How big is too big? Media watchers critique growing concentration

Published: 2007-01-19

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (CNS) -- The rights of media ownership are bestowed on too few, and the responsibilities of media ownership are easily sidestepped, agreed panelists at a Jan. 12 presentation titled "Too Big, Too Powerful: The Fight Over Media Ownership," held during the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis. "When you have a large level of consolidation, there's no accountability," said Sydney Levy, program director at Media Alliance, a San Francisco-based resource center for media professionals. He cited the case of a San Francisco radio station that, over the course of 40 minutes of airtime, referred to immigrants as "vermin" 43 times. "It's not appropriate in our community to have that," Levy added, echoing past calls about "community standards" to address indecent broadcast programming. "Regulation is extremely important, but I don't want to suggest that laws can fix everything," said Andrew Jay Schwartzmann, president and CEO since 1978 of the Media Access Project, a public-interest law firm in Washington promoting First Amendment rights. "Antitrust laws won't fix concentration," Schwartzmann added.

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