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Diversity Is the Foundation of Freedom
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Business New Haven
4/17/2000
By: Michael C. Bingham
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The following letter was sent earlier this month by the publisher and editor of Business New Haven to state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal regarding the announced acquisition by the Chicago-based Tribune Co. of Times Mirror, owner of the Hartford Courant. The Tribune ready owns television stations WTIC and WTXX in Connecticut. So-called-cross-ownership of TV stations and daily newspapers in the same market is prohibited under current federal rules, which corporate giants like the Tribune are already pressuring Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to change. Similar letters were also sent to U.S. Sens. Christopher J. Dodd and Joseph I. Lieberman.
Dear Attorney General Blumenthal:
We ask you to review the profound and parlous implications of the purchase by the Tribune Company of the Times Mirror Corporation on residents of the U.S. and, more to the point, of Connecticut.
We urge you to intervene through whatever legal means and moral persuasion is available to you and your office, to prevent the cross-ownership of newspaper and television properties in Connecticut and elsewhere.
Media conglomeration and the resulting concentration of ideas and economic power pose a clear threat to our democratic society. Conglomeration of media limits economic diversity, which by definition limits viewpoints. What is lost is the promotion of less fashionable ideas. Conglomeration also provides government with an unconstitutional control of newspapers through its regulatory power of what will effectively be combined operations.
From the 1950s to 1996, radio, television and newspaper companies thrived in Connecticut and elsewhere in an era of ownership diversity. While the Hartford Times failed, the weekly Advocate newspapers and the daily Journal Inquirer, numerous weekly community newspapers and three regional business publications, including Business New Haven, were born and have prospered. Over that same period a wide array of radio news and entertainment programming likewise flourished.
Not coincidentally, these journalistic entities have all brought new and in some cases radically different perspectives to the citizens of Connecticut. We are concerned that the conditions that allowed the creation of these media - and the ability of those still independently owned - to thrive will be irreparably harmed by additional unnecessary concentrations of media properties. The ownership of the Hartford Courant, Stamford Advocate, Greenwich Time, Advocate newspapers and television stations WPIX, WTIC and WTXX, as well as the Internet assets they will combine, is far too powerful a media force in a small state like Connecticut.
As you are aware, unlike newspapers or Internet media, the radio and television broadcast spectrums are finite resources and a public asset. We can not recall a movement by the general public to advance a concentration of ownership of these properties. That the FCC and Congress in 1996 chose to permit increasingly concentrated ownership of radio stations, and deregulating cable companies prematurely, for example, is testimony to the overwhelming influence a few major companies already wield over the political process.
That the FCC has permitted cross ownership of newspaper and television properties in any fashion - and is under pressure to further ease restrictions on combined companies - is unconscionable, illegal and completely at variance with the interests of the public as well as the American tradition of a free press and a press free from government control.
Are we to expect that the newspapers of The Tribune Company will operate freely as critics of government, for example, when their company is lobbying for the relaxation of cross-ownership rules?
Will they challenge leaders such as yourself or Senators Dodd and Lieberman while they know they can lose the right to constitute a company with monopoly potential in Connecticut? It seems improbable.
Allowing cross-ownership and the pending resulting regulation of the companies is tantamount to a government restraint on the press. Already the Hartford Courant has demonstrated its lack of independence by failing to address adequately the serious issue of cross-ownership. The citizens of Connecticut deserve much better.
That these media companies would seek government licensing for their activities to obtain monopoly status is unfortunate. There is no compelling public interest that it be granted.
There is no financial pressure on these companies that they cannot bear by going it alone. There is no threat of foreign competition, nor looming reduction of workforce, or overwhelming lack of fairness.
The Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, New York Newsday and Hartford Courant evince no signs of being displaced as dominant media. Neither are the television stations owned by The Tribune Company in economic distress. It is true that investors have begun to see that these companies may lose near-monopoly status. That, however, does not indicate that they are in any way endangered.
It is the clear and stated goal of the Tribune Company to change the government's current rules barring cross-ownership of newspapers and television stations. It is with this mind that they agreed to purchase Times Mirror at a huge financial premium. In effect they paid a price for a monopoly enterprise - now they simply must persuade and/or pressure regulators to advance their agenda. Who will protect the public's interest?
Attorney General Blumenthal, as a thoughtful and concerned citizen and as a national leader protecting the public interest against corporate greed, you must stand now for the separation of newspapers and licensed broadcasters. The public interest is clear. The only issue is: Who will stand up to the creation of this local media monster that will control the discussion of news and ideas in Connecticut?
Very truly yours,
Michael C. Bingham Mitchell R. Young
Editor Publisher
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