Blog, dammit, Blog !
The five FCC commissioners are expected to vote 3-2 to relax decades-old rules, allowing television networks to own more television stations, permit a broadcaster to own two stations in more markets, and allow one company to own a newspaper and a television or radio station in most markets.Now this is all well and good - IF there are 20 or 30 stations in your area. Maybe. But howz about those of us who live in the hinterlands and have but a very few stations available to us. With the predilection of the media to allow itself to be spoon-fed junk science, junk-politics, and junk-in-general, free of fact checking and other nuisances, we're stuck.There is a little radio station serving this county that seems somewhat locally owned. In the am they program nationally syndicated advice-talk. Their news is rudimentary. And in the pm, they just lost the only talk-show host who discussed local issues, and did it very well. [Her name is Pat Thurston - she's a little lefty, but she Knits no Yoghurt) They replaced her with some Limbaugh-wannabe. Fingernails on blackboard... [oh, and on weekends, they will have great long stretches of dead air because someone can't figger out how to work all the little buttons. Aswan! My college radio station was much more professional. /rant]
So my point, here, is that we are stuck! There is no local news/discussion radio. The local paper is owned by the NYT. *sigh*
Although it's true anyone with a website can publish news, it's still the established media players, such as newspaper publishers, that attract the largest share of the online audience, Murray said. While it's also true that more people are using the Internet as their primary news source, the same handful of companies run those sites. ..."Yes, there are 500 channels on cable television, but five companies control the same market share that the three networks did in the 1970s."My overall point, here? Keep blogging. Blog about local issues. Blog about personal issues. Blog about blogging issues. Just Blog On!
One company owns half the radio stations in San Diego. It sucks. Commercial radio sucks. Commercial television sucks. Television in general sucks. Blogging is cool, though.
Posted by on 07/14/04 at 04:05 PM
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