JG Excerpt - June 17, 2008:Among them of course, the Janesville Messenger, the only other publication with local content delivered to the doorsteps of Janesville area homes. This is bad news.
JANESVILLE — Bliss Communications, the publisher of The Janesville Gazette and several other daily newspapers, announced today that it has acquired Community Shoppers Inc. and its family of free distribution publications.
For all my criticism, the Messenger’s news articles including coverage of local political debates and elections were fairly balanced, even superior, compared to the Gazette. And their local stories were usually a nice reprieve from the social programming and embedded political agenda the Gazette regularly delves out.
The Messenger had what I would call a one page problem. It was their editorial page. Much to their credit though, at least the Messenger’s political agenda was confined to that page, in striking contrast to the Gazette. But boy did the Messenger take it to the extremes when they editorialized. Unlike the Gazette’s comical attempts to hide their partisanship, the Messenger's editor(s) made no effort to hide their lefty hatred.
Their far-right anarcho-capitalist editorials were enough to make Limbaugh or Coulter blush and oftentimes were so politically aloof and groundless, there was no point trying to counter this hell-bent perspective. Sometimes I actually thought their editorials were at the cutting edge of reverse propaganda.
But the real story of serious importance is the media consolidation and the monopolization of news programming and marketing. When alternatives are not available in local news and advertising, other voices are eventually pushed out of the market and off the airwaves.
On any scale, media consolidation means:
Fewer voices and viewpoints
Less diversity in ownership and programming
Less coverage of local issues that matter to communities
Less of the unbiased, independent, critical journalism we need to prevent abuses of power
One media owner can influence:
What news and information communities receive
What voices are heard – or silenced
Whether important issues get covered accurately – or covered at all
Who gets hired to report and produce the news
What music and which artists get airplay
How women and people of color are portrayed in the media
* Above points from Free Press.
Whether you read the Messenger, or agreed with them or not didn’t matter. It was the idea that different thoughts were heard from people with different backgrounds and perspectives away from the dictum of another, in this case, the Gazette’s hierarchy. That is all changed now, nowadays you don’t have to be Time Warner, General Electric, Disney, Rupert Murdoch or Clear Channel to be considered a threat to democracy. This local consolidation is just as threatening and it is not good news for the Rock or Walworth county area. More voices of democracy will disappear as they are systematically deleted from the community discourse.
Well Equipped House For A FloodOn Beloit Ave. near Jeffris Park - Photo sent in by reader
2 comments:
You have given a pretty good recap though it is perhaps a bit alarmist. No doubt Bliss has a natural desire to monopolize local media, but that is only half the story. They are also in a struggle for survival as they are part of an industry in decline. You can be sure that Gazette circulation is smaller than a decade ago for several reasons. Young adults do not buy local newspapers regardless of philosophical or political outlook. The Capital Times just ceased as a print daily due to decades of declining circulation in Madison which should have been a political match made in heaven. Secondly, news distribution and opinion is becoming increasingly more democratic with your own blog being an example. Cable networks and the internet are increasingly dominating the news business and the print media decline. Lastly, if anyone else wants to get into the print business, there is nothing to stop them as long as they are willing to use their resources. Bliss has been willing to use their resources.
The Gazette, through their editorials regarding local economics and growth, constantly beat a drum of "competition" based free-markets for consumers in nearly every business category......except their own. Less than a year ago, the editor talked up "media consolidation" like it was greatest thing on earth.
The so-called Fourth Estate newsprint probably won't disappear, but the next future threat against democracy will be coming from corporate politicians pushing for the two-tier internet. As much as I would not like to mention it, Paul Ryan is on the wrong side.....again.
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