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Is Diversity Dead? The Media Ownership Debate

by The Frustrated Journalist Sunday, Nov. 12, 2006 at 11:58 AM
frustrated.journalist@gmail.com

The ethnic variety in American society is greater than any other country in the world and greater than it has been in the past. But you wouldn’t know it to see what’s offered in mainstream media or to look at who actually owns the media. // © 2006, Sasha A. Rae, All Rights Reserved

Traditionally speaking, the government charged the media with providing diverse and local coverage and coverage that served the public interest. That definitely is not the case today. Even if you would argue that network television has always had a distinct monochrome flavor to it, you can't deny that what we see on television isn't completely reflective of the surrounding culture.

According to El Diario, a Spanish-language publication, there are 42 million Latinos in America, yet only a minor scattering of English language television stories cover Latinos. Statistics from Media Alliance, 30-year-old media advocacy groups in Oakland, California, show that of all the TV stations in the US,

  • Less than 5% are owned by women,
  • Less than 3% are owned by people of color,
  • Less than 1% are owned by Latinos.

Their research also reveals that only a handful of major corporations own most of the media:

  • FIVE media conglomerates — Viacom, Disney, Time Warner, News Corp. and NBC/GE — control the four biggest television networks. That's the equivalent of 70 percent of the primetime television market share. They also have large holdings in:
    • Cable,
    • Radio,
    • Publishing,
    • Movie production and distribution,
    • Music, and
    • The Internet.
  • Clear Channel owns OVER TWELVE HUNDRED radio stations in the US.
  • There are 1500 newspapers in the US, but only 281 of them are independently owned. Most cities have only one main newspaper serving them.
    (From Media Alliance's "FCC in LA – Background and Talking Points" document.)

That means that most of the content we see and hear in the media is coming from just a few sources. To Media Alliance, this illustrates a trend towards homogenization of the news and an increasing lack of diversity in programming.

The FCC and advocates of loosening ownership restrictions disagree. In fact, they point to the increased variety of media options consumers have and highlight the fact that today there are so many more media choices than in the past. Bruce Owen, a Stanford University economist who represented ABC, CBS, and Fox at an FCC meeting in El Segundo, California last month, is one such advocate, according to a recent Multichannel News article. Owen maintains that every business seeks to integrate vertically and television networks are businesses. It only makes sense in a competitive media marketplace. FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate seems to agree. In a lecture at the James H. and Mary B. Quello Center for Telecommunication Management & Law at Michigan State University, her closing remark, as posted on the FCC website, states that "we all share the ultimate objective: keeping America safe, connected, and competitive in the 21st century."

No concrete decisions have arisen out of the hearings yet and so the debate rages on.

© 2006, Sasha A. Rae, All Rights Reserved

 

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Great site on right wing pro-israel media bias

by Great site on right wing pro-israel media bia Friday, Nov. 17, 2006 at 3:10 PM

Great site on right wing pro-israel media bias
www.ifamericansknew.org
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Reposting

by How israel isn't a democracy Saturday, Nov. 18, 2006 at 3:30 PM

Isn't true that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East? Maybe if more countries as democratic as Israel, peace might happen in no time למאמר בעברית


There is no denying of the fact that the Middle East is mostly ruled by autocratic, oppressive, and undemocratic regimes. On the other hand, the majority of these repressive regimes were mostly founded and funded based on Israeli and American wishes. It should be noted that the most popular revolts in the Middle East have been ruthlessly crushed by American puppet regimes (whom the West often refer to by "Moderate regimes") in the area. The regimes in Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Hashemite Kingdom, Lebanon (before the civil war), Arab Gulf States, Morocco, Iran (prior to the Islamic revolution), Turkey, ... etc., were all funded and directed by the United States of America; the land of the free and the home of the brave. Sadly, many of the so called "moderate regimes" are ten times more accountable to Uncle Sam than to their own public. Ironically, if democracy truly shall serve Israel's national interests in the region, then maybe it should direct its powerful lobby in Washington, AIPAC, to start lobbying on behalf of the oppressed in the Middle East; after all promoting "democracy is the key" to a lasting peace in the Middle East?

It's worth noting that soon after the 1948 war, the undemocratic Arab regimes were the central factor in protecting the newly emerging "Jewish state". And any forms of organized local resistance against Israel, similar to Hizbullah's in southern Lebanon, was ruthlessly dealt with in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Actually, many of Israel's "moderate" Arab neighbors transplanted most Palestinian refugee camps inland away from the Israeli borders, to curb the so called Palestinian "infiltration" [ or return] back to their homes in Israel. The so called "Infiltration Problem", which faced Israel between 1949-1955, had become the most pressing and expensive challenge to face the newly emerging "Jewish state". In other words, it's not the presence, but the absence of democracy that greatly serves the Israeli interests in the region, and based on that the United States has systematically shored up these unpopular regimes against the wishes of the people (i.e. the Hashemite Kings in Jordan, the Saudi Kings in Arabia, Mubarak of Egypt, Saddam Hussein in Iraq prior to the Gulf War, and the Emirates in the Gulf States), and undermined the popularly elected governments (i.e. toppling Musadiq in Iran in the early 1950s, invading Lebanon in the late 1950s, shoring up the Hashemites in Jordan in the late 1950s, and undermining Nasser in Egypt).

