Hilbert College	Issues in Mass Communication: The Corporate Media	- Home - Students - Tutorials - - Student Papers -
(Note: This paper was written at the University of South Carolina) by: Karen Stein November 23, 1999 If one believes that media power equals political power, then the conglomerates that own the media run the United States. Ownership of the media has become a serious controversy today. Originally, most newspapers and other forms of mass communications were individually owned. But with time, the single-owned papers became chains, and eventually evolved into conglomerates. The emergence of the corporate control of the media and mass advertising have altered how well-informed the American public is and as a result, these monopolies have also had an impact on the democratic process in this country. The corporate-run media is a fairly recent phenomenon. So why did monopolies arise? Ben Bagdikian writes that "the underlying causes for ....[newspaper] monopolies are mass production and mass consumption, which favor the big operator" (Bagdikian,1972). Robert McChesney believes that "beginning in the 1980's, pressure from the IMF, World Bank, and U.S. government to deregulate and privatize media and communications systems coincided with the new satellite and digital technologies, resulting in the rise of transnational giants" (McChesney, 1997). That's right, transnational. The commercial media system, which includes mostly U.S.-based media corporations is global. Furthermore, Richard Cohen eloquently put it when he said "what is happening in communications is the same story of run-amuck corporate cannibalism terrorizing most of American business. The Darwinian process of mergers and acquisitions began to wash over the corporate landscape in the 1980's" (Cohen, 1997). The agenda of these media corporations is to get so big that they dominate the market and their competition can not buy them out and then have interests in not just one medium, but all the media. The hazard in owning the entire media is that the corporations control every step in a the process: "the creation of content, control of the delivery system nationally, and the wire into the home. It is a closed circuit and nobody gets on that circuit that [the media conglomerates] do not want" (Barsamian, 1997). In addition, these same corporations who deliver the news also have vested interests in many other fields, which would complicate how objective the news is. The market domination of media conglomerates falls into two categories. The first type is vertical ownership, which "bears a logical relationship to the communications industry" (Lacy, 1988). In other words, ABC/Disney is a vertical conglomerate that owns newspapers, television, magazines, radio, and books. The other kind of conglomerate ownership is horizontal. In a horizontal conglomerate there is no relationship between "the media component and the giant corporations' other subsidiaries" (Lacy, 1988). An example of a horizontal conglomerate would be CBS or NBC, which are both owned by companies in the nuclear defense family, Westinghouse and General Electric. In the book The Media Monopoly, Bagdikian declares that "today there is hardly an American industry that does not own a major media outlet, or a major media outlet grown so large that it does not own a firm in a major industry" (Bagdikian, 1983). The media monopoly itself is disturbing enough, not to mention the tangled web of alliance among the few media companies that dominate the market. These companies often have board members in common and they participate in joint ventures "where they share ownership of concerns with their 'competitors' so as to reduce competition and risk" (McChesney, 1997). These alliances further complicate how well the public is informed. Because the media is a business as well as a community institution, an inherent danger exists in how these corporations effect the news and how they handle conflicts of interest. Part of being a business is accumulating a profit, but is "profitability the only proper measure of a firm that deals in the facts that shape history and the fictions that represent a nation's collective dreams?" (Bogart, 1998). The drive for a profit often leads to newstaff cuts and cuts in the budget, "while denigrating journalism and culture not conducive to the immediate bottom line or long-run corporate interests" (McChesney, 1997). The purpose of news today is to make corporate profits, but when the quality of a newspaper or a broadcast news show is measured by its stock value or ratings, then the content of the news will inevitably suffer. Richard Cohen, former senior producer of CBS Evening News, argues that the "content of news has changed from what is important to what sells, which means it is no longer pure news at all" (Cohen, 1997). CBS was diminishing its content, bastardizing its news in pursuit of ratings" the other networks did not lag far behind (Cohen, 1997). In the case of newspapers,;the more newspapers in a chain, the fewer column inches devoted to news, the shorter the articles, and the higher proportion that goes to soft stuff" (Gitlin, 1997). In the case of broadcast news, the twenty-one minute "news window is the non-advertising portion of the broadcast, that unfortunate, obligatory news programming between commercials" (Cohen, 1997). Ben Bagdikian referred to this same "light" or "soft" news as "gray fluff." Gray fluff in the news is a corporate by-product for several reasons. The first is that the media giants try to avoid scandals that may upset the public, which consequently