Dan Gillmor has picked up the MediaCon story — thankfully. His eJournal has begun collecting stories about the obvious effect of concentrated media: that the news will begin to sing in harmony with the interests of the owners. Here’s a snippet from Salon on this. And here’s his announcement of a mediacon channel.
I don’t know who owns the SJ Merc, but whoever does, I guess Gillmor is at least some evidence against my concern that big media will compromise journalism. Some.
The Merc is a Knight-Ridder newspaper–definitely big media. I think Gillmor is great, but he isn’t evidence that big media won’t compromise journalism–he’s just evidence that they haven’t completely obliterated it. I don’t think journalism has ever been pure and objective, and I don’t think it’ll become completely corporate; it’s the shade of the gray area in between that we have to worry about.
Democratic Presidential candidate Howard Dean has IMHO an excellent comment on media consolidation on his campaign blog at http://deancalltoaction.blogspot.com/.
He’s against it. He cites the treatment of the Dixie Chicks as a primary example of inappropriate use of media power.