THE INFORMATION MONOPOLY

	  The rapidly increasing centralization of media ownership raises
     critical questions about the public's access to a diversity of
     opinion. Further, and perhaps not surprisingly, the impact of this
     monopolization of information on a free society continues to be
     ignored by the mass media.
	  In 1982, when media expert Ben Bagdikian completed research for
     his book, THE MEDIA MONOPOLY, he found that 50 corporations controlled
     half or more of the media business. By December of 1986, when he
     finished a revision for a second edition, the 50 had shrunk to 29.
     About half a year later, when he wrote an article for EXTRA, the
     number was down to 26.
	  He also warned that a number of serious Wall Street analysts of
     the media are predicting that by the 1990s a half dozen giant firms
     will control most of our media.
	  Bagdikian notes that of the 1700 daily papers, 98 percent are
     local monopolies and fewer than 15 corporations control most of the
     country's circulation. A handful of firms have most of the magazine
     business, with Time, Inc. alone accounting for about 40 percent of
     that industry's revenues.	The three networks, Capital Cities/ABC,
     CBS, and NBC, still have majority access to the television audience,
     and most of the book business is controlled by fewer than a dozen
     companies, with major categories like paperback and trade books
     dominated by still fewer firms.
	  Even worse, this situation is exacerbated by the conflict of
     interest inherent in interlocking boards of directors.  A earlier
     study, by Peter Dreier and Steven Weinberg, found interlocking
     directorates in major newspaper chains like Gannett which shared
     directors with Merrill Lynch, Standard Oil of Ohio, 20th Century Fox,
     Kerr-McGee, McDonnell Douglas Aircraft, McGraw-Hill, Eastern Airlines,
     Phillips Petroleum, Kellog Company, and the New York Telephone Co.
	  The most influential newspaper in America, THE NEW YORK TIMES,
     was interlocked with Merck, Morgan Guaranty Trust, Bristol Myers,
     Charter Oil, Johns Manville, American Express, Bethlehem Steel, IBM,
     Scott Paper, Sun Oil, and First Boston Corporation.
	  Time, Inc.'s interlocks included Mobil Oil, AT&T, American
     Express, Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, Mellon National Corporation,
     Atlantic Richfield, Xerox, General Dynamics, and most of the major
     international banks.
	  Bagdikian's warning is ominous: "... a shrinking number of large
     media corporations now regard monopoly, oligopoly, and historic levels
     of profit as not only normal, but as their earned right.  In the
     process, the usual democratic expectations for the media -- diversity
     of ownership and ideas -- have disappeared as the goal of official
     policy and, worse, as a daily experience of a generation of American
     readers and viewers."
	  Equally disturbing, the prevailing concern with the bottom line
     coupled with the traditional publishers' tendency to avoid controversy
     fosters wide-spread self-censorship among writers, journalists,
     editors, and news directors.

	  SOURCES: EXTRA!, June 1987, "The 26 corporations that own our
     media," pp 1, 4, and MULTINATIONAL MONITOR, September 1987, "The Media
     Brokers," pp 7-12, both by Ben Bagdikian; UTNE READER, Jan/Feb 1988,
     "Censorshop in Publishing," by Lynette Lamb.