Media Redlining
Pasadena Weekly has a good article about the recent leaked ABC memo, and, to some degree, debunks the spin put on the issue by Corporations who have participated in the redlining of radio station affiliates who carry Air America Radio, a liberal talk radio show that, on a regular basis, lampoons a lot of conservative and corporate America. Titled “A Crime Called Journalism” the article lists the major corporations and organizations who aren’t just boycotting the particular radio show but instead completely redlining the stations who carry it. Who are they? “McDonald’s, Microsoft, Frito-Lay, Farmers Insurance, Goodyear, Nissan, Nestle, Hershey, Exxon Mobil, Fed Ex, Bank of America, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Pepsi, Coke, Cingular, Denny’s, Philip Morris, the American Heart Association, Allstate Insurance, the Discovery Channel, Home Depot, MGM, Paramount, Red Lobster, Wrigley, Wal-Mart, Sony, JC Penny, Office Depot, Eharmony.com, Travelocity.com, Visa, Kraft Foods, Levi’s, the New York Stock Exchange, the US Postal Service and the Navy” among others.
The spin the corporations are trying to put on this is that they are following “demographics” and going where the money is, or that they do not wish to advertise on any politically biased show or any show that is “controversial”, or that they don’t see results from advertising on the talk radio format. The problem with this is that other talk radio hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, who tout the opposite viewpoint from Air America Radio, have not been redlined in a similar manner.
The homogenization of big media has left a bad taste in other mouths as well when presented by Network News Anchors who don’t ask the hard questions, most likely because of those same big bucks advertising budgets. We who have been following the stories on Big Media Mergers, the recent scandal in the FCC, Network Neutrality, and the AT&T/BellSouth merger have seen how, if these stories are presented in Big Media at all, they’re given very short shrift, and usually presented in a way that is favorable to the advertisers, who are in many cases the ones who stand to gain the most by suppression of these stories.
One can only hope that the newly Democratic Congress won’t succumb to huge lobbying efforts by the same corporations who bought and paid for the last Republican Led Congress.
Only with a free, open and unbiased Media can Democracy thrive.
Technorati Tags: Big Media, Media Redlining, ABC, Air America Radio, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Frito-Lay, Farmers Insurance, Goodyear, Nissan, Nestle, Hershey, Exxon Mobil, Fed Ex, Bank of America, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Pepsi, Coke, Cingular, Denny’s, Philip Morris, the American Heart Association, Allstate Insurance, the Discovery Channel, Home Depot, MGM, Paramount, Red Lobster, Wrigley, Wal-Mart, Sony, JC Penny, Office Depot, Eharmony.com, Travelocity.com, Visa, Kraft Foods, Levi’s, New York Stock Exchange, US Postal Service, Navy
