The first time my concern was piqued about media corporations was when I was on a roadtrip listening to a podcast called “The Catch and Kill” hosted by Ronan Farrow, one of the journalists responsible for bringing the Harvey Weinstein case into the public light. The podcast title, “The Catch and Kill”, is a term used within the media for when a story is uncovered and consequently buried, i.e. not published. 

The Harvey Weinstein story initially began while Farrow was working at NBC News but was eventually published in the New Yorker. While the main “plotpoint” of the podcast was in covering the details of the Weinstein case it also showcased just how much power media corporations have and how they wield it.

With the ownership of media outlets concentrating and the consolidation of power increasing, I am brought back to my 7th grade history class where it was impressed upon me, in no uncertain terms, that monopolies were illegal. Indeed, this was why the United States Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 where it was then signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The aim of this law was to place limits on how much of the market media companies could own as well as prevent companies from controlling multiple media channels within the same town. 

With monopolies on my mind and the new information of the Telecommunications Act it seemed impossible that this consolidation of power was legal, well here enters the Federal Communications Commission (F.C.C.) and the Supreme Court. In 2017, the F.C.C. loosened control over media ownership saying that old rules had to be adjusted in order to continue to suit their aims to promote competition between companies; this decision by the F.C.C. was allowed to stand by the 2021 Supreme Court (Liptak). The big concern is that loosening controls over media ownership directly promotes monopolies whilst also pushing out the smaller companies, specifically minority owned companies. Justice Clarence Thomas’ responded to the concern writing “The F.C.C. had no obligation to consider minority and female ownership”, additionally writing that “the F.C.C. has recently questioned the validity of the assumption that ownership diversity promotes viewpoint diversity.” 

My concern, as well as many others, that this hope to promote competition is mainly going to serve to silence minority voices as well as enhance the current negative biases these communities face. 

If media corporations are actively picking what news is publicized and manipulating the framing of news to suit them, or their friends, how do I navigate and moderate what sources of media I am consuming? Honestly, I don’t think I have a complete answer for this. That being said however I find a certain irony in that one of the most-viewed news sources, as well as one whose content and fact-checking is crowd sourced, is also the one I was told in high school and middle school to never cite: Wikipedia. While I agree that you probably shouldn’t cite wikipedia I do think it can be a place to begin research on a topic. Due to the crowd sourced fact-checking it may be the closest thing you could get to unbiased information on a topic.

The best thing I can see to do is seek a wide variety of news from a wide variety of sources. Look for independent media sources and talk to people in and around your community. Listening to the voices of the those around you I think will take some of the power away from media corporations and give it back to you, not only as an individual but as a part of functioning diverse society that is built for the people as a whole.

Liptak, Adam. “Supreme Court Lets F.C.C. Relax Limits on Media Ownership.” The New York Times, 1 Apr. 2021, http://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/01/us/supreme-court-media-ownership.html.