On June 2, the FCC will undertake the most massive reexamination of media ownership rules in the agency’s history. Their decisions will have profound implications on how Americans get their news and information, and from which sources...

On June 2, the FCC will undertake the most massive reexamination of media ownership rules in the agency’s history. Their decisions will have profound implications on how Americans get their news and information, and from which sources. In an exclusive interview for WorldLink TV’s The Active Opposition: Your New$ and the Bottom Line, Walter Cronkite, dean of American broadcasting, explored the impact of media consolidation, including why, since the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the number of major U.S. news organizations has shrunk to six.

Hosted by film and television actor and activist Peter Coyote, Your New$ and the Bottom Line also featured a panel of media experts including: Jeff Chester, author and director of the Teledemocracy Project, a D.C. media watchdog group; Michael Parenti, author and media critic; David Honig, Director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Counsel and Adam Thierer from the CATO institute. The show was part of WorldLink TV’s The Active Opposition series, which features public figures who are actively involved in the national policy debate and is produced by Stephen Olsson in the network’s San Francisco studios. Your News $ TheBottom Line is available via streaming video at www.worldlinktv.org .

WorldLink TV, a nationwide public satellite television network offering a global perspective on world events, issues and cultures. Its programs air on DirectTV channel 375 and Dish Network channel 9410 and are selectively streamed on the Internet. WorldLink TV’s primetime programming consists of documentaries on global and domestic issues, investigative reports on the environment and human rights, as well as current affairs series, foreign feature films and the best of World Music. The network’s daytime hours are often devoted to international news programming, including television news reports from national broadcasters in the Middle East, presented with English translation.

PETER COYOTE- Good evening and welcome to the Active Opposition, tonight we’re presenting a national story which our corporate media has chosen to largely ignore, the consolidation of media ownership in America and how that affects what news and information we are allowed to receive. This is the information which determines what we know or think we know about the world and is the basis of a functioning democracy. For this reason we encourage our viewers to call in and participate in our discussion tonight. Before we introduce our guest experts and view an interview we conducted this week with network news icon Walter Cronkite, I’d like to give a little more background on tonight’s program: your news and the bottom line.

The 1996 telecommunications act dramatically altered the laws governing our communication industry. It removed the requirement for radio and television broadcasters to present any public interest programming in return for the free exclusive use of the public’s airways. It did away with controls on corporate media ownership, which had prevented one corporation’s owning the newspaper, television, and radio in a given area. Since 1996, six major media conglomerates AOL Time Warner, Viacom, News Corporation, General Electric, Vendi Universal and ATT Comcast have moved quickly to control 90% of the broadcast outlets. Republican Senator John McCain has called this group ‘the most powerful lobby I’ve encountered in Washington’. In the next few weeks, Michael Powell, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell and current chair of republican dominated FCC, is expected to further deregulate the media: To allow a single corporation to own all media outlets in a given community. Critics charge that this new market driven FCC regards citizens as consumers and communities as market places. And this apparently innocent change of terms fundamentally alters the relationship of the people and their media to a relationship between consumers and producers of products, services and ideas. Meanwhile our government is preparing to give away new public frequencies without requiring any public service or accountability. An issue for the American citizen is to what extent the news and information which informs our world view and our choices at the election poles, will be determined solely by the bottom line of accountability to the shareholders of six media conglomerates.

Tonight’s program “Your News and The Bottom Line