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Media Ownership Connected to Hate Speech

By Jon Bartholomew
Posted on Thu Oct 02, 2008 at 11:05:55 AM EST

Joe Torres at Free Press posted a blog yesterday titled "Hate Speech Rises in the Media" which gives some examples of the increase of hate speech in the mainstream media.

ANY hate speech is more than our society should have, but it's especially alarming when it is increasing. So where are the voices to counter the hate speech? Silenced. Not by force. Not by intimidation. But by the media ownership structure.

People of color who are being attacked by talking heads in the media have little capacity to respond or frame the message themselves because they can't get into the media market.

As the blog post notes:
"People of color make up more than one-third of the U.S. population but own just 3 percent of all local TV stations and 8 percent of radio outlets. Journalists of color make up only 13.5 percent of all newsroom employees working at daily newspapers and 19 percent of the local TV newsroom work force. As a result, stories about people of color are often told by journalists who know little about these communities."

Ownership by minorities will mean that the issues of concern to minorities will be addressed more appropriately. But given the huge barriers to entry into the media market, there need to be new legislation and changes to FCC rules to help increase diversity in the media.

First, renew the tax credit for minority media ownership. It would increase the ability of people of color to raise the capital to get into the broadcasting industry. This is a program that worked well until it was cut.

Second, the FCC needs to suspend the new media ownership rules that would hurt minority ownership. Then the FCC must immediately get to work on minority ownership by creating a task force to study the issue thoroughly. Then the FCC must not ignore the recommendations of the task force.

Third, expand opportunities for new media in underserved communities. Promote community broadband efforts. Support Public Access TV. Expand Low Power FM Radio.

These are just three key points. People are coming up with new ideas every day how to diversify the media.

For Common Cause, this is mostly about ensuring that all people in our democracy have a fair voice and access to the information that is needed to participate in our system. But for others, it may really be a matter of life or death.


Tags: media ownership, media diversity, FCC, media and democracy, media consolidation (all tags)


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Media Ownership Connected to Hate Speech :: 1 Comment

