A Media Monster Is Eating the Demsby Flavia Monteiro Colgan, AlterNet.org
The ever-consolidating news media in this country is not only destroying political discourse, it's favoring the right-wing over Democrats.
Recent momentous news about the continuing elimination of variety in our news sources has gotten scant coverage.
First, it was announced that Village Voice Media intended to merge with the New Times papers. The Voice was, for years, a dependable independent news source available not only in New York, but in major cities everywhere, while its sister papers independently covered local news in four other areas....
And, just days ago, it was reported that Knight Ridder, the publisher of 32 newspapers, including the Daily News and the Inquirer, will likely go up for sale, and the vultures are circling. Gannett, a likely suitor, already owns 99 daily papers.
This is a trend not just in print, but in broadcast and even the Internet. Today, 90 percent of the top 50 cable stations are owned by the same conglomerates that own the top networks, where more than 80 percent of prime-time viewing is dominated by these same five media giants. They also own the top 20 Internet news sites! And it's only going to get worse.
Media consolidation eats away at the fabric of democracy, which, as Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, a nonpartisan media reform group, points out, "demands an informed citizenry with access to a variety of voices and viewpoints."
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