Media Consolidation - nah!

What makes anybody think there is any media consolidation in Canada? This perhaps, the Canada.com stable? (bolded outlets in BC, I think)

NEWSPAPERS

National Post
Victoria Times Colonist
The Province (Vancouver)
Vancouver Sun
Edmonton Journal
Calgary Herald
Regina Leader-Post
Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Windsor Star
Ottawa Citizen
The Gazette (Montreal)
DOSE
Vancouver Island Newspapers
VANNET Newspapers

TEEVEE

Global TV
Global National
Global BC
Global Calgary
Global Edmonton
Global Lethbridge
Global Saskatoon
Global Regina
Global Winnipeg
Global Ontario
Global Quebec
Global Maritimes
E! (how many, or will they all be?)
CHEK NEWS
CHCA NEWS
CHCH NEWS
CJNT Montreal
TVTropolis
Specialty Channels (how many?)

How would separate ownership really help?

Although I'm in favour of competition over monopoly, how does regulation help the consumer?

Even if a single corporate monolith owned all of the print and television outlets, do they really control the news? In this day of the interweb, digital phones, fax machines etc., I think not. Kids have been rocking to western tunes in Tehran and getting democracy activism news in Beijing despite living in countries with supposedly total media censorship.

Even today, with separate owners, the mainstream media tends to sound very alike, partly because it is cheaper and easier to run wire copy than to do real investigative journalism, and because any advertiser-supported medium is going to be heavily influenced by the needs of business.

(The irony is that the real, uncensored hard news will always be found in the business section, because business actually needs real information to operate effectively.)

deadline for submissions

I would like to send in a submission for the hearings, but of course, they have cleverly set the deadline for written submissions (July) so far ahead of the hearing dates (September) that the mainstream public -- only hearing about the panel inquiry in the news now -- is effectively and most beautifully blocked from full stream participation.

Just one more example of the clever, obvious, and dirty ploys used to limit and control the grassroots public voice. There's absolutely NO reason why the panel couldn't continue to accept written submissions at least until the day the hearings close -- so that people could attend the hearings and then comment on what they've heard. Patently, they don't WANT to hear from the public, that's why.
Gee, I wonder why?

Interesting yammer

Did you read the interview with Alan Greenspan in the WSJ?

The one where he says that the war in Iraq WAS all about oil?

Only about 4 years late!

I'm not sure that what's happening on kids' computers and in the music biz actually has all that much to do with it - mostly the neo-cons are just happy to have young folks sitting at computer consoles and playing games...(rather than out in the streets demonstrating)… when they haven't got their ears plugged with 'music' that's being played too loud to permit any independent thought anyway. Half the time more than 50% of the people who get their information on the web really haven’t assimilated and understood it anyway.

Media concentration and media 'irresponsibility' is a big problem. I see Microsoft hasn't been able to do a deal with the EU over their anti-competitive habits either...

Yammer, interesting reply. I

Yammer, interesting reply. I think you're partly right, but you've contradicted yourself somewhat.

Your third paragraph ("even today")is partly correct, putting the essential problem in a nutshell: that of a limited, one-version-only national newsline. However, you suggest that "one" version is the result of cheap business practices, and while that might be partially true, imo, it has more to do with the political desire to keep the public chorus singing the same political song (reading and hearing same news story with one slant from all sources).

Your second paragraph ("even if a single monolith...")is naive. De Tocqueville foresaw what trouble would happen in America when he wrote that there would be a gigantic choice of news sources down the road (ie. 648 satellite channels), but that the truth would be so buried in the mix citizens would have a great deal of trouble finding it. A zillion channels, sure, but all slanted in one direction. And yes, there are internet newspapers with integrity such as this one and small cable stations that offer more honest, dedicated versions of status-quo stories, but they don't usually attract mainstream audiences or big corporate advertisers (ask the guys who run this newspaper and the writers here how much money they make!), and most citizens are far too lazy and apathetic to search for the real news.

You give the common Joes far too much credit if you think they'll climb off their lazy-boys and take the effort and TIME it takes to search out credible news sources on the website when they can just pick up their front porch newspapers and click on any channel on TV and get it, NOW. They're also not likely to believe "secondary and small," non-mainstream news sources, because they're brainwashed by our education system and the media to believe that only "big is better." As Hitler said, if the lie is repeated enough times, people will believe it, as in this bit of pablum, we, the public, are fed daily: "The big papers and TV announcers must be telling the truth, the little ones/nobodies don't know what they're talking about."

"Alda and the Common Joes"

Sounds like a hippie band!

---

There's a couple of problems with worrying about what the Common Joe would do viz the monolopization of mainstream media.

