February - March 2002 Edition

Media Consolidation   Fair Lawn News has uncovered a serious concern in Fair Lawn about and how we are receiving our news from corporate giants.   Art Murray, host of Fair Lawn Talks on Channel 66, told Fair Lawn News that "monied interests have always sought to control the flow of information but they have never been more successful". Rose Heck (one of two State Assembly members representing Fair Lawn) said that corporate control of the news is limiting our access to a variety of facts, opinions and ideas.   North Jersey Media Group -- owners of The Record of Hackensack, The Shopper News, the Parent Paper, and the Herald and News of Passaic -- recently purchased more local newspapers in Ridgewood, Glen Rock, Wyckoff, Franklin Lakes, Ramsey, Mahwah, Saddle River and Allendale. The company now owns more than two dozen weekly newspapers in northern New Jersey. The Star-Ledger of Newark is part of a separate media giant (Advance Publications) that owns cable tv stations and publishes numerous magazines (including Glamour, Vogue, Jane) and 26 newspapers.   Larger newspapers gobbling up smaller ones is not limited to northern New Jersey; it is a national phenomenon. Media giants can sell advertising in consolidated discounted packages and they can save money on paper and administrative expenses. Here's what several local media people told Fair Lawn News about media consolidation.   Art Murray (host of Fair Lawn Talks): Media consolidation? What's new? My own jaundiced view is that in the long run we have more to fear from the centralization of information gathering than from Osama Bin Laden. Monied interests have always sought to control the flow of information but they have never, in this nation's history, been more successful. The good old days of Hearst and Pulitzer weren't good, but the new era of Murdoch and Cap Cities and Turner is worse. Soon we will all live in a perfectly sanitized environment of news safely designed to persuade us that what corporations think is sensible and the rest is crankery. If a troglodyte like Bill O'Reilly can get away with calling his partisan disingenuousness no-spin, what isn't possible? Local news is just catching up with current events. Maybe the Internet, with publications like Fair Lawn News, will forestall this trend for a while. One hopes.   Assemblywoman Rose Heck (former managing editor of a local paper): Independent, local newspapers are vital to the people. Corporate control of the news limits our access to a variety of facts, opinions and ideas. When I spoke in local schools, I always stressed the importance of reading many newspapers, particularly the local weeklies, before they made up their minds on any subject. Researching magazines, listening to the radio, and watching a variety of tv reporters is a wonderful learning experience. Some people still believe if it's in a newspaper, it is the truth.  The big papers offer, in my opinion, a cut and dried approach to information, particularly in what some of our colleagues call 'advocacy writing'. Not reporting who, what, where, when and why and how -- but what the writer wanted to promote, to sell, to push. Editorials, fine, that's the place to express one's own thoughts, views. But what happened to basic reporting? I am a believer in the Mark Twain approach: I would rather read one local paper seven times, than a daily corporate newspaper seven days a week. Freedom of speech needs an independent local newspaper approach.   Chris Neidenberg (former Shopper News reporter):  Thank God for the Internet. There needs to be more choices out there, and alternative community voices to papers, like Fair Lawn News.    Candice Vivino (President of Fair Lawn Creative Cable):  Not only is print media controlled by large corporations but television news has also fallen under the same control. This is why I feel so strongly about Public Access Television.  In the future it may be the only place to get accurate local information. Provided of course that the residents make sure it is not controlled by politics or commerce. And that is completely and solely the responsibility of the residents.   Becky Greene (publisher of the Chamber of Commerce's Fair Lawn Focus):  Media consolidation hurts the people looking for local news. People want to read about more than a major accident or a major controversy in their town. They want to hear good news, as well. They want to be spoken to in a personal way through their own newspaper -- something that has their town name in it. And they want access to it through letters to the editor and personal photos. They want to feel like it's their newspaper, like they own it.  It's hard for an independent paper to compete with the combined Record and Shopper group for advertising. I have little trouble getting content, but the advertising is very difficult to get. I believe an excellent product wins in the end. And as long as you give people wonderful and informative reading, they will look for your publication.   Joe Tedeschi (Manager of Fair Lawn Community School and former Fair Lawn Mayor): Media consolidation has come about because there are now so many new forms of media. In many ways, there are more alternatives than 25 years ago. I can watch five different news programs on TV, now. Unfortunately, most people don't read newspapers anymore; they tend to get information in snippets from the television.  You can go back and read an article again, but you can't do that with television. People want their information now, fast, not in depth.   What Do You Think?: Send an e- mail to editor@fairlawnnews.com or post a message on the Fair Lawn News Discussion Forum.