[lbo-talk] The Myth of Media Concentration

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sat Jun 17 11:44:30 PDT 2006


Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> So again it's misspecifying the problem to speak about
> "concentration" - it's the class ownership of the means of
> consciousness production that's at issue. The problem with the US
> media isn't its Herfindahl index - it's the conditions under which
> it's produced: by capitalists under shareholder pressure to maximize
> profits.

Upton Sinclair, _The Brass Check_, written over 100 years ago and still a classic. The horrors of the capitalist press it describes should cure anyone of nostalgia for some presumably more honest, less destructive period of journalism. And the NYT of that period could joke about the cute localism of the "friends of order" in Alabama who were chasing a Negro and would presumably hang him when they found him. Tsk tsk, boys will be boys was the tone of the piece.

Carrol



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