An Excellent Example

Folks,

The following is an excellent example of the conflict we international
traders face:
***
Tuesday, January 11 11:25 PM SGT

AOL-Time Warner merger a "threat to democracy": IFJ

BRUSSELS, Jan 11 (AFP) -

The International Federation of Journalists on Tuesday branded the merger
between the world's largest media cooperation and Internet provider a threat
to democracy and freedom of expression.

The 147 billion dollar takeover of Time Warner by AOL could undermine
"democracy, plurality and quality in media," warned IFJ secretary general
Aidan White in a statement issued at the federation's Brussels HQ.

"We are now seeing the dominance of a handful of companies controlling
information and how that information reaches people. Unless action is taken
to ensure journalistic independence we face a dangerous threat to media
diversity," he said.

The IFJ believes that unless regulation is put in place media companies will
allow commercial decisions to control the news agenda.
***

Take a wild guess where I read this... the Drudge Report, a source which is
quickly becoming a major news source, now averaging a million hits a day.
Drudge of course was working in a gift shop when he came up with his idea for
a website about 3 years ago. His idea was - People read the newspapers for
the columnists, so bring all the columnists to one spot on the web,
www.drudgereport.com. (And the other profitable area of newspapers is
want-ads, which a housewife took away from the newspapers when she started
eBay).

And Drudge gets his product, news, for free...either through tips sent into
him at no cost, or as in the article cited above, from other news sources, in
this case Yahoo.com...which is another news source started by two kids in a
college dorm.

So what about the claim above, ""We are now seeing the dominance of a handful
of companies controlling information and how that information reaches people.
Unless action is taken to ensure journalistic independence we face a
dangerous threat to media diversity," he said."? This is of course absurd.
It was Time magazine that spiked the story of Clinton and Lewinsky, and
Drudge that released it first...leading to the second impeachment of a
president. What is in fact happening is Time CNN NBC etc realize the
monopoly on news is finally over, due to the innovations in technology, and
the time to sell out has come. The only problem is AOL paid way too
much..another 2 years Steve Case of AOL could have it all anyway. But for a
kid who sold beauty perms door-to-door 15 years ago, owning Time-Warner-CNN
might be worth a premium price. Maybe Case will start dating Jane Fonda.

The best part of the release above is: "The IFJ believes that unless
regulation is put in place media companies will allow commercial decisions to
control the news agenda."

This is exactly the method of GATT, WTO. IMF, World Bank, etc... completely
reverse the facts, claim a problem where none exists, and demand regulation
that protects their turf. The fact is since companies such as
Archer-Daniels-Midland bought and paid for news content at PBS-NBC-CBS-ABC,
thinking people don't bother watching anymore.

Entrepreneurial efforts are alive and well, but alas, so are the reactionary
forces who want all this improvement stopped, and quickly.

John

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