hurt the ratings or profit. For example, when Vice President Bush was questioned about his knowledge of the Iran- Contra Scandal on a CBS news show, a shouting match between he and Dan Rather erupted. As a result, the production managers were furious that the viewers would be angry with CBS and not watch any longer. It did not matter that George Bush was lying about his knowledge; it only mattered that perhaps the CBS viewer's false sense of security may have been shattered, for which the ratings would suffer. Another reason that media giants have allowed news to become full of gray fluff is the "dumbing down, the demise of news [which] is all about the hunger for advertising revenues" (Cohen, 1997). The media conglomerates abuse their responsibility as a community institution for a dollar. The media giants want to entertain the viewing audience or reader so that they will be in a buying mood. The content of journalism becomes void of any relationship to reality. Furthermore, there is a relationship between the gray fluff used to avoid offending the public and the gray fluff used as bait for advertisers. According to Ben Bagdikian, "since most of the revenues of the news media are derived from advertising and there is an incentive to maintain an audience of as many affluent people as possible, news policies are designed not to offend political sensibilities of the advertising target-audience" (1989). In other words, "the more market driven news becomes, the greater the determination not to rock the boat" " (Cohen, 1997). "Blandness in the basic politics of the media became standard" (Bagdikian, 1983). But the most blatant disservice that corporate media is guilty of is self-censorship. Self-censorship can be defined as a newspaper or any form of media's choice to omit coverage on a story that would be potentially damaging to the corporate owner's other subsidiaries or to the medium's advertisers. Clearly, "the more diversified the company, the greater and the more varied the corporate interests that may be threatened" by journalism (Bogart, 1998). As Bagdikian put it, "conflicts of interest between the public's need for information and corporate desires for 'positive' information have vastly increased...[and when] their most sensitive economic interests are at stake, the parent corporations seldom refrain from using their power over public information" (Bagdikian, 1983). That is why it is so convenient for every industry to own a media outlet for damage control. "A corporation dependent on public opinion and government policy can call upon its media subsidiaries to help in what the media are clearly able to do- influence public opinion and government policy" (Bagdikian, 1983). However, self-censorship rarely involves killing or slanting stories; "usually it is by the appointment of a pliable editor" or producer, who is clearly aware of the parent corporation's desires. It is so subtle that this form of censorship occurs unbeknownst to the American people. On the other hand, one incident of a corporation's direct killing of a story did become known to the public. It has recently been made into a movie to bring attention to the dire consequences of corporate ownership of the media. In this case, CBS's news show 60 Minutes wanted to air a story about the cigarette company Brown and Williamson Tobacco in 1995. There was a scheduled interview with a disaffected executive, "who accused the company of manipulating nicotine levels in cigarettes in order to maximize their addictive effect" (Bogart, 1998). Although the accusation was true, CBS canceled the interview because of threats from the tobacco company, not to mention that the principle-owner of CBS was a major stockholder in another cigarette company. The corporate giant CBS flagrantly canceled a story that affected the health of millions of people to protect its own corporate interests. So much for the first amendment and a people's sovereignty. The reaction of dailies, magazines, and broadcasting to news seriously damaging to tobacco, automobile, and pharmaceutical industries, but plainly in the public interest to see, is censorship. These industries are major mass advertisers that would punish the media by withdrawing their ads, which advertisers pay a mighty dollar to have displayed. In addition to the media's influence over public opinion, the media has another power that can be explained by the theory of agenda setting. According to agenda setting, there is a dialectical relationship between what the media produces and what people think about. According to Bagdikian, "it is a truism among political scientists that while it is not possible for the media to tell the population what to think, they do tell the public what to think about. What is reported enters the public agenda" (Bagdikian, 1983). This theory manifests that the omission of news that is in the interest of the public is a crime. Not only is the public seriously under-informed and unaware of being so, but there is a vicious cycle in which the corporations' censorship allows for political and other issues never to be brought into the public light. Think, if the corporations own the media then according to agenda setting, the corporate ownership of the communications industry will never be covered by the media. As the current trend is going, the media will never reflect the interest of the people. Whether the corporate censorship is subtle or not, "the ultimate result is distorted reality and impoverished ideas" (Bagdikian, 1983). How does this distorted reality and impoverished ideas affect democracy in the