As time goes on, people should be aware of several alarming facts. The media in the United States, and several other places in the world, is increasingly being centralized into a few news organizations. As evidenced by many sites, including freepress.net and fair.org, these corporations include many media and news outlets, and continue to become bigger.
As this happens, more and more Americans are getting their news from very few organizations, regardless of how many shows they watch. Instead of valuing small, thought provoking, and independent journalism, we instead are getting large conglomerates who answer to their rich owners and corporate funders. The independent, small scale journalism is held accountable to the people. Since their operation depends solely on, say the publication of a single newspaper, they are more likely to listen to criticisms about their integrity or depth, since their success depends on only one or a few journalistic ventures.
Now, it will be quite difficult to prevent or change the course that is happening at this moment. But there is action that everyone can take. Write to congress. Tell them to pass legislation limiting the spread of media conglomerates. Bring up anti trust legislation. Encourage limitation on these media empires. In addition, support your local papers. If they have not been bought up already, encourage the operators not to sell. Buy papers that are not from these empires, buy magazines that you value for there in depth, thought provoking coverage of the news. Lastly, if you are unsatisfied with the media, start spreading your own magazines, newspapers, and pamphlets. Encourage others to do the same. Take on the empires. Make journalism truly free and balanced.
No comments:
Post a Comment