Murdoch + Newsday = Media Regulation, Please!
Let’s play a fun game called ‘Things Rupert Murdoch Owns’ - Fox News and Fox Business, Dow Jones, satellites, lots of other stuff, and, alarmingly, lots and lots of newspapers.
Newspapers that print things like:
MEN are slaughtered in front of their children, babies are ripped from their mothers’ arms and those who dodge the violence walk for days seeking sanctuary, shelter and ultimately peace.
This is just another day in the life of a tribal African trying to escape the clutches of a never-ending civil war. (Herald Sun, 29/9/07 p.3)
Murdoch’s putting sports on the front page of the WSJ. I don’t even read the WSJ and this upsets me.
Anyway, this is all to note my consternation over Murdoch’s bid (and probable deal) for Newsday. Should he acquire it, he would own three of the largest circulating papers, not only in New York, but in the entire country.
One person - especially someone as hands-on as Murdoch - owning that much content is simply a terrible idea, and the reason media regulations were put in place. Until they were gutted by Reagan, Clinton and Bush 42 in varying ways.
Blah, blah, blah - I’m just saying, it’s a bad idea. He intentionally lowers or eliminates the intellectual content on every media he touches - none of that highbrow stuff - and the lapsing of the Fairness Doctrine means he can essentially be as right wing (I mean ‘fair and balanced’) as he wants.
Really, though, it’s not even the unbalance, but the sensationalizing and dumbing down that is the problem. When the audience is trained not to expect or appreciate nuance, they lose their ability to adequately question the information they are given. When the world is presented as only black and white, it becomes easier to steer people towards one of these extremes.
In other news, my Firefox weather add-on has ‘18C and Smoke’ as the current conditions. I assume the City is on fire, but I’m too busy watching the PA polls to check.
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