The Media Lobby

By Alexander Lynch, AlterNet. Posted March 11, 2005.

During the Cronkite days of journalism, there were scarcely media watchdogs to dissect the messengers. Now there are varied left-wing, right-wing and centrist watchdog groups, writers who specialize in the media message and the internet, which has spawned even more critics. Stories such as Dan Rather and Eason Jordan's fall, the lack of WMDs in Iraq, the outing of Valerie Plame, the ousting of Jeff Gannon/James Guckert, the unveiling of Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher and Mike McManus. ... Questioning the journalists seems to be as partisan an issue as the journalists themselves.

But many of these stories, scandals by many accounts, even federal offenses, are often only alluded to by the mainstream media, getting more attention from late-night comics than news desks. In fact, an increasingly bigger story that has hushed the notebooks of reporters, the waxing of columnists and the demands of editorials is the story of how the media is entangled and interconnected with politicians (its supposed regulators) corporate interests and, binding them all together: lobbyists. The simple fact is, objective journalists are not supposed to be proactive on issues, which is the definition of lobbying. "It is the subject of the least journalistic scrutiny," says Peter Hart of the media watchdog Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Asking a media outlet to report on its parent company's lobbying expenditures and the goals associated with such spending, gives new meaning to "conflict of interest." Considering other options, such as one medium reporting on another's lobbying interests, would only invite scrutiny, which is called, in an economist's terms, collusion. And so the story goes unreported in mainstream media as if, it is not only unimportant, it is nonexistent.

The numbers beneath the 2003 FCC vote

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in 2000 alone, the parent companies of the big five television and cable broadcasters (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox) spent close to $27 million on lobbying firms. And that excludes the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) which spent $5.7 million the same year. According to the Center for Public Integrity, from 1998 until 2003, when the Federal Communications Commission considered another round of "relaxing" ownership regulations, "the lobbying expenditures by the broadcast industry ha(d) risen 74 percent."

In maybe the most audacious increase in lobbyist spending history, Clear Channel Communications Inc., which owns nearly 1,200 radio stations and some television stations, had a clear interest in the relaxation of media ownership rules to expand its holdings into more market areas. In 2001, Clear Channel spent only $12,000 on lobbying the government. By 2003, the year of the FCC vote, it spent $2.28 million, an increase of 19,000 percent in just two years' time. That same year, Clear Channel's CEO, Lowry Mays told Fortune magazine what he thought of the publicly owned airwaves entrusted to his company: "If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn't be someone from our company. We're not in the business of providing news and information. We're not in the business of providing well-researched music. We're simply in the business of selling our customers products."

Although broadcasters generally outspend print media by a large margin, companies such as Media General (Tampa Tribune, Denver Post) and Gannett Company (Arizona Republic, USA Today), owners of mainly newspapers, saw sharp increases and each spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbying expenditures in 2003, according to the Senate Office of Public Records. Both had a distinct interest in the consolidation of outlets. Gannett spent $20,000 on lobbying in 2002, but the next year it spent $220,000. Media General argued to the Supreme Court that the scarcity of ownership, which had been outlined in the Communications Act of 1934, was "obsolete" for the simple reason, and seemingly weak argument, that there had since been a "telecommunications revolution."

True, there have been great technological advances since 1934, much appreciated by a business community now able to reach many readers/listeners at once. But does that change the idea that scarcity and diversity of ownership is best for the public? So how could such flaccid reasoning have swayed so many FCC chairmen? According to comments made in the media before the vote, several commissioners were ready to allow a new round of mega-mergers of media and to change the nature, even further, of the mainstream press into an ever more homogeneous industry.

Alexander Lynch is a Tampa-based journalist.

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