Media Ownership

Does Media Ownership Affect Media Stands? The Case of the Telecommunications Act of 1996

J.H. Snider and Benjamin I. Page’s 1997 study on the media ownership "At a hearing on media ownership on May 13, 2003, Senate Commerce Committee Chair John McCain waved the study at a media mogul on the panel and said: “Do you think this is an anomaly?” "When the FCC and Congress were debating whether to give away or sell $70 billion worth of digital broadcast spectrum in 1996, local TV broadcasters embarked on a furious lobbying campaign to ensure that they got the spectrum for free. The study looked at two different ways that ownership interests may have influenced media coverage.
The first paper studied “Overt Bias,” media coverage of the telecommunications issue that was under debate. The paper found that newspaper editorial coverage was indeed influenced by broadcast ownership interests.

The second paper studied “Covert Bias,” actual or threatened media coverage of other issues that could apply pressure on a political candidate to take the position favored by local TV broadcasters on the telecommunications issue. The paper found that a prominent and powerful local broadcaster threatened media retribution on the key opponent of the spectrum giveaway, Senator Bob Dole, at a time and place where this threat would likely have maximum effect. The broadcaster, a member of the NAB board, made the threat soon after an NAB board meeting, which was consumed by the danger Senator Dole posed to the future of their industry." also included in the pdf file is J.H. Snider’s 1999 paper on “The Paradox of News Bias.” "The paradox of news bias is that broadcasters have a strong incentive to exercise bias in ways that are not verifiable or even detectable by either the public or scholarly community. Moreover, on issues of information policy, they have ample means to exercise bias this way."
Pub_File_1237_1.pdf