6-07-07, 9:37 am

Secretary Rice went to the Organization of American States and snarled at Latin America about the Venezuelan government's refusal to renew the license of rogue television station RCTV this past weekend.

She said that at stake is the freedom of the press and the American way. She ignored the fact that RCTV remains free to broadcast by cable, satellite, and via the Internet.

The Venezuelans reminded her that RCTV had illegally incited violence when it advocated overthrowing the Chavez administration in 2002, an act that Secretary Rice's boss endorsed as well. Additionally, the Venezuelan delegation reminded her that most of Venezuela's media oppose the policies of the Chavez administration.

But RCTV, coups, and US intervention in the internal affairs of another country aside, what about the closing down of media outlets, the consolidation of big media, and the shrinking free media in the US?

To accomplish this drift away from a free media, the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission issued an innocuous sounding document called a “Notice of Proposed Rule Making' last year. This document has since become the source of enormous controversy and struggle in defense of a free press in the US.

The proposed rule changes sought to eliminate the last federal regulations curbing corporate domination of local media.

Condoleezza Rice hasn't rushed to the defense of a diverse, free media. George Bush hasn't raged about the threat posed by this action to freedom and democracy. Right-wing pundits, hypocritically, have ignored the issue.

Democratic-appointed FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, said of the FCC 'Notice': 'It means that this Commission has begun to decide on behalf of the American people the future of our media. It means deciding whether or not to accelerate media concentration, step up the loss of local news and change forever the critical role independent newspapers perform for our country.'

In 2003, the Bush-controlled FCC had already tried to eliminate limits on the number of local TV, radio and newspaper outlets a corporation could own. But the Republican-controlled Senate, under severe public pressure, voted to slightly reduce the FCC's aggressive actions allowing big multinational corporations to gobble up small, local media outlets.

Despite this weak effort to preserve some freedom of the press, growing media consolidation reduced the diversity of both content types of media being produced as well as racial diversity in media ownership. Free Press, a coalition of media organizations that has followed these developments, reports that the FCC rules changes helped create a situation where minorities own just 4 percent of the media, and women own just 6 percent.

The consolidation isn't simply limited to business decisions about eliminating competition and monopolizing local media markets. Corporate entities are increasingly influencing the editorial policies and political biases of the media outlets they seek to control. Media consumers can soon expect that what they get from their TV, local paper, or radio stations will be simply the views and opinions of a shrinking collection of corporate elites.

Now major media corporations are pressuring the FCC to renew the weakened consolidation rules without review.

Here's just one local example to show how consolidation works.The Story was a five-year old newsweekly in the Greater Atlanta area with a circulation of 60,000 and regular local neighborhood editions, according to a recent news story by Atlanta Progressive News. Now The Story is closing its print operations and turning to a full-time Internet news source.

The Story is part of a family-owned business led by Deborah Eason, which had grown to several newsweeklies in other cities. Because the local newsweekly business can be financially successful, Cox Communications, a major media corporation that owns the Atlanta Journal-Constitution 'invested' in Eason's small company, Creative Loafing, Inc. and sat two people on Creative Loafing's board.

Eventually it became clear that the reason for making the investment was that the media giant waned to learn about the local newsweekly business, not to take over over Creative Loafing, but to start its own project. Reports Atlanta Progressive News: 'In an interesting twist, Cox Communications went on to launch a freebie, Access Atlanta, in 2003, which Creative Loafing decried as a cheap imitation of [its publication].'

While coverage of local news remains a major market for readers, smaller publications simply cannot compete when the major corporations like Cox step in with advertising-driven freebies. Local voices are silenced or forced to turn to the Internet to continue operating. Meanwhile, they lose many readers who prefer reading the local news in a paper they can pick up on the street corner.

In a nutshell, the US government intervened to eliminate federal regulations that protect the diversity of the publicly-owned airwaves and print media to allow companies like Cox to kill small, locally owned outlets like Creative Loafing and dominate local markets. Defenders of media monopoly say, that's the way capitalism works; we can't do anything about it.

Let's be clear about what's going on here. In the US, the 'free market' is closing down media outlets hand over fist in the name of monopoly and profit, and Condoleezza Rice has the chutzpah to accuse Venezuela of threatening the freedom of the press.

--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs magazine and can be reached at