United States? Corporate ownership and media monopolies are essentially contrary to what democracy represents. Bagdikian writes that "the power to control information is a major lever in the control of society" (Bagdikian, 1983). These corporations control what the American people knows and does not know. How scary! Because only a few companies dominate the media, there is little pluralism in journalism. In a sense, pluralism is the essence of democracy. This lack of competition allows the media giants to suppress whatever information they desire. Subsequently, the public is not well informed about what is occurring in this country because there is not a diversity of expression. The first amendment had been systematically changed to freedom of the press as long as one can afford a $100 million newspaper or a $50 billion dollar television network. Unfortunately, "our treasured democracy has been placed in the way of danger by news that under-informs, sold to a population that does not know enough about itself to exercise its choices" (Cohen, 1997). According to the ideals of democracy and individual freedom, "the democratic consent of the governed is meaningless unless the consent is informed consent" (Bagdikian, 1983). The lack of pluralism in the media's discussion of politics is a current travesty. Because of the industry's hunger for ratings, the media giants have reduced the coverage of the government because they fear it is boring. At a time when coverage of local and state government is fundamental, the corporate chains of newspapers sell their soul for ratings. According to Gene Roberts, managing editor of the New York Times, "supplying this part of the news fills a basic need of democracy. Being able to present it fully and without fear of censorship is, of course, one of the reasons the First Amendment has taken on such importance in our society" ( Roberts, 1998). The media must supply the voters with substantive news coverage so that they can make knowledgeable decisions in politics. Without full coverage of the government, the voters' view of the socio-political world is deficient. However, the knowledgeable decisions may make no difference when so many politicians are on the side of big business. Basically, the media giants have many politicians in their pockets. There is extreme pressure on politicians from lobbyists to extinguish bills harmful to the media monopoly and to promote bills that increase their domination. Most recently, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which deregulated much of the communications industry. The Act actually expanded competition, but it has ended up accelerating the concentration of media power. Furthermore, this extreme pressures from lobbyists are "backed by financial contributions from the political action committees that every industry has organized. In other words, politicians often rely on the campaign contributions of the media industry lobbyists and in return the politicians vote the way which best supports media trusts. In this way, politicians become the media giants' pawns. These media giants "have been called private governments, and they are becoming the state" (Cohen, 1997). How can the media reconcile being a godless corporation and a community institution? Is it really so hopeless? Opponents of the corporate media declare a resounding 'no.' Many believe that the media monopoly should be handled as any other monopoly would be, by anti-trust laws. The anti-trust laws would truly allow competition in an industry that requires pluralism. The closed circuit that Bagdikian described would be abolished and there would ideally be freedom of the press. Bagdikian suggests "not elimination of private enterprise in the media...[but] equitable distribution of power" (Bagdikian, 1983). Another alternative solution to anti-trust laws is reregulation. In addition, the tangled web of alliances and cross-ownership among the media giants should be severely limited. Moreover, making large campaign contributions to a political candidate should be illegalized. However, there is a recent medium that does allow for pluralism, almost excessive pluralism, the Internet. The Internet is a new platform for communications that is accessible to the ordinary person. There is freedom of the press, in a sense, on the Internet; virtually anyone can display a web page with their opinions. There are a plethora of opportunities and ideas on the web that are merely at our doorstep. The future of communications does not look so grim and perhaps the integrity of the media can be reborn. But, first the American public must realize that as Louis Brandeis put it, "it tends to disloyalty and violation of the fundamental law that no man [or medium] can serve two masters" (Bagdikian, 1983). Bibliography: Bagdikian, Ben H. (1972) The Effete Conspiracy and Other Crimes By the Press. Bagdikian, Ben H. (1983) The Media Monopoly. Bagdikian, Ben H. (1989) What's Missing From The News. The Progressive. August. . Barsamian, David. (1997) Ben Bagdikian. The Progressive. Bogart, Leo. (1998) What Does It All Mean. Media Mergers. Cohen,Richard. (1997) The Corporate Takeover of the News: Blunting the Sword. Conglomerates and the Media.. Gitlin, Todd. (1997) Conglomerates and the Media. . Lacy, Stephen et al. (1988) Press Concentration and Monopoly: New Perspectives on Newspaper Ownership and Operation.. McChesney, Robert W. (1999) The Global Media Giants. Extra. Online: . Roberts, Gene. (1998) Corporate Journalism and Community Service. Media Mergers.

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