When I first started writing about media seven years ago, the biggest public-policy question was this: How many media outlets should one company be allowed to own in a given market? In those pre-Google IPO, pre-Facebook days, there was a very real concern that big, publicly-owned media companies, like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. or Clear Channel with thousands of outlets were wielding too much influence over the minds of Americans. Hence, the then-Republican-led FCC’s attempts to relax rules governing media concentration was met with legal opposition persistent enough that it’s still raging today, even as the FCC once again considers those laws.
Today things on the media scene couldn’t be more different. We might still fear the craggy visage of Rupert Murdoch using his newspaper and TV empire to spread his conservative agenda, but there’s probably more reason to worry about the babyfaced Mark Zuckerberg and what he’ll do with your data. If past worries were founded on the idea that a town’s media could essentially be owned by one family, now it’s that all the information you share online will be used in some way you don’t want. For big, old media companies, the period of geography-based expansion — the snapping up of local newspapers and TV and radio stations — is over. Now it’s all about who owns what digital platform.
