Josh Silver — executive director of Free Press, an organizationformed “to engage citizens in media policy debates and create a more democratic and diverse media system” — offers a broader take on the Dow Jones sale that goes beyond Rupert Murdoch to the system that enables folks like him. He writes:
Above all, we ought to be most concerned with the health of our media system. Media consolidation, by its nature, diminishes the diversity of voices represented in our media or able to access to the presses and the airwaves. With fewer points of view available, those select few with an outlet increase their capacity to shape public opinion, politics and daily life. It is easy to make Murdoch a target, but this deal is not about one man so much as it is about a whole system of policies that creates a rich media but a poor democracy.
Some may say we should just let the market take its course. But today’s media system isn’t simply the evolutionary result of “market forces at work.” It’s the result of policies created by Congress and enforced by the FCC. Without those policies, Murdoch couldn’t have built his media empire. Only by restoring public input in the
policymaking process, can we reverse this trend and make America’s media a healthier place where a marketplace of ideas and the free market can co-exist.We can’t change Rupert Murdoch. But we can change the policies that allow companies like News Corp. to control our media. We can create new policies that oster the kind of diverse, accessible and vibrant media that our country’s founders imagined and our democracy needs.
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Hank Kalet 