp or Disney, Comcast, Viacom, CBS or Time Warner -- in any of the top twenty markets -- to own newspapers, two TV stations, eight radio stations and even the local Internet provider.
Once again, massive media conglomerates would be given free rein to gobble up more and more of our communications outlets, increasing their already considerable power, destroying independent voices, diluting or eradicating local news and community affairs coverage, eliminating competition and stomping even further on diversity. A recent study -- from the FCC itself -- shows that last year female ownership of commercial TV and radio stations is at 6.8 percent, Latino ownership is 2.9 percent, Asian ownership is half a percent, and African American ownership of commercial stations actually has decreased to less than one percent.
Suspending the current rules would only make this awful situation worse, which is one of the reasons why Vermont's independent Senator Bernie Sanders and several of his Senate colleagues sent a letter last week to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. "Congress tasked you with a mandate to promote localism and diversity in America's broadcast system," they wrote. "While the current ownership rules have not completely achieved these goals, they nonetheless remain a bulwark against mass consolidation and stand to preserve local voices."
This is not the first time the Federal Communications Commission has tried to change the rules. In 2003 and again five years ago, while George W. Bush was still in the White House, a Republican-dominated FCC made a similar attempt to sneak changes past, but the suspension was rejected by both the Senate and a Federal appeals court. Public comments -- three million of them -- ran ninety-nine percent against the attempt to make the media behemoths even bigger and more avaricious than ever. Among the opponents: freshman Senator Barack Obama and Senators Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton.
Under Genachowski, the FCC has from time to time upheld its mandate to protect the public interest -- the recent decision to increase the number of low power community FM stations, for example, or the ruling that gave the public on-line access to who's buying political ads on TV and radio, and how much they're spending. But this time, it seems as if Chairman Genachowski may be trying to rush the rules change through on a technicality without sufficient time for public comments or even an open hearing.
Make your voices heard -- write or call Genachowski and the other commissioners -- you can find their names, email addresses and phone numbers at the website fcc.gov, or on the "Take Action" page at our website, BillMoyers.com. Write your senators and representatives, too, tell them the FCC must delay this decision and give the public a chance to have its opposition known. We've done it before.
Just ask the FCC this basic question: What part of "no" don't you understand?
Moyers & Company and BillMoyers.com are focusing deeply on this issue. Follow the coverage at the spotlight page "Fight Media Monopoly," where you'll find interviews with Free Press' Craig Aaron and former FCC commissioner Michael Copps, among other features and insight. The coverage culminates in this weekend's show featuring Senator Bernie Sanders. Watch a preview.
Follow Bill Moyers on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BillMoyers
Mehdi Hasan: Debunking the Five Biggest Media Myths About the Leveson Report
Steven Strauss: Online Freedom of Speech: Still Safe, but for How Much Longer?
Eric Boehlert: GOP Doesn't Have A Mitt Romney Problem, It Has A Fox News Problem
Craig Aaron: Why Is the Obama FCC Plotting a Massive Giveaway to Rupert Murdoch?
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This comment has not yet been postedThink about this...8 Corporations control 90% of US media! Once you add "convergence" into the equation, the number of extremely powerful financial interests exercise control drops to 5. FIVE
Now appreciate that the "Chinese wall" between newsrooms and corporate no longer exist. Those five powerful interests can and DO shape the narrative, alter opinions and influence policy. News is supposed to be a "public service" but now has become part of the entertainment complex and we all suffer for it! We are less well informed than at any time in the last 40 years!!!
I set up a petition but I don't have Facebook or Twitter so couldn't complete it.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/how-why/terms-participation
The FCC is allowing America to be controlled by propaganda and daily brainwashing.
The FCC or Supreme Court should break up media monopolies...now controlled by 5 people or corporations.
He who controls the airways, controls the country and its people's information and minds.
The average citizens is being dumbed down, lied to, filled with dogma and divisiness.
Wake up America...tell your Congress members to break up the monopolies, of course, Congress and the Supreme Court, the FCC are all owned by the corrupt Republicans.
We are losing our freedoms...we are being controlled (brainwashed conservatives are the prime example; they believe everything Fox News or Republican politicians tell them even though it is all provable lies).
George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984...should be required reading for everyone.
Dear Mr/Madam Commissioner
I am personally writing to you to not change the FCC rules on media ownership. Please consider the fact with so many avenues of information available to the public our ability to process it remains limited. As humans we then only seek out or scan so much information. To be able to process given the fact we have only so much time in any given day we therefore seek out information that aligns with our values and what makes sense. It is easier and information gathering is therefore already self limiting. If more stations are owned by a single company we will be limited in easy access and choice to seek broader information views. Any policy changes will therefore leave the American public to influenced by the policies and practices of a single owner thus limiting easy access to broader ideas and thinking.
I personally find the current bifurcation of the two primary idealogical views (conservative and progressive) held in this county propagated far too much by main stream media disturbing. You, and others who vote on these policies can make a difference, leave the current rules in place. I truly fear Rupert Murdock, his ethics, and what he and his media companies have done in the UK. If we as a nation and government cannot learn by the mistakes of others we are fools.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/dec/06/operation-eleveden-journalist-arrested
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/12/04/arrest-metropolitan-police-phone-hacking_n_2238317.html?ncid=GEP
This makes the Smarmalade twins' a frabjous day!!!!!!
In the UK they are presently fighting to demand that the independence of voluntary press regulation be made law. In otherwords, all this politicing of these slots would be illegal. I hope the UK can enshrine the independence of their press regulator into law. The last one sanctioned the Guardian for reporting on the phone hacking mess.
I'm on this, Bill. Lickity spit. Letters still make a better impression than an email.
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