Chris Matthews gave the whole thing away last night...

... it all makes better sense now, why the media is so pro-Bush. They're convering their own asses.

If you didn't see Hardball, Howard Dean was on. At one point, Matthews started asking him if the 'big media' should be broken up. Dean tried to modulate it, but he basically said 'yes', and that he would do that, in the name of localism in mediat representation.

Matthews pressed on about specific companies - Rupert Murdoch, GE. Dean danced around specifics, but it's clear that this has been on people's minds backstage at the show we watch every night. My guess is that the corporate media titans are worried s***less that something like this might happen if the Dems come back into power, especially after that populist rebellion against the new FCC deregulation (thank you, Michael Powell). And I also guess that the top Democrats have been saying this among themselves, and everybody knows it but nobody up there ever talks about it, until Matthews did last night.

Comments?

As opposed to the spineless, elected Dems.

Did they say anything about corporate media before the show got the axe?

You could be onto something.

as an example! And Dean jumped right in with "ideologically, yes!" he would like to see them broken up! HA!

Anyone who makes noises about pushing to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine is going to get nothing but the sharp end from the media people.

I know both Dean and Clark have said that they support at the least a review of the Fairness Doctrine so it's no suprise that when you come after their easy livelihoods they will at least tacitly side with those who will not consider any "re-regulation."

Reinstate it. With a vengance.

you could start by just closing the tax loopholes and citizenship requirements that Rupert Murdoch uses to stay in business. And you could also mandate that no defense company that contracts with the government can own a media company (hello, GE!) , for national security reasons. You could at least talk about it , to scare the f*** out of them.

And you could tighten the reins on cross-ownership in local markets.

The titans of Big media do not want any changes to the status quo. They love the endless supply of cash and big fundraising because most of the dollars end up in their pockets.

I think we need to refer to the media as "Propagandists." This is what they do. The American Media is a hyped up version of the old "Soviet Pravda."

Still, occasionally the truth squeezes out on the back pages or briefly across the roller, so it hasn;t fully sunk to Soviet levels...YET.

Yet.

I pity our great-granchildren if the Busheviks are not stopped. Freedom and a Free, Independant press will just be faded memories by then.

about it. When was the last time this party did anything right?

Perhaps the elites in this country saw a bit of the future in what happened in Seattle, and they didn't like it.

A more open press would allow discussions of how political power has been utterly corrupted by corporate power; and create a snowball effect. What can they do to stop it? Repressing civil liberties and stirring up a "common enemy" works for a while.

Speaker: Senator John Forbes Kerry (MA)
Title: Disapproving Federal Communications Commission Broadcast Media Ownership Rule
Location: Washington, DC
Date: 09/16/2003
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
SENATE
PAGE S11501
Sept. 16, 2003
Disapproving Federal Communications Commission Broadcast Media Ownership Rule
(At the request of Mr. DASCHLE, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the RECORD.)

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today the Senate will vote on a joint resolution, of which I am a proud cosponsor, to disapprove the Federal Communications Commission's June 2, 2003, rules designed to loosen restrictions on broadcast media ownership. It is the Commission's responsibility to ensure that media ownership rules serve our national goals of diversity, competition and localism. Unfortunately, the Commission's June 2, 2003, ruling fails to meet this standard.

The resolution before us today would reverse the FCC's decision to change the national television ownership cap from 35 percent to 45 percent, a decision that threatens local and independent voices in television. The television industry is undergoing rapid consolidation as a handful of national networks have acquired local stations across the country. I am concerned that when local stations are purchased by a national network, independent voices are lost in the media marketplace. Locally owned and operated stations are more likely to be responsive to local needs, interests and values than those stations owned and operated by national networks. Indeed many local stations are small businesses that drive innovative competition. A system of concentrated station ownership will trend toward nationalized programming aimed primarily at maximizing revenue with less concern for local interests and less room for competition.

The resolution before us today will also reverse the FCC's decision to significantly loosen restrictions on cross-ownership of broadcast stations and newspapers within single markets. The cross-ownership rule is intended to increase or at least maintain the number of independent editorial voices in a community. This is especially important in smaller communities where citizens have fewer media operations covering local matters. While there is scant evidence that weakening this rule will result in significant economic benefit, leading academics and media experts have argued that doing so will dangerously reduce the venues for independent public discourse.

I am also concerned with the process by which the FCC conducted these proceedings. This media ownership rulemaking is among the most important the FCC has undertaken, and it has garnered unprecedented public interest. Despite this, the Commission moved forward with dramatic rule changes without first taking public comment on a specific proposal. The Commission's outreach was simply insufficient. All parties concerned would have been better served if the Commission published a specific proposal and then allowed for a period of public comment before promulgating any rule changes.

The Commission's first responsibility is to ensure diversity, competition and localism. The Commission has no responsibility to facilitate the business plans of the major networks or any other narrow economic interest. I strongly support the disapproval resolution before us today.·

He voted for the 1996 TelCom Act.

Psst...there were some GOOD aspects to that act. But, you know that.

The fact that the bill was passed during the acme of Clinton's power blinded Democrats to the deleterious effects of the bill.

I don't hold that vote against Kerry and am glad he understands what it turned out to represent. You'll notice that I'm not calling it a "flip-flop." Sometimes cause and effect can change one's mind.

And one people often fail to take into account. Part of the problem of course is that the bills are revamped so many times, that one could have a legilative analyst look at it and advise and then the item voted on ends up with surprise phrases that one might not anticipate. Not saying that happened here but there USED TO BE the possibility of CLEAN UP legislation to address bad policy....doesn't seem to occur much anymore.

the First person to lose his job after Bush/Cheney will be Michael Powell and his two fellow Republican factotumsj on the FCC. We will return the PUBLIC airwaves to the PUBLIC who owns them!

they have to find some sort of rallying point, and there seems to be widespread sentiment against media concentration, as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of emails/cards/letters/faxes/calls received and ignored by the FCC as they considered the recent ramping up of media concentration

to the fascists.

Yo really want this guy negotiating with foreign leaders ? We'll wind up selling the Lousinanna Purchase back for the same amount.

who the hell are you for, anyway? Somebody more right wing than Bush?

Maybe you're one of those Lieberman supporters. If you're a Dem, I sure don't see why.

eom

The first guy to speak (from Time?) said that he "couldn't recall" that "very many" people asked about this issue at campaign rallies he'd been to. Pretty evasive language, I thought.

And this was brought up last night. Matthews was doing his usual twenty-cups-of-coffee manic hammering of Dean, and Dean was trying to get a word in edgewise and Matthews was saying "isn't capitalism good? Isn't regulation anti-capitalism" and Dean managed to bring up the point that in capitalism you have to have RULES and he said "could you imagine a hocky game without rules" (which I thought was great) but somebody needs to say this:

The "invisible hand" of capitalism is all about competition. Capitalism only "works" (as in getting the best products for the lowest prices) if there is COMPETITION. But with no regulation, what you DON"T get is competition, you get the biggest most successful companies eating up all the other companies and growing into near-monopolies!

THAT'S why you need regulations, to keep capitalism running.

These fuckers don't get it. Matthews even said something like the corporate control of the media was okay because "that's capitalism". But it's not! These morons don't seem to understand that capitalism only works with competition.

Without competition there are absolutely NO benefits to capitalism. You might as well live under communist Russian rule as have ONE media company giving you your news. It's the same goddamn thing.

Dean has this uncanny way of saying what I think, so maybe he'll say it next time. :)