Some reading from Columbia Journalism Review

Dear Reader,

For your reading pleasure, as the Bancroft family makes up its collective mind, we offer three recent offerings from
Columbia Journalism Review on the matter of News Corp. and Dow Jones.
Your choice: short, medium, long. We hope you enjoy all three.

The Editors

The Scorpion and the Frog
CJR's editorial on the Murdoch offer



Why the Dow Jones Vote Matters
Dean Starkman on the mission of The Wall Street Journal



Bending to Power
Murdoch historian Bruce Page on how Rupert built his empire, and how he uses it

Stop the Big Media Takeover! | Canadians for Democratic Media

Stop the Big Media Takeover! | Canadians for Democratic Media

If you're reading this blog from Canada, please make sure you check out the Stop the Big Media Takeover campaign website. Here's a clip from a promotional video they're circulating.

Media diversity is the cornerstone of democracy. But media ownership is more
highly concentrated in Canada than almost anywhere else in the industrialized world. Almost all private Canadian television stations are owned by national media conglomerates and, because of increasing cross-ownership, most of the daily newspapers we read are owned by the same corporations that own television and radio stations.

This means a handful of Big Media Conglomerates control what Canadians can most readily see, hear and read. It means less local and regional content, more direct control over content by owners and less analysis of the events that shape our lives. It also means less media choice for Canadians and fewer jobs for Canadian media workers.

We must also be wary of the impacts mergers have on the diversity and neutrality of new on-line media. We need to reverse this trend before big media gets even bigger!

Tell the CRTC what you think.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Rules that truly curb media concentration in Canada are long overdue. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) - the body that regulates broadcast and telecommunications systems - is holding a hearing on how to ensure the diversity of media voices in September and the deadline for submissions is July 18, 2007. Unless current policy direction are challenged by the public, Canada could in the long run end up with a vastly more concentrated media and a relaxation of the foreign ownership rules leaving our media susceptible to takeovers by even bigger Foreign-owned media conglomerates. The airwaves belong to the public, and the CRTC needs to hear from you.


SPREAD THE WORD
Unless the public speaks out, the debate will continue to be dominated by large media corporations. Please forward this message to encourage others to participate in this crucial campaign. Tell your family and friends about this important campaign

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The New Zealand link is, of course, CanWest, which has a number of media assets in Aotearoa and is a big player here too. CanWest Mediaworks New Zealand owns TV3, C4, and Radioworks.

Is the new media boom over?

I don't want to be a Cassandra, and I certainly don't want you all to think that I'm boosting for the Wall Street Journal (Murdoch can have it!). But two interesting articles that I've linked to here.
Both are about huge media and entertainment mulitnationals who've recently lost money on their entertainment, news and internet investments. I want to come back to this, but for now, these stories make interesting reading.
Viacom profits fall 36%

Warner Music posts net loss