How the Concentration of Media Power Acts Against Democracy

Simply stated, it denies the open forum to as large a number of voices as wish to be heard; it reduces the size of the discussion and the negotiation. It is the evil step-sister to Lobbyists and Special Interests.

The press lords go way back beyond Murdoch. There was William Randolph Hearst, portrayed as Citizen Kane by Orson Welles, who was instrumental in starting the Spanish-American War, having found that all forms of sensationalism - war included - draw paying customers.

In the middle of the 19th century, there were British press magnates that traded on the sensationalism of colonial adventures, having discovered that the pageant of the British Empire upon which the sun never sets is good for business.

As new media such as radio and television and cable became available, these new media should have been secured against monopolistic concentration. They were originally, but this realization that monopoly concentration of the media is anti-democratic has almost evaporated.
In fact, the notion that concentration of the media of communication is dangerous has become so vitiated that it required the current morality play of the Murdochs, who by their own vicious natures have reminded us that mankind often has a corrupt nature, and when that nature controls the means of communication, bad things may indeed happen.

What kind of fools are we, that we require the endless display of chicanery and scamming and subterfuge before we realize that Capitalism does not condone nor condemn evil... that is a burdensome choice which we must make.

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