Who Owns the News?

by Silja Kallenbach

What do Donald Duck and the daily news have in common? The answer is not that Donald Duck has turned into a news commentator, but the famed cartoon character and the news we receive daily are owned and controlled by the same company. The company in question is, of course, the Disney Corporation.

The Disney Corporation is considered the "ultimate multimedia empire." Disney grew in size ten times in the 1990's to a $25 billion dollar company 1 . It owns the ABC TV and radio networks and ABC online, three major movie production companies (including Miramax and Touchstone), hundreds of retail stores, about 40 weekly newspapers, 6 daily papers and several magazines, resorts and travel companies. Disney also owns two professional sports teams and part of a third. And let's not forget the theme parks that have brought Disney a large part of its fame. Did I also mention its major holdings in several book publishing companies? You get the picture: Donald Duck and his cartoon friends are just one small but important part of the ever-growing Disney empire.

Top

But Disney is not alone. It's one of seven transnational corporations that control and own the major media all over the world. The largest of them all was just formed this year when Time Warner merged with America Online. Like Disney, these corporate giants own major TV networks, Internet companies, other forms of media, and other kinds of businesses.2 Owning complementary forms of media enables these companies to make more money to buy out more businesses and expand their product line. "They can produce a film, distribute it through their partially or fully owned theater chain, promote it through their own TV network, play the soundtrack on their own radio stations and sell the merchandising spin-offs at their own amusement parks. A property can enter this vertical chain at any point and be sent in either direction. A film becomes a book, a hit single, then a TV show, a video game, a ride."3 One moment it's the Lion King or Star Wars II, but before you know it, there's a sequel with its own separate line of products.

The profit motive also explains why we have to put up with more commercials between programs. ABC/ Disney, for example, has increased the volume of commercials by 34% over the past ten years. It has more stuff to sell. If you are an AOL subscriber expect to be bombarded with ads for Time Warner movies, magazines, and other products when you sign on to the Internet.

Top

We don't have to buy Disney's movies or other products. We can still make some choices about how we entertain ourselves and our families. If we don't see the latest Disney movie, we are not missing out on vital information about the world in which we live. If these media giants' holdings were limited to the entertainment industry, we would only need to worry about the quality and diversity of movies, books, and amusement parks. But as we saw with Disney, they also control the news and information we get about our world.

Take General Electric (GE), one of the largest corporations in the U.S. which not only makes our light bulbs, our refrigerators, and our x-ray machines that scan for tumors, but also builds nuclear power plants-and owns NBC news. It makes perfect business sense that GE would not allow a major TV network it owns to carry news stories or documentaries that are critical of nuclear energy or any of its other business interests. In the same way, it is unlikely that ABC would carry news stories about the starvation wages that Disney pays workers who make its products in countries like Haiti and Burma.

Top

More than ever, money and business concerns are driving what is reported in mainstream U.S. media. TV stations are under pressure by parent corporations to produce bigger profits. The focus on profit creates problems not just with what news stories are aired but also with how they are covered. As anyone who has watched the nightly news on TV can attest, the news stories have very little depth. They do not discuss root causes of problems.

We get quantity over quality. There has been an increase in how many stories are covered in daily news broadcasts. For example, under pressure from its owner, NBC, WMAQ-TV of Chicago was forced to increase the average number of news stories from 13 to 20-25 per half-hour broadcast. Each item received about 15 seconds worth of coverage, which amounts roughly to three sentences.

Top

These three-sentence sound bites are what pass for news on TV. How much can you learn about anything in three sentences? The issue is that the news business is not just like any other business. The democratic process depends on people having access to information-and being willing and able to read, hear or view it. We as a society pay a price when profit rules what news we receive through the mainstream channels. Freedom of the press and freedom of speech are the linchpins of democracy. The idea behind freedom of the press in particular is to have media sources that are genuinely independent and diverse so that citizens become aware of a range of perspectives and can take action on issues that are important to them.

Given that most of our media sources are not genuinely independent, it is important to consider always the source of the news. And given that their primary commitment is to making money, not to helping citizens become fully informed, we need to question what news is reported or not, and why. Ideally, we should go to many sources to get a more accurate picture of what is going on in the world.

Top

Thankfully, in the United States there are alternative media sources that are not owned by the media giants. There are Web sites and magazines such as Mother Jones, The Nation, Yes, and Adbusters that provide high quality investigative reporting on important issues that affect our lives. They provide news and information that have not been censored by corporate interests. You can't find these publications at every newsstand. But as long as we rely only on the TV and the daily paper for our news, the most we can do is change the channel or the publication but not the message.

1 Karp, Stan. "Of Mickey Mouse and Monopolies". Rethinking Schools. Milwaukee, WI. Winter 1999/2000.

2 Alger, Dean. Megamedia: How giant corporations dominate mass media, distort competition, and endanger democracy. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. 1998.

3 http://adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/freedom.html

Silja Kallenbach is coordinator of the New England Literacy Resource Center in Boston, MA.