Taking over the media - a way to Democracy? Buying Fox out.

[savemefromdumbya]

Since we complain daily that the media is under the evil grip of the Bush administration and they dare not to publish the truth, shouldn't we as the people reclaim the media. How can this be done? We have enough billionaires to muscle in to the media companies. We need to launch our own TV networks. We can launch new newspapers. We have some radio stations already. What else can be done?

[rhino47]

1. hostile takeover of faux?

now thats a beautiful thought.

[savemefromdumbya]

9. beautiful and not impossible

it would mke them nervous!

[SteppingRazor]

11. Actually, I think it would be impossible...

Fox News is owned by NewsCorp, which is in the Top 100 of the Fortune 500. A hostile takeover would involve billions upon billions of dollars, all for a company that is in an industry that is considered shaky at the moment (i.e. media). Stock prices of media companies have been plumenting, which makes gathering the requisite investors for such a move would be more or less impossible.

[savemefromdumbya]

13. but perhaps Fox will go down with the Titanic

and we won't need to?

[SteppingRazor]

2. Good idea, but a little simplistic...

How do you launch a new newspaper in a city with an established newspaper that has already claimed that city's advertising base, for example? That's only one example, but I could think of many, many others, primarily dealing with the same issue -- profitability in an already-saturated market. And note that the market I'm speaking of is advertising, not editorial itself. I realize there's not a lot of major, national liberal outlets when compared to conservative ones. But that's not the issue. The issue is profitability. Liberal billionaires like Soros could maybe be persuaded to start up alternative newspapers and maybe even a 24-hour news station, but only if they could be reasonably reassured of profitability.

[rodeodance]

3. oh well, good dream.

[savemefromdumbya]

6. Free newspapers too

It is possible to launch and sustain newspapers. The city where I used to live had a good freeby with lots of advertising. It had a lot of left wing articles and interviews in it.

[SteppingRazor]

10. Sure, altweeklies are good for that...

but they're only viable in large urban areas where there's a large advertising base. That's why every major city has something like the Village Voice, but no small town does. I actually work as an editor/writer at an altweekly myself, so I'm pretty sure of the economics of the whole thing.

And even with them, corporate consolidation has changed the face of the industry. Now that New Times has bought Village Voice Media, one company owns almost every major altweekly in the country.

[savemefromdumbya]

12. Beat them

people allow themselves to be bought out. We should have many new ones mushrooming all over the country.

We did a monthly political newspaper for 2 years prior to the election, sponsored by a couple of local printers who were members. The newspaper had only their ads and was quite large. It went out to every household - even in the small hamlets. We used to have a distribution team where eveybody did their neighborhood. It CAN be done if you're committed..

[madame defarge]

4. Call George Soros...

that would really piss off Murdoch.

[MadHound]

5. Two things that can be done once the Democrats regain control

That is if they have the guts to cross their corporate masters.

The first is to reinstate the fairness doctrine. This machiavellian masterpiece implemented by Reagan immediately opened the door to the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity and the rest of hate radio. If the fairness doctrine were to be reinstated we would see the number of these vile propaganda shows go down drastically.

The second thing that needs to be done is to repeal the '96 Telecom Act. This vile piece of legislation, one that strangely enough was supported and signed into law by Clinton, allow the massive round of media mergers that has left six corporations in control of 95% of all the US media. Repeal this, force media ownership to once again be a diverse mixture, and we will see the coverage of liberal issues, events and personages go way back up.

Sadly though, I doubt that the Democratic corporate masters will allow such matters to take place.

[savemefromdumbya]

7. Ways and means

hopefully there will be a shift along the lines that you mentioned.

[SteppingRazor]

8. Both great ideas, and while the possibility of implementation is remote...

it's a lot more likely than trying to go through business channels.

[reichstag911]

14. Exactly.

Nothing's going to be done unless we retake Congress. The rightwingers know the value of a docile media, and any purchase of one of their outlets would be so exorbitantly overpriced as to render it economically unfeasible. Another consideration is the fact that we own the airwaves over which the broadcast nets televise their pabulum. With enough political leverage exerted on this issue, we could remediate the current sorry state of affairs re: media concentration and editorial policy fairness.