“Crisis of the Media”
A Sermon for West Seattle Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
October 5, 2003
Rev. Peg Boyle Morgan
READINGS
Marge Piercy in The Moon Is Always Female
Two people can keep each other
Sane, can give support, conviction,
Love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation
A committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
An organization. With six
You can rent a whole house,
Eat pie for dinner with no
Seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
Ten thousand, power and your own paper,
A hundred thousand, your own media;
Ten million, your own country.It goes on one at a time,
It starts when you care
To act, it starts when you do
It again after they said no,
It starts when you say We
And know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.
Ram Dass In Compassion in Action
There was a time when my aggravation with the system focused on Caspar Weinberger, secretary of defense. I’m sure he was no worse than many others, but there was something about his cold arrogance and apparent lack of wisdom that infuriated me. So I got a picture of Caspar and placed it on my puja (prayer) table with all my spiritual heroes. Then, each morning when I lit my incense and honored the beings represented on the puja table, I’d feel waves of love and appreciation toward my guru, [and] Buddha, [and]Christ, [Anandamayi Ma, Ramana Maharshi, and Hanuman.] I’d wish them each good morning with such tenderness. Then I’d come to Caspar’s picture, and I’d feel my heart constrict, and I’d hear the coldness in my voice as I said, “Good morning, Caspar.” Each morning I’d see what a long way I still had to go.
But wasn’t Caspar just another face of God? Couldn’t I oppose his actions and still keep my heart open to him? Wouldn’t it be harder for him to become free from the role he was obviously trapped in if I, with my mind, just kept reinforcing the traps by identifying him with his acts?...
The Indian poet Kabir said… “Do what you do to another person, but never put them out of your heart.” It’s a tall order. But what else is there to do?
“THE CRISIS OF MEDIA” SERMON
He was a young man, and the chair of the Religious Education Committee at the Providence Rhode Island UU congregation in 1953. His name, Ben Bagdikian, a journalist at a local newspaper. If Ben thought that this time in his life required any stretching of his skills, any testing of his life waters, any questions of courage, he would reexamine his perspective later in life, later when he was working for the Washington Post.
It is 1971 when he finds himself being the carrier for what some see as illegal contraband. At midnight, alone under the marquee of the Mayflower Hotel in the heart of Washington, his heart is pounding, a bead of sweat forms on his temple and now trickles down his face. He looks behind his car through his rear view mirror. Anyone coming? Anyone who looks like the FBI? Fear grips him, as he wishes the meeting point could have been out in the suburbs, in the dark.
“No,” he had been told by his partner in crime, a former counterintelligence officer. “Hell, that would just invite someone to frag [kill] you.” Suddenly… a car pulls up along side his. Thank God he thinks, relieved to see that it was his partner in crime--a fellow Unitarian, Alaska Senator Mike Gravel. Ben opens his door quickly, steps out, walks around back to his trunk, opens it, lifts out a big box of papers, and throws them in the senator’s trunk; he then stands there and watches the Senator speed away.
The contraband? It would become known as the Pentagon Papers. Leaked to the New York Times and the Washington Post, the Justice Department had forced the newspapers to stop printing portions of them. But the Supreme Court upheld the freedom of the press. Daniel Ellsberg, the researcher who leaked the 7,000 page report, was still looking for a safe way to make the full report public. Senator Gravel would make it public record by reading portions into the congressional record during a filibuster on Nixon’s renewing the draft. It was Gravel who would contact the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Beacon Press, after three-dozen publishers refused to touch the report. Their understandable fears of monetary loss and fears of government intimidation did not stop our press from printing it. Beacon staff and the UUA President believed we had a religious responsibility to publish publicly needed information. Fears were realistic. The FBI arrived at the UUA’s bank, the day after the Pentagon Papers were published, and spent days copying the names and checks of donors to the UUA. Further investigation was stalled, though, as the discovery of the Watergate break-ins, came to occupy Nixon’s attention.
