With this development came a new wave of research that revealed five closely related and vitally important truths about communication in the new century:
First, media systems aren't natural. They're created by government policies and subsidies that are strongly influenced by the nation's political economy. Even in capitalist economies there's space for a vibrant a non-profit media, and a "core principle of professional journalism is to provide a safe house for public service in the swamp of commercialism."
Second, the First Amendment doesn't authorize or advocate a corporate-controlled, profit-driven media. It's not an open sesame for limitless gain or government-sanctioned right to ignore the public interest. McChesney cites the "trailblazing research" of C. Edwin Baker on press and speech freedoms. He concluded that court constitutional interpretations see the press as necessary and distinct from people exercising free speech rights as well as from other commercial enterprises. He also sees government playing an active role in creating and structuring the media.
The Constitution doesn't authorize commercial broadcasting, prevent government from making it non-profit, and the High Court's 1969 Red Lion decision gave every American First Amendment rights. A key question now is how the Supreme Court will interpret press and speech freedoms in the digital age when all the rules are changing. McChesney believes sound research and citizen activism are crucial to influencing the judicial outcome.
Third, the American profit-driven media system is not a "free market" one. Media giants today get enormous subsidies in many forms that are "as great or greater than (for) any other industry." Count them:
-- monopoly licenses for radio, TV, satellite TV spectrum, cable TV and telephone worth hundreds of billions of dollars gaining in value annually;
-- free industrial spectrum TV, cable and telephone that companies use internally and are worth billions more;
-- postal subsidies worth still more billions with giant publishers now getting a better deal than small ones;
-- federal, state and local subsidies for film and TV production;
-- all levels of government advertising worth billions annually;
-- allowing advertising expenditures to be a deductible expense;
-- electoral political advertising amounting to 10% of TV ad revenue;
-- and the largest subsidy of all - copyrights that are a government-created and enforced monopoly power to crush competition; plus one other -
-- government lobbying efforts for media giants overseas for deregulated markets and to divert subsidies to benefit US companies.
Fourth, the policymaking process that's key to understanding how our system is structured and subsidized for private interests that don't represent the public. Subsidies, per se, aren't bad. The issue is what they're for, who gets them, who's left out, and what values are promoted.
Fifth, giant corporations control government policymaking, the public is ignored, and media reform can't happen unless the system changes. Today, the FCC, like other government agencies, serves dominant private, not public, interests, and it shows in its rulings. The major media won't report them, of course, and McChesney says "99% of the public has no idea what is going on (and instead) are fed a plateful of free market hokum" about giving people what they want. He further says "the entire rationale for our media system rests upon a fairy tale about free markets....that (in fact are structured) to protect the corporate media system from the public review it deserves" and desperately needs.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
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