The media in the United States are not the fourth biggest power in the state, but the first. That is the main contention of the book Rich Media, Poor Democracy by Robert McChesney...
His argument: the power of the big media companies is not just based on financial might. Their strength, which has not been legitimized by a democratic decision, is rooted above all in their all-encompassing access to the public.
Indeed, media companies in the USA and in Europe have in recent months become even bigger and more diversified due to acquisitions, fusions, and cooperative agreements. The Internet, which until recently was celebrated as the democratic medium, as an instrument giving everyone access to the (world’s) public, is now also being used by the big companies to extend their power and sphere of influence. This integrated media industry has given rise to a new journalistic-technological complex which can no longer be shaped by society or by its representatives, the politicians. And how should the politicians be able to keep it in check? After all, they are dependent on the media more than anyone else.
The development has had an especially strong impact on journalism, on political reporting. Walter Cronkite, one of the most distinguished U.S. television journalists, is highly critical: “Our big corporate owners, infected with the greed that marks the end of the 20th century, stretch constantly for ever-increasing profit, condemning quality to take the hindmost. They are compromising journalistic integrity in the mad scramble for ratings and circulation.”
On commercial television, too, journalistic reporting is no longer unpopular because it is expensive and unprofitable. On the contrary. Following “n-24,” introduced by Pro 7, RTL is planning to launch a news channel. The recent political scandals in Germany have brought news programs and political talk shows high viewer ratings, let alone special programs and live transmissions such as the ones on Phoenix, for example. The latter channel limits itself to reality; others, however, stage their reports, in voluntary or involuntary cooperation with media people and political advisors. What will political journalism be like in the future with a web of media concerns that have high profit expectations and politicians who are dependent on the media and in turn have an influence on it? How independently do media have to be organized to guarantee autonomous journalism?
Host: Judith Schulte-Loh, WDR, Cologne
14.00 hrs – 14.30 hrs
Rich Media, poor Democracy?
Keynote
Prof. Dr. Robert McChesney, University of Illinois
14.30 hrs – 15.30 hrs
Does the media system triumph over politics?
Opening: Prof. Dr. Klaus Schönbach, University of Amsterdam
Statements:
Benjamin Mikfeld, Executive Board of SPD (Social Democractic Party in Germany), Berlin
Jürgen Krönig, Die Zeit, London
Dirk Kurbjuweit, Der Spiegel, Berlin
15.30 hrs – 16.00 hrs Coffee break
16.00 hrs – 17.00 hrs
What’s more exciting than reality? Performing politics on TV
Bettina Gaus, Publicist, Berlin
Jochen Keinath, Senior Vice President Sheinkopf Communications, New York/Berlin
Wolfgang Klein, Editor in Chief „Christiansen“, Berlin
Tony Maddox, Vice President and Managing Editor Europe, Middle East and Africa CNN International, London
Dr. Klaus Radke, Managing Director Phoenix, Cologne
17.00 hrs – 18.00 hrs
Independent Television – Independent coverage: The future of TV-journalism
Dr. Helmut Brandstätter, Editor in Chief and Managing Director Program n-tv, Berlin)
Nikolaus Brender, Editor in Chief ZDF, Mainz
Prof. Dr. Robert McChesney, University of Illinois, Champaign
Prof. Dr. Siegfried Weischenberg, Head of Journalist’s Union DJV, Münster/Bonn