Power of Media and Abuse of that Power

The phrase "media ownership structure" is helpful and correct.  It is a myth that the media is "Liberal."  The media is corporate; it is a business and as such serves the bottom line of its invisible owners and investors.  The bigger the organization the less likely it is to find any sort of concern for the common good, any defensible ethics.  But in the end the corruption goes to the root; it is unfortunately an essential part of our world.  We have the old teaching that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that is a true teaching, but the fact is that we usually reserve our contempt for those forms of corruption that are seemingly absolute, and miss the point that our own little compromises of principle are part of the problem.  One American writer pointed out a long time ago that our corrupt politicians are simply a reflection of our "business ethics," i.e., the ethics of the bottom line, i.e., the ethics of no ethics.  The Chinese have an old saying too: "The inferior man acts through power.  The superior man does not act thus."  This is an either/or and cuts across all lines, i.e., it is not just about the rich and powerful.  The question then is, Who can do it, or rather, who has the courage to refuse the chance when it comes?  The fact is that in our modern world (and perhaps since the beginning of time) it is a heresy to have a power and not use it.  In relation to this the Media, one of the seven columns holding up our way of life and an essential element in the preservation of individual liberty, has immense educational and judicial power.  First it has an essential role to instruct the public concerning what is actually happening.  Then it has the power to try (in the court of public opinion) those other actors on the stage, including itself, who have the power to help or harm the public.  
So, the Media has the power both to preserve and to destroy a system of representative government and the freedom that characterizes it.  And unfortunately its power to corrupt is perhaps stronger than its power to correct and heal.  I mean it has both the power to lie, and the power to mask that lie as "common cause" with the man in the street.  
And this just about sums up the situation with our press today---from the top down and in every form.  I call as my Witness the ethical guidelines of the Associated Press which actually claim to be "the vigilant watchdog of the public interest," a claim that would be laughable if it were not so frightening---from a bully pulpit of almost unimaginable influence, it creates, preserves, and relies upon a naive public.  What could be worse, or more frightening?  For example, has anyone else noticed how A.P. releases have in the first paragraph or two begun to look like unattributed opinion rather than objective news?  If not, begin to read the A.P. releases in your local paper and see if you don't see here and there little violations of objectivity that, disguised as news, are nothing more than an attempt to manipulate conclusions.  What else could it be?  These people went to journalism school; they wrote the book on ethical journalism and based that on principles as old as the hills; ergo they know what they are doing!  Also, how is that different in principle from those two infamous attack dogs Rush and Bill?  The "voice" may sound different, but the thing itself is the same.  
And here is the message that the Media has the power to present, but apparently not the will to refuse: be afraid; those who disagree with you (i.e., you neighbors) are you enemy and not people with whom you have common cause; talk only with those who agree with you; despite any apparent respectability and sincerity, attack those all disagree with you; generosity and grace have meaning only within your own circle; partisanship (i.e., your part) is the only truth (i.e., is the whole); you are not bound by conscience to defend your opinions; do not question your "leaders;" they know better than you what to do in your interests; they have your interests at heart; things were better in the 50's but "we can't go back;" the system we have is the best in the world; down is up, and up is down, etc., etc., etc."  
If it is difficult for you and I to refuse just a little tiny compromise of principle, and we know it is, how difficult then do you think it is for our corporate media to say no to the immense power they have to serve their own interests, and make it look, all the while, like yours?  George Seldes told us that the press changed about 1910 when it began to make more money from advertising than from selling papers to the man in the street.  In those days there was a separation between the devil (big business interests) and the journalist---he had to decide whether or not he would succumb to the temptation and sell his soul for a few more advertising dollars.  Today there is no separation and therefore no such temptation.  The media is big business.  The media is the devil.  
So if you think a free press will keep an eye out for your freedom and your rights, think again.  No one can or will protect your freedom if they do not value their own, and the press today is not a free press but a business enslaved to a profit motive in which there is no room for common cause with the common man, with you and me.  
Let me give you a local example so that you can see just how bad it is.  It is not just the corporate giants who are the devil.  The majority of Americans get their print news not from sources like the New York Times or the Washington Post, but from small town newspapers that print under 50,000 newspapers.  My local newspaper, the (Yuma Daily) Sun, yesterday informed its readers, on page one and above the fold, that it had taken the "Top honors" at the Arizona Newspaper Association's awards ceremony.  And yet in the last 7 weeks it has printed headlines (again on page one and above the fold) that are totally false, that are in fact refuted by the articles that were printed under them.  Both were on vital issues, one local and one national.  One stated that the scores of students here in Yuma Arizona "surpass the state's"---an obvious fabrication since Yuma is in fact one of the lowest in the State!  The other , concerning a local proposition that the public is vehemently against, suggested to readers that they just don't understand, "Few understand arena prop," the headline said, though the article had nothing in it to support such a conclusion.  
So when you add this pernicious willingness to lead the public to false conclusions, and the Sun's practice of protecting its political and economic friends (even from themselves!) to the fact that this is a "Libertarian" rag owned by Freedom Communications Inc., which claims every chance it gets its commitment to Natural Law, (i.e., Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Freedom, etc.) then it is pretty clear what the general public is up against when it goes to the media in the hope of being informed. There is no such help.  Today the corporate media is not tempted by the Devil, but is the Devil.  And the sooner the American public wakes up the sooner we can begin to once again build a country founded on the sound principles of Natural Law that we find in our Constitution.  
Or, is it too late?  Perhaps.  In my view every one of the seven pillars holding up our society, even if still standing, is heavily damaged--- especially education and a free press!  And since my personal experience is that no bureaucrat or politician will even talk to me, much less listen openly to any suggestion, to be completely honest, I don't know where the public can go and find anything except vulgar self interest and a violation of their constitutional rights.  Of course speak out; but the problem is very very deep and in the end the only solution may be leaning, like a vague and lingering memory of our Founding Fathers, in a dark corner in the back of your closet.  I don't know.  
Jay Warren Clark  

Jay Warren Clark, philosopher, teacher, writer, and poet, is currently writing a book on censorship in small town America.

by JAY WARREN CLARK on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 06:00:40 PM EST


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