"No Disincentive Not To"
The NYT's Paul Krugman is not the first to note that this country privately-owned media often behave like "state-run outlets", whereas the state-owned BBC (or the Israeli press) feel obliged to question their governments' policies to prove their editorial independence. Why? The US government rewards such compliance by weakening existing regulations on "cross-ownership" and other oligopolistic practises.
One media group wrote to [FTC Chairman Michael] Powell, dropping its opposition to part of his plan "in return for favorable commission action" on another matter. That was indiscreet, but you'd have to be very naïve not to imagine that there are a lot of implicit quid pro quos out there.
And the implicit trading surely extends to news content. Imagine a TV news executive considering whether to run a major story that might damage the Bush administration — say, a follow-up on Senator Bob Graham's charge that a Congressional report on Sept. 11 has been kept classified because it would raise embarrassing questions about the administration's performance. Surely it would occur to that executive that the administration could punish any network running that story.
Meanwhile, both the formal rules and the codes of ethics that formerly prevented blatant partisanship are gone or ignored. Neil Cavuto of Fox News is an anchor, not a commentator. Yet after Baghdad's fall he told "those who opposed the liberation of Iraq" — a large minority — that "you were sickening then; you are sickening now." Fair and balanced.
We don't have censorship in this country; it's still possible to find different points of view. But we do have a system in which the major media companies have strong incentives to present the news in a way that pleases the party in power, and no incentive not to.
And Fox News' parent News Corp, fearlesslessly censors stories to appease the government in Beijing.
China Opens Satellite Television Market To Murdoch's News Corp, Beijing (AFP) Oct 19, 2001
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/murdoch-01b.html
And Powell the younger is a key decision maker in the Murdoch bid to acquire DirecTV.
Yep, I neglected to clarify that FCC (not FTC) Chairman Powell is the son of the Secretary of State Colin Powell. See also today's front-page NYT story Plan to Loosen Network Rules goes to FCC.
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The NYT's Paul Krugman is not the first to note that this country privately-owned media often behave like "state-run outlets", whereas the state-owned BBC (or the Israeli press) feel obliged to question their governments' policies to prove their editorial independence. Why? The US government rewards such compliance by weakening existing regulations on "cross-ownership" and other oligopolistic practises. And Fox News' parent News Corp, fearlesslessly censors stories to appease the government in Beijing.
- bruno 5-13-2003 6:02 pm
China Opens Satellite Television Market To Murdoch's News Corp, Beijing (AFP) Oct 19, 2001
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/murdoch-01b.html
And Powell the younger is a key decision maker in the Murdoch bid to acquire DirecTV.
- anonymous (guest) 5-13-2003 10:34 pm
Yep, I neglected to clarify that FCC (not FTC) Chairman Powell is the son of the Secretary of State Colin Powell. See also today's front-page NYT story Plan to Loosen Network Rules goes to FCC.
- bruno 5-14-2003 12:10 am