First, like you, I don't believe that C.J. is all that interested in reading what you'd call real, hard news. My belief is that MSM does a lot of focus-testing with consumers, and that is why so much of the newspaper/broadcast is devoted to interesting but mostly entertaining news about movies, sports, luxury products, sex scandals, and local crime. If there were five corporate giants publishing instead of one or two, would there be more stories about deep integration, CFCs, opposition to imperial warmongering, or anything else that is alternative and subversive? Maybe. But I doubt it.

Second, I believe that alternative, serious-minded people don't trust the MSM anyway, and actually prefer to get their news from smaller, independent sources. So I don't see a problem with access to news, unless the law suddenly forbade tiny-but-loud publications, and maybe not even then.

Third, I don't think that news is necessarily more influential because of widespread media attention. Tipping point theory suggests that ideas are spread because they are known to key, influential, active people, rather than because the masses are routinely inundated with them.

I mean, look at something like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which was founded by just one pissed-off person -- yet, because her idea was good, they've gotten thousands of anti-drunk driving laws passed.

All that said, of course I'd like to see more rather than fewer sources of news. More competition for my writing services!!!

no left nutter

http://blog.compete.com/2007/01/25/top-20-websites-ranked-by-time-spent/

The average amount of time spent on a website is difficult to determine. What is "above average" and what's "below average"? About 30% stay 5 minutes or longer, but 52-53% exit in less than 30 seconds. The data in the link above is also interesting.

You'll note that most of the time is spent on narcissistic exercises like facebook and myspace.com.

Draw your own conclusions. Surfing the web is not an intellectual exercise - Do a reality check on Wikipedia data sometime - pick something a bit obscure and notice how the entries elsewhere on the same subject jibe exactly with that from other sites. Then do a google search and you'll find that the same information, word for word, in many cases, appears all over the web.

The problem with most web-based knowledge is that the 'learner' (and I use that word advisedly) thinks he or she knows something and is a bit of an expert because she can use a search engine. Much of the time cut and pasted material reused in student and other reference works has not even been read, let alone analyzed. In fact, in my personal experience, that happens far more than half the time.

If you aggregate the amount of time spent playing multi-member on line games and/or downloading music and movies and set it against total man/woman hours spent online I wager the amount of actual time spent 'learning' anything from the web is very very small and certainly less than 50% once vanity, email and chat sites are also taken into account. Then there’s the porn factor – which I won’t even get into.

Widespread media attention

"I don't think that news is necessarily more influential because of widespread media attention. Tipping point theory suggests that ideas are spread because they are known to key, influential, active people, rather than because the masses are routinely inundated with them."

Yammer: You have it backwards. "Key, influential people" disseminate their ideas" through "widespread media," usually for corporate and/or political gain- not the other way around.

You don't think news is infuential because of widespread media attention? That's illogical and naive. As with advertising, if the relentless pushing of certain political or social points of view via news stories (ie. that our war in Afghanistan is a "good fight" -- a fact we hear night after night after night on our network news) weren't trying to achieve a certain goal, believe me, they wouldn't bother putting it repeatedly on air. They'd move to "sexier" stories.

As a highly educated, urban, socially active professional, I'm the furthest thing imaginable from a "hippy," but thank you for the compliment.

The Russ Mills firing

To me, the 2002 firing of Russell Mills at the Ottawa Citizen was a pivotal event. I liked the idea of getting a local paper, so begrudgingly subscribed to the Vancouver Sun. I cancelled it and to this day respond to all offers that I will not pay for a CanWest Global paper until they sell either the Sun or the Province and we have some diversity in this city.

Some of these young kids who telemarket have no idea of how CW-G has interfered with content and local control.

Alda - the exception

The exception never proves the rule.

You seem to be quite able to articulate your belief that, say, Afghanistan is not a good fight, despite them not being echoed in the mainstream press.

What harm has befallen you, then? You've not been kept in the dark.

So it shall be, I think. There will always be those who want to know more.

Hence I won't take the gloom 'n doom approach to media conglomeration, although, as I said, I don't prefer it like that.

the songbook

Choir directors actually enjoy lots of voices, as long as the counterpoint, sustained notes and melody all HARMONIZE.

Am I preaching to the choir here?

the good fight

Yammer:

I can probably articulate my issues with Afghanistan because as an educated academic I can afford the time to take the time to investigate what's really going on over there and why we are there via alternative sources.

Your average tired, over-worked, guy and gal with 3 screaming kids and a heavy mortgage to pay, who's worked overtime 4 days out of 5, and has never taken an interest in serious politics to begin with (thanks to a culture that fosters entertainment over content), in most cases, won't.

The harm is, then, that the mainstream public HAS been kept in the dark about important social, financial, and geo-political issues and is therefore likely to vote for erroneous policies in numerous ways; they're duped by the perspective they hear in the mainstream media, and/or given less facts than necessary to make critical judgments on important topics.

I do take your point, though, that dispersing the control to yet OTHER corporations isn't much of an improvement. I still believe that that situation would at least offer more variation than we hear now. I also think that substantial subsidization of our public media - both cable, CBC, and alternative radio - is absolutely crucial, now, more than ever.

and

Anyone reading CanWest papers anyways? Haven't subscription rates in general for newspapers dropped by a third in the last few years?

