The Colonel's Consolidation: In Context

One side says media consolidation is bad--the other says it's good. When big media does choose to cover this hugely important story (which is almost never), this type of back and forth seems to be all the story is about. Rarely--if ever--is any context provided.

But it turns out that someone--60 years ago--recognized the importance of not allowing newspapers to own radio stations in the same town.

That someone was FDR. He understood just how dangerous to democracy a consolidated media landscape was. And it took a Supreme Court battle to prevent newspapers from owning radio stations in the same town--a decision fought by Col. Robert R. McCormick, owner and publisher of the Chicago Tribune.

See, the good Colonel saw absolutely nothing wrong with owning the Tribune and WGN-AM.

So, how did things play out (from the Center for American Progress)?:

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“Will you let me know when you propose to have a hearing on newspaper ownership of radio stations,” wrote President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Federal Communications Commission Chairman James Fly. That was 1940, at the end of a second FDR administration when the New Dealers were still battling a conservative print media and a conservative Supreme Court to fix the great debacle of American capitalism—the Great Depression.

FDR’s fireside chats and his ready access to radio allowed him to speak directly to Americans and continue to push a progressive agenda. But FDR was becoming increasingly concerned about the purchase of radio operations by the newspaper publishers.

One of the most vehement Roosevelt-haters was Col. Robert R. McCormick, the longtime editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune. McCormick considered it his duty to remove Roosevelt from office and he used every means at his disposal to further this aim, including radio station WGN(AM), which the Chicago Tribune had been operating since 1924.

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It would be the Roosevelt Justice Department and the Roosevelt Supreme Court that would generate perhaps the first modern First Amendment decision. It also happened to be an antitrust case.

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Indeed, as [Supreme Court Justice] Black wrote, the First Amendment “rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is a condition of a free society.”

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[Today], billionaire real estate mogul Sam Zell is buying the Tribune Corporation. And he wants to keep WGN(AM) and WGN-TV. Instead of ruling that a new owner triggers the removal of the “grandfather” waiver because the Tribune’s ownership of a major radio, television, and newspaper operation in the same market has gone on long enough, the three conservatives at the FCC ruled that the “uniquely long-term symbiotic relationship between the broadcast stations and the newspaper warrants a permanent waiver.”

Yes, a permanent waiver.

Instead of pursuing “the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources” the conservative majority ruled that “forced separation of the Tribune, WGN-TV, and WGN(AM) would diminish the strength of important sources of quality news and public affairs programming in the Chicago market and that any detriment to diversity caused by the common ownership is negligible given the nature of the market.”

Notice the shift of frame from democracy to market.

And notice, too, the cyclical nature of this entire process. It seems as if big media is doing all it can to prevent the free circulation of ideas--quickly--before the next election.

Full article here.