Obama's FCC Set to Give Rupert Murdoch a Media Monopoly

[brentspeak]

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13051-obamas-fcc-set-to-give-rupert-murdoch-a-media-monopoly

Obama's FCC Set to Give Rupert Murdoch a Media Monopoly

Thursday, 29 November 2012 14:35 By Thom Hartmann and Sam Sacks, The Daily Take | Op-Ed

Unsatisfied with his media empire in the UK and Australia and his several media holdings in the United States like TheWall Street Journal, the New York Post, and Fox News, Rupert Murdoch wants more. He wants a media monopoly.

Murdoch is currently jockeying to buy the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, which just so happen to be the largest newspapers in the nation’s second and third largest cities. That will add to his current media empire in the United States, which includes the most watched cable news network in the nation, Fox so-called News, and the most circulated newspaper in the nation, The Wall Street Journal.

The only thing standing in Murdoch’s way of full-spectrum media domination in America are Federal Communication Commission rules that forbid one company from owning both a newspaper and a television station in one community. Murdoch already owns local television stations in both Chicago and Los Angeles.

But according to sources within the FCC, Chairman Julius Genachowski is quietly planning to scrap those rules. Under pressure from major media moguls like Murdoch, who see big bucks and huge political power in a consolidated national and local media, Genachowski circulated a new order to other FCC Commissioners that would allow for cross-ownership of TV and newspapers in the nation’s twenty biggest media markets.

[dipsydoodle]

1. News Corp: LA Times, Chicago Tribune Reports Are False

Oct 20 (Reuters) - News Corp said on Saturday reports that it is in discussions with Tribune Co or the Los Angeles Times are "wholly inaccurate."

The Los Angeles Times newspaper reported on Friday that News Corp Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch is looking to buy the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, two of the country's largest newspapers, when owner Tribune Co emerges from bankruptcy.

The paper also reported that News Corp executives are in the early stages of talks with Tribune Co's debtholders including Oaktree Capital, with an eye toward securing footholds across the three top U.S. markets of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/20/news-corp-la-times-chicago-tribune_n_1993674.html

[RKP5637]

2. He who owns the media melds the minds to their thinking and eventually absorbs the nation. n/t

[KharmaTrain]

3. Newspapers Are On Life Support These Days...

The Chicago Tribune continues to wallow in bankruptcy and there's lots of rumors of the company being sold off piece by piece whenever the company is given the green light and without its media lifeline the Chicago Tribune and LA Times will be very hard-pressed to stand on their own. This is the same with other newspapers that for years were the money makers in the media family but now struggle to fill a third of the pages they used to. Many smaller town papers are vanishing or going online only as younger people prefer look at the world through their puters and cellphones.

The cross ownership rules haven't had much bite for a long time as "deregulation" and changes in technology have reduced the value and marketshares of broadcasting and newspapers. Look at this as a desperate lifeline from corporations that are drowning in their own red ink and this is the first step in consolidating the debts. With the convergence of media the lines of cross ownership have little to no significance...