THE MEDIA: Concentration and control of

One aspect of capitalism is the private ownership of the media, and control of them is falling more and more into the hands of a few people connected with big business. Thiscomplaint is common in the US, but it is also heard all around the capitalist work. Bienvenido Macario forwards a long article by a Philippine media expert. Here is an extract:

"I spoke before an audience of around 250 students of the Lyceum of Batangas last Friday. The invitation came from its mass communications department, but students from various departments also attended. The subject was, Communication Equities: Facing the Challenge of a Borderless Information World . The subject encompasses a gamut of issues. I decided to focus on the universal concern covered by the subject today: media concentration.

To demonstrate the problem I cited the state of Philippine media, where at least 80% of print and broadcast media is controlled by owners you count on the fingers of one hand. More than half of TV viewership is controlled by one family; up to 80% of radio by two families and one corporation, and 90% of major newspaper broadsheets by three families. The controlling families and corporations are intermeshed with other financial and business interests, and not necessarily always coinciding with the public interest".

My comment: Private ownership is better than government control, but that is damning with faint praise. The solution may lie in a cooperative ownership, of which Le Monde of Paris, perhaps France's best newspaper, is a good example. Even more effective is the internet, but the problem is that news circulated n his way, is often unsubstantiated rumor, which may do more harm than good.

Ronald Hilton - 2/19/02