If Brad actually deigned to read my stuff on pen-l, he wouldn't post the
following kind of nonsense. However, he did read Rob's contributions, so
there must be some kind of political dyslexia here...
At 09:45 AM 5/16/01 -0700, you wrote:
>>We all agree that freedom of the press is very important.
>
>And now a bunch of people have gone out and actually done some work: they
>have compiled statistics on the extent of government control of the media,
>and actually found that when you look across countries you can begin to
>see the imprint of a free press in better socioeconomic outcomes. This
>would seem to me to be something that the friends of liberty would
>welcome: real statistical evidence that freedom of the press may well make
>a difference for real people's--not just intellectuals'--lives.
The study, as reported on pen-l, wasn't about "freedom of the press." It
was about whether the press was owned by the government or by corporations.
As Brad should know, freedom of the press is for those who own presses.
Back in the 1920s, radio in the U.S. had a lot of stations run by labor
unions, churches, and other non-corporate groups. I'd call that a much
truer form of "freedom of the press" than we typically see in the US. But
the Federal Communications Commission, together with the commercial
broadcasters, pushed all of these stations off, except for the leftward
part of the FM dial, where National Public Radio and Pacifica dwell. (I
suspect that these stations have low-quality frequencies, but I'd like more
info.) These entities are being pushed to be more and more
corporate-dominated: NPR, for example, has replaced shrinking direct aid
from the government with funds from corporations and other private groups,
which led to a growing waste of air-time on ads. The content has shifted,
too, toward more and more "business news." (I don't know if their editorial
line has changed or not.) I wouldn't be surprised if listeners were turned
off by the growing barrage of ads (which have gone much too far on "public
TV") along with the slicker and slicker fund-raising campaigns and stopped
donating, in which case NPR would simply become a standard commercial
network. (I noticed that KCRW, one of our local NPR stations in L.A., has a
"dot com" web-site, indicating a commercial orientation.) NPR already
represents a very establishmentarian liberal or neoliberal slant. Pacifica,
as Louis and others have emphasized, have been pushed further & further in
the NPR direction. So the freedom of the radio press is being violated by
corporatization, not by the government, though of course the latter helps
the former.
>... Why the eagerness to align yourself with state ownership of the
>media--thus taking sides with Metternich and President Nyazov of
>Turkmenistan, "owner and founder" of *all* the newspapers in the country,
>and against my ex-roommate Andrei and the editor of the _Neue Rheinische
>Zeitung_?
this is standard neoliberal either/or. _Either_ we accept the wonderful
corporate press _or_ we worship tin-pot dictators. It's my way or the
highway. Love it or leave it. TINA. This, despite the fact that the
corporate press is run by tin-pot dictators like Rupert Murdoch who work
hand in glove with other tin-pot dictators who run governments (e.g., China).
why criticize Brad's ex-roomie? because he seems to be a corrupt person.
I wouldn't link this character to Marx (the editor who is obscurely
referred to here). Marx seemed much more principled, moral, honest, and
intelligent.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
