illustration by Yoly Stroeve

Media Ownership

To communities faced with failing schools, a brutal and unfair criminal justice system, and the corporate takeover of poor communities, the increasing consolidation of media into the hands of a few multinational companies may not seem like the most pressing issue. But the ramifactions to media content and social policy are devastating. The concentration of media threatens free speech and public access to information, reduces media diversity and local control, and allows corporations to make huge profits from public airwaves with no accountability to the public - especially people of color and youth.

Today people of color make up 33% of the U.S. population but own only 3% of full-power commercial radio and television stations - the lowest recorded number in history according to a recent report from Free Press. Yet, as people of color are increasingly underrepresented in media decision-making, their communities rely disproportionately on corporate media to shape public debate on policy issues with great consequences for community rights and wellbeing. This quandary makes media ownership a critical issue for these and all disenfranchised communities.

What's worse, only a handful of multinational companies (Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, NewsCorp and General Electric) own all major primetime networks and most cable channels, including vast holdings in publishing, movies, music and the Internet; with the addition of Clear Channel owning a vast majority of radio outlets. Five corporations control 95% of nightly national news, and two-thirds of U.S. cities are dominated by a single corporate-owned newspaper. These companies have spent decades lobbying for government policies that decrease media diversity, reduce public control over media outlets, and make it difficult for smaller, independent media to compete. The result has been a devastating increase in corporate media that poses an imminent threat to ethnic and independent press.

A Call to Action
These corporate owners dominate media markets from Atlanta to New York to the Bay Area, where a single company (MediaNews Group) owns all but one major newspaper and Clear Channel owns 11 radio stations. This kind of consolidation disproportionately affects communities of color and youth in and beyond California. The time is now for under-represented communities to demand that the FCC limit corporate media ownership and increase public control and access to our media. At the same time, we must engage ethnic and independent media as partners in the struggle to transform our media system.

RESOURCES:

Stop Big Media

Free Press, "Out of the Picture" 

Center for Public Integrity Media Tracker

Columbia Journalism Review "Who Owns What" 

[Thanks to Free Press and StopBigMedia.com for background research in this area.] 

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