WASHINGTON -- During the first days of spring, cold winds blew
through the nation's capital. The weather was an apt metaphor for the
chilling effects of a perennial news industry desensitized to its own
numbing. Don't worry, we've been told countless times: Media outlets are
diverse enough to maintain vigilance.
"I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political,
that doesn't have a slant," E.B. White observed in a 1956 essay. To that
candid assessment he added a more dubious one: "The beauty of the American
free press is that the slants and the twists and the distortions come from
so many directions, and the special interests are so numerous, the reader
must sift and sort and check and countercheck in order to find out what the
score is. This he does."
I thought of such claims the other day, while passing through the
National Press Building lobby. Eight networks were on eight television
screens. With the possible exception of the Weather Channel, they all
certainly had slants. Two eminent members of the punditocracy occupied two
screens. The odious Don Imus was on another. Investor news was also
profuse. Lots of slants. But not from many directions.
The media industry -- no less than the campaign system -- is awash
in oceans of dollars. Commercial broadcasters siphon huge profits from
frequencies that theoretically belong to the public. Cable TV conglomerates
expand under the protection of federal regulations placing severe limits on
the power of municipalities to charge franchise fees for the use of public
rights-of-way. Station owners proceed to cash in on their free portions of
a digital spectrum worth billions of dollars.
We're hearing a lot about the need for campaign finance reform --
but how often have we heard the phrase "media finance reform"?
Assurances about the present-day media system often resemble the
more complacent defenses of how politicians get elected. In late March,
lauding "the classic Madisonian structure of American democracy,"
syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote: "Madison saw 'factions,'
what we now call interests, not only as natural, but as beneficial to
democracy because they inevitably check and balance each other."
But the phrase "check and balance" deserves another look -- in a
financial context. The big checks and big (bank) balances are hardly
reassuring.
Complacency rests on mythology, as when Krauthammer cites Madison:
"His solution to the undue power of factions? More factions. Multiply them
-- and watch them mutually dilute each other." However, when we "watch
them," any such "solution" becomes implausible. Power is steadily more
concentrated, not diluted.
The media establishment has a hefty stake in the status quo. A
curb on campaign spending would eat into profits. Last year, an estimated
$1 billion in campaign-ad revenue flowed to TV stations. And during the
2000 election cycle, "soft money" campaign contributions totaled more than
$5.5 million from the corporate owners of five powerhouse networks -- Time
Warner (CNN), Walt Disney (ABC), News Corp. (Fox), Viacom (CBS) and General
Electric (NBC).
But even if big donors vanished from campaign financing, we'd
still be left with the crying need for media finance reform. If those who
pay the piper call the tune, why is that any less true in news media than
in politics?
Midway through the Senate debate on the McCain-Feingold bill, a
Washington Post editorial declared: "The goal should be to reduce the flow
of funds, the extent to which offices and policies now are all but openly
bought by the interest groups that the policies affect." The newspaper
added that with so much big money flowing into the coffers of senators,
"There is no way they cannot be beholden."
That's true. And when you consider America's major media outlets
-- and the massive corporate ownership and advertising involved -- the same
conclusion should be inescapable. "There is no way they cannot be beholden."
Free and open discourse is essential to democracy. But no one on
the Senate floor has demanded the taming of the nation's media giants. Amid
all the talk about the sanctity of the First Amendment, we don't hear
politicians or mainstream pundits insisting that multibillion-dollar
conglomerates be pushed off its windpipe. As a practical matter, the top
guarantee in the Bill of Rights is gasping for breath. Free speech is of
limited value when freedom to be heard requires big bucks.
Norman Solomon's latest book is The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media. His
weekly syndicated column focuses on media and politics.
