In an
interview with the
New York Observer, former vice-president Al Gore once stated: "The media is kind of weird these days on politics, and there are some major institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican Party." He added that with the advent of cable-television and
Internet news, the "news [has become] a commodity, available from an unlimited number of sellers at a steadily decreasing cost, so the established news organizations became the high-cost producers of a low-cost commodity." (Benson, pg 1). Considering the drubbing Gore got from the media during the 2000 presidential
election his disgruntlement (albeit mild) is understandable. But what he left out of his critique was how his administration helped to degrade journalism even further with the signing of what was then one of the most significant pieces of legislation to change the entire media landscape. The 1996 Telecommunications Act, signed by Bill Clinton, loosened restrictions on media ownership first set by the 1934 Communications Act set a feeding frenzy in motion among the major media conglomerates as they divvied up the spoils from a legislation they wrote themselves. As more and more radio and
television stations wound up in fewer hands, budgets were slashed and homogenization set in to offset the enormous debts incurred by the buyouts and mergers. The bottom-line has become the rallying cry among media executives, shoving public interests values into the neglected back corners.
