1949.jpgAfter a fantastic Book Salon with Susan Faludi yesterday afternoon, I settled in to watch some Bill Moyers' Journal regarding the consolidation of media control across the spectrum of print and broadcast reporting.  The intersection of the two was fascinating.  Susan Faludi in yesterday's comments:

As someone who has worked at many newspapers over the course of a career in journalism, I feel the same way. It was a depressing aspect of my book tour last month that as I traveled around and saw old friends at many of those papers, I kept hearing horror stories about cutbacks, layoffs, elimination of investigative reporting, proliferation of meaningless consumer “lifestyle” sections, and demands for stories that get a lot of clicks instead of stories that have actual import.

And from the Bill Moyers' piece yesterday on Minority Media:

...Once upon a time the Federal Communications Commission — the FCC — was a sleepy bureaucracy on a quiet street in Washington. The FCC is the government body that sets the rules for media. And for a decade now, it's become a citadel of power, swarming with media tycoons, high priced lawyers and well placed lobbyists, finagling to make sure the rules and regulations are shaped and bent to allow big media to get even bigger.

A handful of mega-media corporations have gained unprecedented control over radio ... television ... publishing and the Internet. They determine what music you hear, what stories get covered, whose opinions get expressed.

Until five years ago, people like you — the public — didn't matter very much at the FCC. Then, when the FCC Chairman Michael Powell announced that the commission was about to change the rule and allow a few media giants to own even more television and radio stations in one town, you said enough's enough. And somewhere between two or three million of you spoke up and deluged the FCC and Congress with phone calls, emails, letters, and postcards.

Now, a new chairman of the FCC Kevin Martin is pushing all over again to reward the Rupert Murdochs, the Time Warners, the Viacoms, General Electrics, and other conglomerates with what they want. And he wants it done by Christmas....

Why by Christmas, you might ask yourself?  Because we are in an election season.  All I have to say is Rupert Murdoch and Fox News or Clear Channel and the Dixie Chicks and Bruce Springsteen...and you see what media consolidation gets you in terms of diverse opinions.

Yesterday, I linked up the Bill Moyers' speech from the National Conference on Media Reform -- it is well worth a watch.  FreePress has been all over this, as have StopBigMedia and a host of other folks.  Do take some time this morning to watch the Bill Moyers' Journal -- it's available online, as is the transcript.  If you've asked yourself what the big deal is about net neutrality or media consolidation, this show will answer a lot of your questions.

Digby hit the fallout square yesterday:

...Grab the Maalox kids because I can feel it in my gut. The bad breath and the sleepy eyes and the bedhead are all around us. Come 2009, if a Democrat wins the presidency, the Village press will finally wake up from its 8 year somnambulent drool and rediscover its "conscience" and its "professionalism." The Republicans will only have to breathe their character assassination lightly into the ether --- the Village gossips will do the rest. And if this new president resists in any way, a primal scream will build until he or she is forced to appoint a special counsel to investigate the "cover up" and grovel repeatedly in forced acts of contrition in response to manufactured GOP hissy fits and media hysteria. We're going forward into the past (and judging from the haircut nonsense we've already seen, it isn't confined to Clinton.)...

If the media consolidation rules go through prior to Christmas, the present that all good wingy media moguls want from Santa's bulging pack, you can speed up that timetable tremendously.

The "good for the ratings" excuse will get trotted out as cover for every salacious little tidbit that drips from the fangs of GOP-pundits who have had to bite their tongues to keep from bitching about "Shrub And The Craptastics" the last few years. That's a whole lot of pent up energy waiting to burst forth. And this FCC ruling allowing for further corporate media consolidation is the invitation to the frenzy.

So much for journalism to educate the citizenry and differing points of view.  Hello tabloid hell, salacious idiocy, and ratings wars.  Goodbye facts and logic, hello whatever is necessary to boost the bottom line...even if it's a hollow controversy that we gin up ourselves to manufacture our own ratings.  At least each story will have individualized, pithy theme music....

Contact Information for the FCC:

1-888-225-5322 (1-888-CALL FCC) Voice: toll-free
1-888-835-5322 (1-888-TELL FCC) TTY: toll-free
1-866-418-0232 FAX: toll-free

Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554

(Photo via Roadsidepictures.)