Mercury is making some impressive moves in the sky these days — in particular, an aspect to the Jupiter-Chiron-Neptune alignment in Aquarius. This has potential on many levels; since Mercury is in Sagittarius, let’s take the wide view. Given the activity in Aquarius, let’s remember that we often communicate via electronic media — for example, you are reading this on the Internet.
Two of this week’s posts ask more questions than they do provide answers. The Hannity-Beck article from Monday night and yesterday’s video interviews with Sarah Palin book buyers seem to be leaving a lot of people wondering. To me they point to an old problem, which is a current problem: the need for media literacy. Simply put, watching TV is not enough. Reading newspapers is not enough.
But not enough for what? Well, enough to consider oneself well-informed. A lot has changed in media the past 30 years since a book called The Powers That Be documented the rise of the 20th century media giants — things like CBS, the Washington Post and The New York Times. Until the time of Ronald Reagan, these were indeed the dominant forces in the media. At times, they were incredibly influential, even powerful. Major newspapers were influential in bringing down Nixon (Woodward and Bernstein’s work at WP), in ending the Vietnam War (the Times’ coverage of the Pentagon Papers), and in many other positive developments of the 1970s.
Then three things happened.
1. Media consolidation. A tiny number of massive corporations control most of what you see, read and hear — companies like News Corporation, which reaches into 96% of U.S. households. When this was picking up momentum in the late ’80s and into the ’90s, many of us were extremely concerned — and many of our worst fears have proven to be valid. Other giants are Disney, Viacom, and Time Warner. This has happened in small ways, as well. Fifteen years ago, every city had an independently owned alternative weekly newspaper, which could respond to its community’s needs and was usually controlled by local business interests. Now, publishing groups have bought up most of these small community papers. They sort of look the same — but are they?