Media Ownership Matters
TV, radio, movies, books, newspapers and the Internet are our prime sources of news and information. They shape our values, beliefs and perspectives.
Media are also essential to our democracy. We depend upon media to find out what’s happening in our communities, to play our part as citizens, and to serve as a vital check on government and corporate power.
Media owners 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
So who owns your media? Is it someone from your community delivering your news? Or even someone who shares your issues and concerns? Probably not.
Over the past three decades, the number of companies that control most of what we watch, hear and read every day has shrunk from more than 50 to a small handful of media giants. Click here to see who owns the media [1].
What Media Consolidation Means
Media consolidation means that the few corporate giants that own most of our media are getting even bigger by swallowing up more and more of our local media outlets.
But these massive conglomerates – like General Electric, Time Warner and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. – care about the bottom line, not serving the public interest. And allowing these few firms too much control over the flow of news and information is dangerous for our democracy.
When Big Media get too big, local, independent and minority owners are pushed out of the market and off the airwaves. 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
Put it all together and Big Media spells bad news – for average Americans and for our democracy.
To learn more about the StopBigMedia.com campaign, click here [2].