[lbo-talk] Media Concentration database--where's it at?

[B.]

A generation ago, maybe, but the frequent references
in Chomsky, Herman, et. al,. to the "lively and
vigorous working class press" of the 19th century
can't be total horseshit, either. I dunno how many of
those relied on economies of scale, or like the
socialist rag Sinclair's stuff was printed in early
on. 

True, this is going back more than a generation ago,
but there's not much of a lively and vigorous working
class press today, either, though we do, yeah, get
stuff like The Daily Show, which also doesn't touch
some sacred cows, like the Israeli-Palestinian
situation, and in a segment of Frey's fictions that
chastised the media for being relentless on Frey while
letting other lies slide, did not mention the chief
work of fiction of them all, The Holy Bible, which
likewise has devout followers who prize "the
underlying message," its redepmtive features, for ex.
(I still love the show, however.)

-B.

--

Doug Henwood wrote:

"Exactly. Local papers (and TV & radio stations) in
the US almost universally suck. There's a lot more
diversity on cable TV now than there was on broadcast
TV a generation ago. It's far better to have the NYT
in national distribution than to rely on the birdcage
liners that pass for newspapers in much of the
country. Can we grow out of this one?"

Carrol Cox wrote:

"How then were 1000 or 10,000 capitalist owners
(almost all a monopoly in their localities) any better
than 50. Upton Sinclair in The Brass Check notes that
no paper in one large city would print a news story on
a rape of a woman by the son of a large department
store owner."