Anyways, how about work conditions under CanWest such as editors and columnists getting fired and resigning. And didn't CanWest lobby and suceed at getting child carriers removed from the protection of labour laws? That alone should be cause enough for any person or institution to cancel their CanWest subscription.

Should be a good book by Edge.

Back to Quebec

The media's going to be deep in Quebec now that Jack and this Gang have made a breakthrough. Jack's going to be heavy on the ground to capitalize on and support his new buddy, Mulcair. Stephane will be heavy too trying to drag himself up from the lowest results since confederation and Steven will be busy too now he's into the coeur (heart) of Quebec. Good time for newspapers.

What breakthrough?

This isn't an NDP victory - it's a Dion Liberal collapse - to which they can look to their BCLiberal connections for reasons. I doubt any of that will be reported in the newspapers or on their captive TV networks. Everything is unfolding as predicted here at Tyee after the election.

Twenty years from now we'll be looking back at this government and the Mulroney years and trying to decide which of them was the worst.

Newspapers are largely irrelevant.

public media

Re: Alda's comment that public media are more important than ever, I agree. But if Bev Oda and the Conservatives continue using the US Republicans as their s, CBC and any subsidies to nonprofit media will be the next target. The media corporations public broadcasting.

Defenders of media consolidation love to point to the internet, and the internet is important to people reading this, but TV is where most people get their news. You turn it on at 6 and get a half-hour of predigested, easy-to-swallow pablum with dashes of right-wing ideology. Looking for independent and trenchant reporting takes time most people simply don't have.

Living in the past

Canadian news media convergence is a tempest in a teapot.

IN THE NEAR FUTURE, due to increasingly fractured markets, critical mass will matter less and less. If YOU get your news from mainstream news media YOU won't matter to me or to any other businessperson. It's why I could care less what the CRTC come up with, so legislate away.

Big media can also consolidate all they want. I know exactly where to go to find an audience and TorStar and CanWest know it. That's one of the main reasons they don't host "comment" sections. They know that YOU would SHOUT them down, and that I, and many others like me will leverage their market.

My little business news blog (www.OlyBLOG.com), on a good month receives about 3 million hits (we average 3,000 sessions and 10,000 page views a month - 90% is local). We just did a piece on VIOLENCE in Vancouver, and we timed it to scoop The Sun who published a "THUG" feature piece a day after we sent out our newsletter. Basically, this means that thousands of business owners in Metro Vancouver saw our take on violence just before they saw the story CanWest published. We beat them regarding accurate content, plus we stole their thunder in the "smart people" department. I win (the battle not the war - yet).

Anyone who still thinks that news, politics, and business can or should be separated is living in an antiquated fantasy world.

News IS business and politics. Everything else is just gossip or lifestyle. Many people confuse this issue and argue based on mistaken preconceived notions.

Old people use TV and newspapers like a pacifier. It feels good to suck on something, but there is zero nutritional value. Spit it out and move on.

My little blog does more to change attitudes than any other communication tool available. It’s passively networked to a huge community of people who write online about a wide variety of topics, like BC Mary for example.

As a news consumer, whether I want news or lifestyle I go to these indie people to hear the other side of the story, the side big business does not want you to hear.

I don't necessarily believe what I read in mainstream news or from independent reporters online. All I do is compare. Pre-internet, I read local rags, plus the NY and LA Times. I also watched broadcast news and flipped between stations to see what NBC said compared to CBS. Not much has changed today except that I only use ONE major news company to get the ball rolling, and then I CLICK between indie sites to help me decide what the real story is about.

That's the future.

Not for me because I'm living it, but apparently from the comments here, it will be for many of you. If you really want to impact mainstream news media embrace this future and vote with your money.

Start thinking and talking about what could or will be, and use the past as a point of reference, not an anchor.

Traditional mainstream news media is on life support.

Spit out the pacifier and pull the plug.

Working memory: I wish you

Working memory:

I wish you great luck with your blog and hope you are right. I do think, though, that if you are successful, the big boys will find a way to break the backs of all small news sources. They've already started it in the U.S. with recent draconian legislation regarding the Internet - that is, they're finding the weak link in the chain by finding a sneaky way to add excessive and high charges to small internet sites, or some such plan that will put many -- if not most -- out of business. (There is also the new ruling that may have already come in in the US that you will be put on some kind of security list or something if you disseminate information to more than 500 URL addresses. Anyone heard anything about this?)

In addition, my biggest fear and observation is that, as I've experienced, most people I know under 50 aren't turning to alternative internet and small print sources for their news - they're not turning to any news source AT ALL. The latest episode of some Emmy award winning coma inducing drama is about all the news drama they can stomach (and all about many can understand, to boot).