Operating in the Public Interest or in Pursuit of Private Profits? News in the Age of Media Consolidation
The "synergies" created by means of the major media mergers in the United States over the past decade-the combination of massive libraries of content with multiple distribution channels-have been heralded as important benefits for consumers. The mainstream argument is that these mergers over the past decade have greatly increased the volume of available information and greatly decreased the cost of delivering the news to the average citizen. Consumers now can surf the twenty-four-hour news channels and the ubiquitous Internet sites, or opt instead for personalized news, delivered to them daily via email. Have these synergies really brought about an improvement of consumer welfare? The media are charged with providing an important service to their citizen-consumers-thorough and unbiased information that will aid them in making conscious and conscientious decisions in the voting booth and in other aspects of their consumer and citizen lives. But in the age of media consolidation and cartelization, the quality and even the quantity of news has deteriorated. News divisions have become just another profit center for their conglomerate parents that must yield the same rates of profit as the more lucrative entertainment divisions of these media empires. Whereas broadcast stations still are licensed to operate in "the public interest," news in the age of media empires has become reduced to "info-tainment." This paper will examine the current state of news in our media conglomerate age and consider, from an institutionalist