U.S. District Judge Murray Gurfein, who ruled in the Pentagon Papers case, stated in the ruling that “The security of the nation is not at the ramparts alone. Security also lies in the values of our free institutions. A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know.”
Ben Bagdikian would embrace these values as he continued on in journalism. His experiences and his personal religious values would lead him to form strong opinions on the importance of the freedom and courage of the press. Later he was excited to become Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the U. C. at Berkeley, thinking there he could make a difference in the formation and ethical thinking of a whole new generation of journalists. Excited …until on his first day on the job as he settled into his office, an aide came running into his office, Dr. Bagdikian, Dr. Bagkidian, someone has taken the door off the women’s restroom stall! Well, things got better there, and after some good years as Dean, he is now dean emeritus, and author of a 6th edition book entitled Media Monopoly, published, …yes …by Beacon Press.
The major issue that is covered in this book is that increasingly media corporations are being bought up by a limited number of bigger corporations. When Media Monopoly was first published in 1983, there were 50 companies that owned most of every mass media but each concentrated on one media type (tv, radio, or newspaper, etc) By the second edition of the book in 1987 that number of companies was down to 29; by the third edition in 1990, 23 companies; by the fourth edition, 14 companies; by the fifth edition in 1997, 10 companies; and then by the current 6th edition in 2000, six companies. Besides being down to six corporate owners, those six now reach across the media types to own not just one kind but multiple types of media. The larger corporations are continuing to buy into all aspects of media, so that they often own newspapers, tv stations, cable companies, book chains and book distribution centers. In the field of informing the public about facts and their meaning, six companies have a huge amount of control. Investigative reporting is affected, authors of books go unpublished, TV programming is limited. That is what the big deal was this summer when the FCC established rules that would have gone into effect on Sept 4th, rules that would have allowed further consolidation of media. But there was a federal court stay of the rules, and in the meantime, congress has been flooded with calls and postcards urging legislation that would prohibit further consolidation. That legislation is almost complete but could be vetoed by our President.
Why is this important and why is this a religious issue? When the states ratified the Bill of Rights in 1791, the First Amendment gave us an assumption of free press: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Our forefathers and mothers had no idea what media would look like today. In those days, papers were owned by newspaper owners, not by other corporations. Free press was seen as critical to the ability to get information out to the public, and to inform the public in their voting (those that were allowed to vote then). As Noam Chomsky, the MIT analyst of media has pleaded that a free and diverse press is crucial to democracy, and has said, and I quote: “In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than values to be valued—they may be essential to survival.” (end of quote). That is why this is important, and that is why it is a religious issue.
Unitarian Universalism places democracy right in the middle of our religious principles. Our 5th principle essentially says that part of human dignity is having a say over conditions that affect us—that’s what democracy or representative democracy is all about. Informed voting, informed consent our forefathers called it. This is a religious issue, because it is about how we humans are informed which affects how well we can vote.
Let’s look at this monopoly problem in more depth. The six current owners include General Electric, Viacom, Disney, Bertelsmann from Germany, Time Warner, and Murdoch’s News Corp from Australia. –most are subsidiaries of a larger parent firm, which means they operate and are controlled by other industries. As the media take over larger and larger percentages of the publicly owned airwaves and the correlated geography, there is likely to be less diversity of opinion expressed.
I met a journalism professor yesterday, and found myself talking to him about this subject. He told of his dismay when visiting a former student and newspaper journalist in Florida who is told that after he writes his articles, he is to send them to the television studio in his same building, where they are used for the tv news. Efficient and cost effective? Yes. Diversity of voices and perspectives? No. Less companies likely means more uniformity. Also, the large corporations, the big six, have interlocking relationships and contracts. Corporate values and perspectives are naturally going to affect the choices of programming. Self-critical stories or stories critical of their partners or of their executives’ friends in other corporations are simply not going to be volunteered. To this they have every right, but we also know that what gets on the news affects our political agenda, and choices about what books are not published and distributed affects what topics fall off the political agenda. This may be good or bad, depending upon the topic and your point of view. In 1987 the President of GE called the President of NBC, (owned by GE) and said with the stock market down, I hope the news will not say anything that will depress the GE stock. Understandable call? Yes. Ok to keep information from us? No.
