Thom Hartmann: Media Monopoly Should Scare the Hell out of President Obama

Unsatisfied with his media empire in the UK and Australia and his several media holdings in the United States like The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and Fox News, Rupert Murdoch wants more. The only thing standing in Murdoch’s way of full-spectrum media domination in America are Federal Communication Commission rules that forbid one company from owning both a newspaper and a television station in one community. Murdoch already owns local television stations in both Chicago and Los Angeles. But according to sources within the FCC, Chairman Julius Genachowski is quietly planning to scrap those rules. Under pressure from major media moguls like Murdoch, who see big bucks and huge political power in a consolidated national and local media, Genachowski circulated a new order to other FCC Commissioners that would allow for cross-ownership of TV and newspapers in the nation’s twenty biggest media markets. Today, only five corporations - one of which is Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp - own the majority of all the media seen, read, or listened to by Americans. If the FCC gets completely out of the way, then further consolidation will follow suit. Which is a huge problem for democracy. If there’s one monopoly that’s more dangerous than all of the others, it’s a media monopoly.

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