Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Rant; Goodbye 2007 mass media distraction, Hello 2008 junk media infatuation


Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to remove the 32 year old “Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-ownership” ban which prohibits a local newspaper from owning a broadcast station in the same market. What does this mean? Well, simply put, newspapers and radio stations can now merge together to create a larger parent company without restrictions from the government. How is this important again? Well see, there is this little thing known as media diversity, and the more a huge media company owns, the less diverse the opinions and viewpoints are from each of its subsidiaries. Especially when these giant media companies have owners who have their own agendas and give loads of money to lobby for certain politicians who….

OK so it gets complicated, and I can write an essay in itself about this subject (I’ll spare you) but in a nutshell, media conglomerates have been significantly growing since the FCC has slowly and discreetly been loosening the governmental bans on their regulatory size. Today’s “loosening” was done so in spite of enormous public resistance and steady warnings from Congress, yet it still went underway without a hitch. Although technically this should have been headline news, another story announced today completely buried it under the radar.



Do you still want to take the red pill? Whether you’re a conspiracy theorist or not this still seems pretty fucking fishy. Yet this has been the climate of our media, and when there are five media conglomerates controlling everything we see and hear, how will we ever really know if this is an actual controlled media distraction? Why would they tell us? Sometimes ignorance truly is bliss, and 2007 was a most blissful year. It was a year where Britney Spears’s health condition was more followed than the presidential candidate debates, where the writer’s guild strike continues because of the prevailing popularity of reality television, and where the Iraq war coverage was almost eclipsed by Anna Nicole Smith’s death.


These media giants have us so wrapped around their big greedy finger, that the more we buy into new reality shows, over-hyped tabloid media coverage and pop culture gossip ridiculousness, the more they profit from our lack of understanding. Our descent into hyper-commercialized media is providing us with such instant gratification that we are losing touch with our once-valued voice within our sacred democracy. Yet even as I write this now, I am slowly realizing this will only get worse. Where even informative blogs are passed over for gossipy and image based blogs. So in a sort of mini-resignation, from now on I will be writing a bit more, how do you say, attention deficit disorder-ly .... um, succinctly. I guess when you can't beat em’, join em’ right? Here's to hoping 2008 will be a bit more altruistic…..ahh who gives a fuck? Happy Holidays! Get drunk and do stupid things. It's what we Americans do.