The emerging conglomerate system limits our access to information. Bagdikian states that big corporate ownership has led to media criticism of any failures of the public sector, but that there is reluctance to cover equally important failures of the private sector, when corporations are involved--until the stories just burst open like Enron. And while we hear about welfare cheaters, we don’t hear nearly proportionately enough about corporate cheaters. Certain problems are covered… others are not. So Bagdikian concludes that: “Political narrowness in the media reportage and commentary inevitably leads to a narrow range of genuine choices at elections, and since meaningful voter choice is vital to sustain any democracy, to that extent, the contemporary mass media’s constricted politics weaken the foundation of the democratic process.” (p. xii)
A related problem is that now profit has become a bigger motive than journalism. Profits have always been necessary to keep the presses running, let’s be realistic!—but now corporate employees have pressures to produce large profits for their advertisers and for corporate owners and stock holders. This has resulted in a dissolution of the ethic of a separation wall between the journalistic side of the media and the business and revenue side, a separation often referred to in journalism as the separation of “Church and state,” –that’s how important this ethic used to be—that they named it after one of the great ethics at the heart of our nation’s constitution. That wall is tumbling down. What once was a sin is a virtue. A. Roy Megary, publisher of the Toronto Globe and Mail, said it this way: “… publishers of mass circulation daily newspapers will finally stop kidding themselves that they are in the newspaper business and admit that they are primarily in the business of carrying advertising messages.”
Editors are now trained in how to choose stories that will help sell products of their advertisers, stories that “soften” us up for the ad on the next page. Editors are taught about postal code demographics, leading them to choose stories of the activities of the middle and upper income communities, attempting to appeal to those who will buy the products of advertisers. Lower income people find their issues in the media much less, unless it is related to crime. In a dynamic and changing society the voices of all segments of the population need to be heard, and when news is slanted and excludes a third of the population, there is a critical element of democracy that is sacrificed. This is a religious issue!
So what do we need from the media?
At a time when a new wave of secrecy legislation purports that our national security requires us to be kept ignorant, when government secrecy becomes more important than an informed citizenry-- there are several things I want from the media:
We owe a great deal of appreciation to the journalists, and there are many of them, who every day try to deliver these objectives, and who understand the importance their role plays in our free country.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
First of all, we can be activists. But I want to emphasize that in a country that honors free speech, the goal of activism for a diverse media does not call for elimination of private enterprise in the media, but just the opposite. It is the restoration of genuine competition and diversity.
There are lots of ways we can do this. One action we can take if we have the internet, is to become members of moveon.com which has kept the public informed on many issues, including the FCC rulings and congressional voting. We can also contact a local group, called “reclaimthemedia.org,” recommended by a very helpful staff person in Congressman McDermott’s office. With the advent of the internet, activists have a new lease on life, and with each of us joining in easily with the click of our keyboard, or the posting of a post card, organized lobbying of citizens is a powerful tool.
I asked our congressional office, what made the difference in the vote on the FCC rules, rules that would have consolidated media ownership even more. At a time when corporations have so much influence in congress, I wanted to hear from Washington how the corporations lost this vote. McDermott’s office said that when you get 800,000 e-mails and postcards from citizens you take notice. Both conservatives and liberals were sending messages to congress, some liberals concerned about concentration of corporate power, some conservatives wanting more options without so much violence and sexuality. On this issue, people on both sides of the isle and in between were allies against FCC and its spokesperson, Colin Powells’ son, Michael Powell. Those e-mails really do count.
As Marge Piercy said in our poem earlier:
It goes on one at a time,
It starts when you care
To act, it starts when you do
It again after they said no,
It starts when you say We
And know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.So we can be activists.
