Here’s one big one, the one I think influences all the other issues more than anything else: media consolidation. It’s not sexy, it’s not as thorny as abortion, nor is it as obvious as tax policy. It is, however, the most critical thing when it comes to reporting, news, public debates of the day, and the health of our democracy. Watching Outfoxed, this was what I was thinking… mega corporations with no real interest or passion for journalism are putting profit pressures on their news subsidiaries to follow the lead set by Fox News in news production… they’re following the first rule of product marketing, which is that fear, uncertainty, and doubt motivates better than anything else.

Ted Turner weighs in on media consolidation, arguing that it ain’t all that good nor is it a simple result of the free market. The same free market rules that helped CNN and TBS launch decades ago are slowly being replaced with new free market rules that tilt the field in favor of the existing players. It’s no longer a free market, in other words, but a market with significant barriers to entry.

From the article:

In the media, as in any industry, big corporations play a vital role, but so do small, emerging ones. When you lose small businesses, you lose big ideas. People who own their own businesses are their own bosses. They are independent thinkers. They know they can’t compete by imitating the big guys–they have to innovate, so they’re less obsessed with earnings than they are with ideas. They are quicker to seize on new technologies and new product ideas. They steal market share from the big companies, spurring them to adopt new approaches. This process promotes competition, which leads to higher product and service quality, more jobs, and greater wealth. It’s called capitalism.