Ownership and Regulation

The Chomsky View:



Ownership Data (see Graber 36-37):

• Who Owns What
• Columbia Journalism Review guide to media ownership
• Public Broadcasting
• African American and Hispanic Media
• The case of Sinclair

Duopolies

The FCC:

• FCC Ownership Rules  -- which may soon change.
• Equal Time
• Fairness Doctrine (defunct)

Talk Radio (from an Annenberg Public Policy Center report):

• "Changing technology has made national talk radio possible. When syndicated talk shows had to be sent by copper wire over phone lines, as they did until the mid l980s, the audio quality was too poor to carry long programs. Another prohibitive factor was the cost of linking stations together by phone lines. The satellite dish changed all that. Stations can now receive broadcast quality from anywhere in the country at a comparatively low cost. Among other things, the new technology made it possible for local hosts to “link several stations together into an ‘instant network.’"
• "If the satellite made the national broadcast feasible it was the 1-800 number that made the interactive national program possible. When Ma Bell was broken up in deregulation, the cost of long distance calls dropped making 1-800 numbers feasible."
• "The end of the fairness doctrine paved the way for talk radio as we know it today. Neither hosts nor stations currently have an obligation to provide balance or voice to competing views."

Freedom of Speech

• The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
• Opinion on the First Amendment
• The Doctrine of Prior Restraint and "gag orders"
• Copyright
• Who really uses FOIA?  (Hint:  it ain't Woodward and Bernstein).   
• The United States is unusual in its protection of free speech.
• Comparative analysis of press freedom