Blog #10

 EOTO #2

By: Trinity Church 

    One topic that stood out to me in our presentations today was Media Consolidation. Media Consolidation is the concentration of ownership of our news into the hands of fewer and fewer corporations. In the presentation it was brought up that about 57% of Americans get their news from television, 25% from the radio and 20% from newspapers. It is stated that many online outlets are owned or funded by the same large media corporations, as well as how businesses and politicians in our local communities are who have the greatest impact on our lives. Samantha makes a point to note about Journalists at local broadcasters and newspapers having their priorities dictated by corporations with very little knowledge of the communities they cover. These Journalists like to cover stories that they know very little about and they aren't giving the people all the information. 

 In her slideshow she explains how all of it happened by explaining how The Federal Communications was created in 1934 and through the 1970s, the US Government acted to preserve media diversity and prevent media consolidation. They did this by putting in place regulations that discouraged any one corporation from owning too many newspapers or television stations or from reaching too large of an audience. Examples of that would be Disney owning ABC News, ESPN, A&E, The History Channel and Lifetime, etc. She goes on in her presentation to make a point about how you don't see any of these news sources bashing Walt Disney Productions and that because they own it and aren't going to publish anything exposing them. I found this information to be very interesting because as you can see here is another situation that the government is trying to change and take control over. Personally, I did not know that Disney is owned by ABC News but now looking back it ties together since ABC News channel does broadcast the Disney Christmas Day Parade.