What the Impact of the British Tabloid Scandal on American Journalism SHOULD BE.

By Octopus

There have always been rogue journalists on both sides of the Atlantic. This time, the sleazy narrative is about telephone hacking, invasions of privacy in the pursuit of lurid celebrity gossip, criminal interference in a murder investigation, and payoffs to politicians and police investigators. The British tabloid scandal is about press abuse in extremis; and the One Ring that binds them together is Rupert Murdoch whose half century of acquisitions have turned his media empire into a malignant force in British and American journalism. As an old adage sates: If power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, the British tabloid scandal should remind us about the dangers of consolidating power in the hands of rogue operators.

Little noticed beneath the garish headlines of the week is this story: A federal appeals court overturned the Federal Communications Commission’s attempt to further weaken media ownership rules. Had these rules gone into effect, it would have unleashed a new wave of media consolidation across the country.

In 2007, the FCC ignored letters and calls from millions of Americans when it tried to rewrite media ownership rules that would let companies own both newspapers and broadcast stations in the same market. This change would have opened the floodgates to new media mergers … leading to massive layoffs, less local coverage, fewer voices in the marketplace of ideas, and more opportunities for abuse.

The court pointed to public comments from people like us as a deciding factor in overturning the FCC’s attempt to change its rules. But the struggle does not end here. Right now, media conglomerates are using loopholes and backroom deals to get around media ownership rules and further consolidate their power.  The conglomerates must be stopped if we are to salvage what little integrity is left in American journalism.

To help raise awareness, I am re-posting an article contributed almost a year ago, A Contest of Madmen for the Primacy of the Sewer, which appears immediately below this post.

Stop Glenn Beck: New Petition Letter Addressed to Fox News CEO Roger Ailes

As part of an ongoing effort to pressure Fox News into pulling the plug on the Glenn Beck Show, here is a standard petition letter addressed to Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. Please feel free to copy the text of this letter and paste it into your letterhead - adjusting type size and font style as needed (11 or 12 points should suffice):

Roger Ailes
Chairman and CEO, Fox News Channel
News Corporation
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10036

(Date)

Dear Mr. Ailes:

After the shooting rampage in Tucson that left six people dead and thirteen injured, you offered this appeal for civility: “I told all of our guys, shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually. You don’t have to do it with bombast.”

Weeks after Tucson, nothing has changed.  Glenn Beck has turned up the volume on partisan hate speech.  The poisoned atmosphere unleashed by Glenn Beck means any citizen - Democrat, Independent, or Republican - can be defamed in public and targeted for persecution.  Beck’s messages provoke unstable persons to act on impulse, and events have shown that violent rhetoric leads to violent acts:

Prison Term for Man Who Threatened Speaker Pelosi:

Mother of Accused Man Blames Fox News

Renowned Professor Terrorized After Glenn Beck Broadcasts

League of Women Voters Targeted by Glenn Beck Fans

Two California Highway Patrolmen Shot by Glenn Beck Fan

Three Pittsburgh Policemen Killed by Glenn Beck Follower

There is no plausible deniability that can wipe the blood off Beck’s hands or absolve the Fox News Channel of responsibility for reckless incitement.  Shooting sprees, murder, malicious defamations and infamous provocations … these have no place in a free society.  When toxic television threatens public safety, all citizens of all persuasions have grounds for alarm.

Glenn Beck has crossed boundaries that should never be crossed.  It is time to pull the plug on the Glenn Beck Show before more people are terrorized, injured and killed.

Sincerely yours,
(name and signature)

The letter is short enough to fit on a single page (word count=265). Within a few days, please look for another petition letter addressed to Fox News advertisers (i.e. the boycott letter). A startup list of advertisers will be included with this post.

PARTITIONING THE INTERNET: WHERE PARTISANS AND MONOPOLISTS COLLUDE

Just when you thought hyper partisanship couldn’t get any worse, when the country wasn’t bitterly polarized enough, now we learn that there are forces in motion that threaten to divide the Internet. An unholy alliance between a monopolist and a news conglomerate wants to change Cyberspace.

In case you haven’t tracked this story, Rupert Murdoch wants to block Google’s search engine and prevent it from accessing all content from News Corporation. This means no more online access … at least through Google … to Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Times of London, or other company-owned content. Yes, you guessed it: Murdoch is exploring online payment models to boost revenues and will grant exclusive access to Microsoft’s search engine … in exchange for payment. And Microsoft does not mind hurting Google’s margins.

Of course, the Internet search engine market is not the only place where Google and Microsoft compete head to head. Recently, Google announced a new operating system, Chrome OS, that will compete against Windows in the web-enabled laptop market.

Implications? There is no telling where this all is going and how it will affect the future of the Internet. Does this mean an end to the Information Super Highway as monopolists carve it up to profit themselves? I have my suspicions. What are yours?