Well, what have we here?  Senator Barbara Boxer comes forth with another damning report about corporate media consolidation that she says the FCC shelved.
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This one is even more damning.
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According to a Washington Post story, the number of commercial radio stations on the air rose 5.9 percent, while the number of station owners plummeted 35 percent during the time period from March 1996 to March 2003.
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And who's deeply involved in a renewed effort to relax or repeal restrictions against monopolistic media ownership?  Right-wing friendly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.
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The Republican majority on the Federal Communications Commission board voted, among other things, to "eliminate its existing system of measuring radio markets and use one favored by Arbitron, a private firm best known for measuring ratings. The commission decided not to force broadcasters to divest stations in markets where the new boundaries would push the broadcast companies over the limit," according to the Washington Post.
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Funny, this is about the time when the last remnants of dissenting opinion started disappearing from the radio airwaves.
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I ask again: why would a Republican-led FCC, and a Republican President Bush, be so determined to give big media even more power, if the media had a "liberal agenda?"
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I intend to shoot down this mindless myth that the media are "liberal" -- proof by irrefutable proof.  This mythical "liberal media" claim was itself popularized by the media -- and right-wing agitators bent on purging the last trace of dissent from the airwaves.
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If you have not already watched the 1946 school film Despotism, produced by Encyclopedia Britannica, I strongly urge doing so.
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http://www.archive.org/deta...
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Toward the end is a foreboding -- and astoundingly prophetic -- warning of the danger that a free and democratic society faces when media control falls into the hands of a privileged few with a narrow political view.
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