Big Business is Bad News

THANKS to the exploits of Ivan Boesky and his fellow corporate raiders, everyone has become acquainted with such phrases as "mergers and acquisitions," "insider trading" and "hostile takeover." But while the media have closely covered the excesses of Wall Street, they have not been so careful to report the recent slew of takeovers in their own industry. Ben Bagdikian, the dean of Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, has called these developments, in a book of the same name, "The Media Monopoly."

In 1982, fifty corporations owned a majority of the nation's book publishing firms, newspapers and broadcasting companies. Under Reagan, that number was halved. Today, only 26 corporations, including such companies as Capital Cities/ABC, Gannet Co., McGraw-Hill, Time, Inc. and Warner Communications own half or more of all the media outlets in the United States. In the 1940s, four out of five U.S. newspapers were privately owned. Today, almost four out of five newspapers are under corporate ownership. Twenty corporations owned most of America's magazines in 1982. By 1987, because of increased mergers and acquisitions, the 20 corporations were reduced to six corporations, and Time, Inc. now controls about forty percent of the magazine market.

Media conglomerates like to point out the benefits of corporate control of the press. They argue that a large company can stand up to governmental pressure or libel suits more easily than an independently owned paper or radio station. This may be true, but the costs outweigh these benefits.

One dangerous result of media conglomeration is the diminishing number of cities with two daily newspapers. Often, when a large corporation takes over a newspaper, its increased financial resources drive competing dailies out of business. Today, only 2 percent of American cities have more than one daily paper.

Howard Simons, the former managing editor of The Washington Post, said that "part of the conservatism [in newspapers today], and by conservatism I mean less risk taking, is that in many cities you have one newspaper or one overwhelmingly dominant newspaper...In the old days, when you had two or three newspapers per city, if you had an aggrieved party or someone who wanted to tip you to a really juicy story...and one newspaper didn't want it for whatever reasons--political, ideological or otherwise--you could always walk across the street to another newspaper."

THE CEOs of the big media corporations are almost all white, male, conservative and Republican. Most of the corporations are members of the Fortune 500, and many invest in banking, nuclear power, defense or energy industries. Bagdikian writes that it is "normal for all large businesses to make serious efforts to influence the news, to avoid embarassing publicity and to maximize sympathetic public opinion and governmental policies. Now they own most of the news media that they wish to influence."

NBC aired a documentary last year called "Nuclear Power: In France It Works." A month later two accidents in French nuclear power plants injured seven workers and polls showed that one out of three French citizens were against nuclear power. Although the accidents were covered in the American press, NBC News didn't mention the accidents. The left-wing media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting pointed out that since 1986, NBC has been owned by General Electric, the second largest nuclear power producer in the U.S. G.E. didn't write the documentary, or control how the French accidents were covered, but if you were an NBC reporter or news editor, would you want to investigate a story that might displease your bosses?

A few weeks ago, Bill Kovach, the highly-respected editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution resigned after a disagreement with his publisher. The New York Times reported that "some staff members suggested that the management of the Atlanta newspapers had been under pressure to rein in Mr. Kovach because of his aggressive coverage of [Atlanta's] business community." According to the Times article, the newspaper's investigations had angered David Easterly, president of Cox Enterprises, Inc., which owns the Journal Constitution. Cox Communications is also one of the 15 corporations that own most of the American press.

ANOTHER distressing result of corporate control of newspapers is the lack of space and attention devoted to local issues. Corporations take over newspapers to make money, not provide good, informative journalism.

Yesterday, The New York Times chronicled the decline of the Greenville, Mississippi Delta Democrat-Times. In the 40 years that the paper was privately owned, it fought the racial intolerance of the Ku Klux Klan and the Mississippi legislature and struggled to get better schools for the area.

Since its takeover by Freedom Newspapers, Inc., the 16th largest newspaper chain, the Democrat-Times has referred to Greenville's only Black city council member as an orangutan and, following the parent company's Libertarian politics, has criticized school desegregation laws. As a result, many readers of the paper feel alienated from an institution that should, at least to some extent, represent their interests.

The Kovach resignation and the changes in The Delta Democrat-Times are just two examples of a rapidly worsening trend. One merger and acquisitions specialist who concentrates on the media has estimated that within ten years, only six corporations will own all of the American media. Newspapers, magazines and broadcasters are supposed to keep an eye on the powers-that-be; instead, big business is making the media wear corporate blinders.