Media giants today. How much free speech exists in the USA?

[Pontus]

This is really interesting:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/giants/

Maybe this is the reason we have so many choices in media today -- just very few choice providers. Does this make free speech merely an illusion?

[gandalf]

1. Depends...

Free speech on Michael Jackson: Real free speech.
On subjects like 9/11 or Iraq war reasons: Only in private.

The propaganda model of Herman/Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, tries to explain this, and naturally media ownership concentration is an important issue (financing the media via ads is another).

[sweetheart]

2. The USA ranks #32 world wide press freedom

Check out this website reporters without borders which keeps close track of media freedom.

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=8247

Free speech in america is in serious danger.

[RBHam]

3. And it works

Look at the results - right wingers hold far roo much political power representative to their actual support from the voting public.
They lost an elction by half a million votes and started running the country like they had a mandate to destroy Progressive values in the US the very next day. Before 9-11. And they weren't worried when Jeffords bolted and moderate Republicans complained because they feared losing their cushy jobs.

Because Bushco had an ace up their sleeves.

Their very own Reichstag Fire.

[tom_paine]

5. Your are right, RBHam

[Silverhair]

4. Perhaps you misunderstand the first amendment.

The right of free speech is NOT a guarantee of having a megaphone. You can get on a soapbox and give all the speeches you want to, but there is no requirement for anybody to stop and listen. If you want to be on radio or TV, then get together the money to buy programing time. If you want a sponsor, then demonstrate to the advertiser that you can deliver an audience.

The reason RW radio is so big is that people voluntarily tune in and listen. Liberal radio is out there, (Look at the home page of DU for listings) but there just aren't that many listeners.

[IrateCitizen]

6. Despite the flawed Buckley v. Valeo decision...

Money does NOT equal free speech. At least not in the sense of maintaining a true democratic system of government.

If you want to be on radio or TV, then get together the money to buy programing time. If you want a sponsor, then demonstrate to the advertiser that you can deliver an audience.

It still amazes me when supposedly left-of-center people say things like this. Just looking at the disparity in programming between PBS and Fox should make one take pause when confronted with this kind of a statement. After all, a Michael Jackson interview will gain much more attention from an advertiser than an investigative report on trade issues -- but which is really more important for the maintenance of democratic process?

The reason RW radio is so big is that people voluntarily tune in and listen.

I'm certain this has nothing at all to do with the generous funding supplied by the likes of the Scaife and Olin foundations. In the words of Eric Alterman during a recent media debate on CSPAN-2, "The disparity in funding between right and left media can be demonstrated quite well by comparing FoxNews and the Wall Street Journal to The Nation."

Liberal radio is out there, (Look at the home page of DU for listings) but there just aren't that many listeners.

I'm certain that this has nothing to do with funding or market access, once again.

[tom_paine]

7. And you are also right, Silverhair

You see, like many human endeavors, Totalitarianism is like unto a jello. It will fit into whatever shape it needs to fill the mold out.

Or one might say, humans are desperate and crafty creatures. If one avenue is open to a desired goal, a human being...any human being just about...would go to great lengths to find another way to achieve that goal. If one does not exist they will invent one to match the exigencies of the current situation.

If you've ever read "Farenheit 451" or "1984" or just viewed the histories of Totalitarian nations from the 20th Century onward, you'd know that control of media has been a cornerstone of sezing control since then.

But of course, American mores (even bent out of shape as they are now by an uninformed, lazy, and apathetic citizenry) would not countenance storming into the stations and seizing them.

You are correct about Liberal Talk Radio is that, like last time, liberals have been blindsided by the rise of a brand new Totalitarianism. Read what's going on in Russia now that Putin is reading straight from the Bush Playbook (only it's already much further along over there because the Soveit Union has no 225-year tradition of Liberty and Freedom to slow him down) of "Managed Democracy" (read the editorial condemnations of Putin's Russia...they are critiques that could easily be talking about Imperial Amerika).

In Russia, the Liberals are on the Right (Google "The Union of Right Forces"). It doesn;t matter where the liberals are on the spectrum. Totalitarians hate them and wish them to be silent. Check out what is happening in Russia under Putin lately. Just a bit more advnaced than we are now. Amerika 2020, perhaps.

I wonder why Donahue got cancelled although it had higher ratings than Hardball. A puzzlement. Or perhaps not.

The bottom line: Mission accomplished. Totalitarian Talk Radio...99% Bushevik, 1% opposition (if that). Do you really think, particularly now when there is so much "Bush Hatred" that there would be no market for this?

No, Liberals here did not deign to do Nazi-style (I=and here I merely refer to the style and virulence of demonization propaganda, not to their specifici policies and violence) Talk Radio. By and large I think they did not recognize the resurgenece and most especially the success of such Goebblesian strategies, early on when they might have combatted it

Now the media consolidated, the megaphones almost all held by Busheviks or those afraid of getting a blast from the Mighty Wurlitzer (like CBS).

Seize the megaphones. ALWAYS a cornerstone of Modern Totalitarian Control.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

[Jane Roe]

8. Even many DUers are against free speech

see DU thread from today 20 Jan 2004:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1035620