Secondly, we can take responsibility for what programming we tune in to. I for one find lots of wonderful programming on tv. I’m not an anti-tv person. But I do think we would be well to consciously decide how much tv to watch, and perhaps participate in the “Turn off your TV” week that happens each year. But much more importantly, I urge you to take deliberate steps to be informed by alternative media. One of my favorites is the lower powered public radio station in our area: Bellevue Community College’s station, KBCS which carries Democracy Now and Pacifica Radio programs, alternative voices on current national and international issues.
I am lobbying Comcast to include WorldLink in its channel lineup. WorldLink, a California non-profit channel, takes you right to real people of the world, bringing them right into your front room, in conversations about their lives and countries. We also can go on line or cable for BBC and other international points of view. I’d love for you to share during discussion alternative periodicals and other media you find enriching.
And third, we can support alternative book sources. Bertelsmann, the German member of those six media companies, not only has 50% of Barnes and Noble, but by purchasing Random House, it acquired 50 formerly independent publishing houses including Knopf, Pantheon, Crown, Fawcett, Ballantine, Vintage, Anchor, Bantam, Doubleday, Dell and Delacorte. As publishers are bought up, their specific knowledgeable niches and missions often get lost. A former Pantheon Press staff member has said that “since their emergence as consolidated giants, none of the three leading book firms has published a book of serious history, scientific inquiry or translation. Medium and small publishers still publish serious books but they lack the power to produce and promote books at a level that is competitive with the major firms, and they lack equal access to the global sales machinery.” (p.xxxvii)
Our UU Beacon Press exists to publish books that need to be published because of their diverse and often minority but cutting edge viewpoints, but which are not being picked up by other presses who are only in the business for profits. This past year, our Beacon Press put out a call for all UUs to buy just one book by their press, to help them stay financially afloat. Their catalogue is available in our office here, and their website, “Beacon.org” is easily accessed. We also can support the small specialty and alternative bookstores.
As I have said, these are religious issues. All of these efforts and other good actions of your choosing are best done when grounded in your spiritual life--to be effective and empowering, rather than draining of your energy. What does that mean? It means being conscious of the spiritual principles that mean the most to you, and relating your actions to them. It means that our engagement with the world needs a direct connection with our spiritual lives. Unitarian Universalism calls us to embody our principles in the world—and what are those principles? They are about everyone’s dignity, they are about compassion, justice, equity; about world community with peace and liberty; they are about the interdependent web of all existence. Let’s be conscious of the direct connection between our principles and our acts to improve the world. These media issues are all about the dignity of voices not covered, about equity, and about the affects of our interdependence.
And, to slow ourselves down even further, before we move out into the world to advocate change in systems out THERE, let us first move IN HERE, inside ourselves to do our own accounting of how well we are living in harmony with our own religious principles. This keeps us humble, this keeps us focused, this keeps us from being arrogant.
And as Ram Dass said in our reading, we may seek to change the actions of others, but let us always keep our hearts open to those whose actions we seek to change. Let us not demonize those we seek to influence. They are people with worth and dignity too. “Never put them out of your heart.” (Kabir)
In closing… we can take responsibility for what our personal media sources are, supporting those that give a diverse range of information and philosophies. In a world of huge problems where a multiplicity of ideas is essential for effective solutions, information solely controlled by a few corporations is legal and understandable, but detrimental to our efforts to have a more diverse information flow. Our actions to assure the media monopolies do not expand their control further are not meant to silence the voices and ownership of media now present, but to multiply them, not to foreclose ideas, but to awaken them. For, as Bagdikian says, “it is in diversity and openness that the genius of the United States can flower.”
These are religious issues. As we engage these issues, may we move on to action, grounded in the clear values that our faith provides. May our faith and its principles help us today and everyday, to do the right things. Amen
REFERENCES
Our Media Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media, Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols. 2000.
Ben H. Bagdikian. The Media Monopoly. 2000.
Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media. Companion book to the film “Manufacturing Consent.” Edited by Mark Achbar.