It's rarely questioned, by many Israelis and Zionists, how the Jewish minority in Palestine became a majority within few months in 1948. Since the inception of Zionism, its leaders have been keen on creating a "Jewish state" based on a "Jewish majority" by mass immigration of Jews to Palestine, primarily European Jews fleeing from anti-Semitic Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany. When a "Jewish majority" was impossible to achieve, based on Jewish immigration and natural growth, Zionist leaders (such as Ben Gurion, Moshe Sharett, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and Chaim Weizmann) concluded that "population transfer" was the only solution to what they referred to as the "Arab Problem." Year after year, the plan to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its indigenous people became known as the "transfer solution". David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister, eloquently articulated the "transfer solution" as the following:

* In a joint meeting between the Jewish Agency Executive and Zionist Action Committee on June 12th, 1938:

"With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for settlement] .... I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it." (Righteous Victims p. 144).
* In a speech addressing the Central Committee of the Histadrut on December 30, 1947:

"In the area allocated to the Jewish State there are not more than 520,000 Jews and about 350,000 non-Jews, mostly Arabs. Together with the Jews of Jerusalem, the total population of the Jewish State at the time of its establishment, will be about one million, including almost 40% non-Jews. such a [population] composition does not provide a stable basis for a Jewish State. This [demographic] fact must be viewed in all its clarity and acuteness. With such a [population] composition, there cannot even be absolute certainty that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority .... There can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60%." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 176 & Benny Morris p. 28)
* And on February 8th, 1948 Ben-Gurion also stated to the Mapai Council:

"From your entry into Jerusalem, through Lifta, Romema [East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood]. . . there are no [Palestinian] Arabs. One hundred percent Jews. Since Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, it has not been Jewish as it is now. In many [Palestinian] Arab neighborhoods in the west one sees not a single [Palestinian] Arab. I do not assume that this will change. . . . What had happened in Jerusalem. . . . is likely to happen in many parts of the country. . . in the six, eight, or ten months of the campaign there will certainly be great changes in the composition of the population in the country." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 180-181)
* In a speech addressing the Zionist Action Committee on April 6th, 1948:

"We will not be able to win the war if we do not, during the war, populate upper and lower, eastern and western Galilee, the Negev and Jerusalem area ..... I believe that war will also bring in its wake a great change in the distribution of Arab population." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 181)
* Click here for more "Transfer" (Ethnic Cleansing) quotes from Zionist leaders.

It's not only that the Zionists deemed it necessary to practice ETHNIC CLEANSING to build their vision of "Jewish Democracy", they have also opted to keep many Israelis in the dark by directly censoring what they read, hear, and see in the Israeli media. Martin Van Creveld (the renowned Israeli military strategist, and historian) eloquently described Israeli controlled censorship as follows:

* "The [Israeli military] censor exercises draconian power over the content in the media, licenses newspapers, and fines and suspends newspapers if, in his view, they have violated secrecy. He does not have to explain the reasons for his decision; indeed one paragraph in the law obliges newspapers to publish free ads by military censor denying or correcting information that papers themselves published. . . . Thus one of the [Israeli military] censor's main functions is to keep Israelis ignorant of what everybody else knows." (The Sword And The Olive, p. 110)
* "By this time [referring to the period prior to the October war in 1973] Israel's system of media self-censorship had begun to backfire. .... the media, voluntarily refraining from publishing the news, helped the IDF in its own assessment [that Arabs are incapable of going to war] and put the public to sleep." (The Sword And The Olive, p. 223)
* Click here to view a Real Movie depicting Israeli censorship on newspapers, radio, and TV networks.

For the moment, let's assume that the above facts, arguments, and quotes are nonsense to the average Israeli and Zionist, and let's ask the following questions:

* Are you aware that 95% of Israel's lands are open for development for "Jewish people" only?
* Are you aware that the Israeli-Palestinian minority (who are close to a quarter of Israel's citizens) are restricted to 3% of land?

The implementation of these apartheid policies resulted in disenfranchising a quarter of the Israeli population, who mostly continue to live in segregate, gated, and over crowded ghettos that are plagued with high unemployment rate and suffers from lack of basic services. In fact, there are over forty plus unrecognized Palestinian-Israeli villages (within the "Green Line") that receives no public services whatsoever , such as roads, sanitation, electricity, schools, ...etc.

Finally, it's worth emphasizing that "Israeli democracy" is an incarnation of Apartheid South Africa's democracy. It also could be argued that Apartheid South Africa was for a very long time the only democracy in Africa, however, it was a democracy for the White race only. Similarly, Zionist democracy in Israel was and still is designed to empower Jews only based on their religion. At one point, Israel has to choose between being a "Democratic Jewish State" or a "Democratic State" to all of its citizens, Jews and non-Jews alike. Eventually, such a facade to democracy will self-destruct, and until it changes, the talk about "Israeli democracy" is nothing but a propaganda that makes good sound bytes in the Western and Israeli medias.
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BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH!!!

by That is hilarious! The Yidiot talks of spam! Saturday, Nov. 18, 2006 at 3:48 PM

That is hilarious! The Yidiot talks of spam!
Coming from a whack job who threatens posters and spams multiple one-line inane quips over a period of minutes in a spasm of right wing anger at his impotence, I'll take that as a complement. It's kinda like Rush Limbaugh getting his panties in a twist, I proudly wear that badge of honor.
I am proud that a right wing israphile troll hates me soo much!
LMFAO!
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