People Still Get Their News From Local Newspapers And TV Stations?
from the massive-overreaction dept
I don't understand why people get so worked up about the FCC's various proposals to tweak the rules regarding how many TV stations and newspapers one company can own. The ownership of local newspapers and TV stations was important in the 20th century, when people only had a handful of choices on where to get their news. Local newspaper and broadcast television stations are becoming one small corner of a vastly larger media universe that includes dozens of cable television stations, thousands of news sites, and millions of blogs and podcasts. Nowadays, the real question isn't whether local newspapers and TV stations have too much influence; the question is whether anyone would notice if they disappeared.
Which brings us to FCC chairman Kevin Martin's New York Times op-ed defending his remarkably timid proposal to allow a newspaper in one of the 20 largest cities to purchase a TV or radio station—but not one of the metro area's four largest TV stations. Under his proposal, none of the FCC's other media ownership rules would be changed. In other words, a newspaper would be allowed to buy an also-ran TV station in a cacophonous media market like New York or LA, but the vast majority of cities would see no changes at all. Yet some members of Congress seem to think that even those miniscule changes are too much and have introduced legislation to require the FCC to spend even more time debating the issue, even though, as James Gattuso points out, that the FCC has been debating the issue for 11 years already. On the other hand, as ridiculous as the situation is, it's hard to have too much sympathy for the broadcasters. After all, they were happy to raise bogus fears of media concentration to stop the XM/Sirius merger this spring. Now the broadcasters are getting a taste of their own medicine.
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by Joel Coehoorn on Nov 14th, 2007 @ 1:56pm
People would most certainly notice if local newspapers or tv news outlets disappeared, even those who get all of their news from the web. The fact is that even the internet-only news outlets rely on them to do most of the legwork. If you follow the chain of links for a story to it's origin more often than not you'll end up at the web site for a local newspaper or tv station.
Allowing one company to become too powerful in a local market may not have an effect on how you get national or global news, but it can have serious implications on the debate of local issues.
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Local News by Gracey on Nov 14th, 2007 @ 2:13pm
I still read the local papers - I don't read the "big" papers and I don't watch tv news.
The local paper carries local news, the rest of them don't.
Would I notice if it disappeared? You bet I would.
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Local News by Johnny D on Nov 14th, 2007 @ 2:18pm
Not too mention the problem of what happens when an organization with too much bias to the left or rights controls too much information...
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slippery slope by techdirtReader on Nov 14th, 2007 @ 2:41pm
Fear of the slippery slope. Fear of having 3-7 huge company running 95% of all the channels and newspapers. The slippery slope starts with a few reasonable laws easing consolidation regulations, each enlarging the precedent and redefining what is reasonable, and then growing from there.
"well we are already allow corporations to own a,b & c types of media, it makes no sense that they aren't allow to run type d. In fact, companies that operate d are in a uncompetitive position because they can't operate a, b, and c. This new legislation eases the consolidations restrictions and brings in more fairness and consistency".
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TV news by Pro on Nov 14th, 2007 @ 2:44pm
Why would anyone - in this day and age choose to acquire their news from the TV, when the internet provides up to the minute news on demand?
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Ditto for Joel Coehoorn by Bob on Nov 14th, 2007 @ 2:46pm
Although my local newspaper is online I reference it mostly for archive purposes. On a daily basis it is still easier to browse the paper version. I spend enough time in front of a Screen.
For the exact reasons Joel listed we would notice if they were gone.
The corporatization of local media is more quickly noticed in radio where local shows and personalities are replaced by Bob and Jack FM - very bad....
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Broadcast and Print lies by ommision by DadsDrive on Nov 14th, 2007 @ 3:06pm
The very point of keeping ownership diversified would or should be so the masses are actually informed.
The media giants have asked for this, All four owners, Rupert Murdoch's Fox and other holdings, Sony's CBS, General Electric's NBC, and last but not least Disney's ABC.
I have never read where the general populace demanded from the FCC that there should be fewer owners and more control by fewer owners!
Airwaves (that belong to the citizens)are entrusted to be of fair use by the governing body that is the FCC in the USA.
Subscription services are excluded by the very nature of the beast, you pay for use.
Have you ever wondered what happened to the local TV station editorial? Yes they used to be a part of every station as was the seal of good broadcasting standards.
News outlets regardless of point of view should be locally owned and operated period, as they used to be.
It seems to me true investigative reporting has been replaced with talking head "Repeaters" of stories they were
told to read or print.
Check out
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairnessdoct/fairnessdoct.htm
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Re: slippery slope by Tim lee on Nov 14th, 2007 @ 3:32pm
We're nowhere close to "3-7 huge companies" running 95% of the media outlets in the country, and things certainly aren't going in the direction of more concentration. There are dozens of large companies in the media business and hundreds of small ones. And on top of that, people are increasingly getting their news on the Internet, and on the Internet there are literally thousands of high-quality, independent sources of news from across the political spectrum. Large media conglomerates are struggling to hold onto the market share they've got in the face of an explosion of new options.
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Re: Ditto for Joel Coehoorn by Petréa Mitchell on Nov 14th, 2007 @ 3:50pm
What they said, and I'd add that there are a ton of ways I can get national and international news from the Internet, but absolutely nothing to match my local paper. (Including its Web site, which sucks.)
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Local paper tops by Max Powers at http://ConsumerFight.com on Nov 14th, 2007 @ 4:13pm
I need my local news. I too love to read my local paper, and it also sucks online. I ignore all the other news except what's going on in my local area. Other than that, you can throw all the other papers in the trash.
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LOCAL news by Haywood on Nov 14th, 2007 @ 4:16pm
I live in a fair sized city 40 miles from to very large cities. We get mention on the TV news and internet but not in depth reporting. Our local government is rather corrupt, and the local paper kept them in check pretty well until it was bough out by Belo, now it is more just a branch of the Meteo news. It is still much better than nothing and they still take the local government to task when the corruption boils over, but the nit picking is gone and missed.
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by Anonymous Coward on Nov 14th, 2007 @ 6:34pm
That's it! I can't take TechDirt any more. They have no historical perspective whatsoever.
Who needs independent local news sources - MY GOD!
It's plainly run by a bunch of uneducated children who have learned NOTHING from history.
They may as well hire that troll Dorpus who shows up here from time to time.
I am outa here - for good.
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Re: by Mike on Nov 14th, 2007 @ 10:35pm
Who needs independent local news sources - MY GOD!
Er... that's not what Tim said... but, why bother actually reading when you just want to insult us.
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Rock The Vote? by Derek Kerton on Nov 15th, 2007 @ 12:04pm
TV and newspapers may be shrinking in importance, but it's naive to think that, just because we netizens get our news from the web, they are irrelevant.
There are scores of people out there who still couldn't define the word "blog" for you, but could surely define "jumble". And lots of folksy folks tune in everyday at 6 to learn about, "What's in your home that could be killing you."
But an important consideration is this: What percentage of people with MySpace pages votes, versus what percentage of nightly news watchers votes? Personally, I think newspapers and TV news have a massive influence on who gets elected, and as such, I'm not as eager to give control over to Rupert Murdock as Tim is.
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