Words matter. These are the best Robert McChesney Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
As the mainstream media has become increasingly dependent on advertising revenues for support, it has become an anti-democratic force in society.
And they’ve got to be held accountable; our broadcasting system has to be made accountable; and unless it is, it’s going to be very hard to change anything else for the better in this country.
So the system we have in radio and television today is the direct result of government policies that have been made in our name, in the name of the people, on our behalf, but without our informed consent.
Because what’s going on now, and this applies mostly to television stations in the largest markets too, but TV stations basically are now the primary receivers of campaign spending.
If you’re running for reelection in the House of Representatives race, you know, it’s very important to you that you be on fairly good terms with the local affiliates in the largest market in your area. I mean you don’t want to antagonize them.
Our existing media system today is the direct result of government laws and subsidies that created it.
The public gets not one penny from them in return for those airwaves.
Local television news, on both radio and television, is so appalling. Makes print journalism look like the greatest stuff ever written.
Also, the commercial media in a superior position, really, to any other corporate lobby, because where would people hear about commercial media or corporate media criticism, where would they hear criticism of them other than in the commercial media?
But having said that, there’s also a sea change in attitude towards media.
When the government picked companies and gave them monopoly rights to frequencies in San Francisco and Los Angeles and New York and Chicago, it was picking the winners of the competition; it wasn’t setting the terms of the competition.
And understand that scarce spectrum is used today for example for cell phone operators, they have to pay for the airwaves they use, for their services.
Which is supposed to mean they’re doing something in their broadcasting they would not do is they were simply out to maximize profit; if they were really public service institutions, not purely profit maximizing institutions.
The relationship between the media owner, their relationship isn’t strictly with people and audiences. It’s also with advertisers, and that’s the most relationship in radio; in fact it pays the bills.
One survey that I saw that was published I think in Variety or Electronic Media within the last three weeks says that now the average hour of radio in the United States has 18 minutes of commercials.
So the competition isn’t once you got the license, running the station; it’s getting the license.
But having said that, what’s happening with campaign finance reform and our political culture is devastating.
When the government allocates monopoly rights to frequency, and there are only a handful in each community, it’s picking the winners in the competition.
So it’s a much more difficult issue to organize around, because you can’t get media at all to make your case. And that’s where cases tend to be made politically.
