Stop union buster Rupert Murdoch from owning more NY media!

Every time I see a union person with the NY Post under their arm I wish they had a fucking clue.

In December, the FCC, against 99% of the American publics wishes, overturned a longstanding rule of media, which stopped over-consolidation of media in any one area. That means, there was a rule which made sure that there was a reasonable chance that you might get more than one view on any given story.

Since then Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox Five, News corporation, MySpace (who banned the largest atheist group from its site), etc., the union-busting media tycoon has been on a buying spree, first came the Wall Street Journal and now NY Newsday is on the wish list. If you ever read the way the NY Post, another Murdoch holding, berates union workers you would understand why his ever increasing movement towards monopoly is a dangerous situation. Thats not the only thing, when he chaired News International, a UK organization which encompassed massive amounts of UK tabloids, he pitted unions against one another and forever changed the UK Labour Movement. From Wikipedia, on the 1986 Wapping dispute:

News internationals strategy in Wapping had strong government support, and enjoyed almost full production and distribution capabilities and a complement of leading journalists. The company was therefore content to allow the dispute to run its course. With thousands of workers having gone for over a year without jobs or pay, the strike eventually collapsed on 5 February 1987.

Heres my post in regard to the 12/18/07 FCC allowance of more media consolidation, Originally published on FreePress Action Network (12/19/07):

Now Big Media can hurt workers better

Submitted by Joe638NYC on December 19, 2007 - 11:41pm.

Hello, my name is Joe, I am a rank and file union member and on staff at the independent labor movement website UnionReview.

While we are primarily a labor news site, we also monitors news items that tie directly to the communication of the modern labor movement, such as Network Neutrality, the squelching of free speech and the spin doctoring of main stream media.

This ruling is a tremendous blow to the American working citizen. Information is power, the gathering of ideas based on different points of view is critical. When so very little can brainwash so many, what hope do we have.

Stand up people. Stand up for places such as Workers Independent News and Brain Labor Report, who continuously report on the airwaves about the struggles of the common working man and social injustices that never make it to the main stream.

Labor hardly got any attention in the main stream media before this was passed, and any if broadcast or published almost always portrays union workers as lazy, greedy and enemies of the public. A good case in point is an article I entitled NY Post spin-doctoring and the IATSE Stagehands, in which I retort the Rupert Murdoch News Corp.owned NY Post's so-called editorial about those greedy stagehands that closed down Broadway Thanksgiving week.

Does News Corp., Viacom, Disney, etc. have a stake in portraying unions as bad to the public? Absolutely, they have to negotiate with them at every step of their business, they are the employer, directly and indirectly of writers, screen writers, engineers, truckers, service employees, construction workers, screen actors, communication workers, stagehands, make-up artists and a host of other labor groups. It suits them well that there is a growing majority of ignorant people in this country that believe that unions are bad for them personally. They have the power to repeat in every media form their message and use the theory that if you continuously lie over and over the masses will believe it to be truth.

That suits Big Media and their corporations fine, by leveling the public against workers, by speaking generally without a fact basis, they perpetrate half-truths and outright lies that get embeded into the heart and mind of the public. By instilling hopelessness and fear they divide us into more and more fractions of smaller groups, pitting each against one another, dividing and conquering, making working people feel as if they are lucky to have a job, and that they must accept the final offer by employer.

This is not acceptable for my country, I thank the work of all those who contribute here, I regret that I have found this late, after seeing this at the AFL-CIO WebBlog, I couldn't help but get involved, firstly by writing a story on my new site Joe's Union Review the Anti-Union BlogSpot (theres reasons for the name), porting the story to UnionReview and MySpace, and by posting the links to our site and the AFL-CIO's story globally onto Labourstart, the global newfeed which reaches thousands of labor sites worldwide.

If we do not stop consolidation of the corporate main stream media and we give those same corporations complete control of the internet, our sources for free independent and diversified news and information will dry up.

Sites, such as freepress and UnionReview, that exercise our freedom of speech, that communicate important social matters and move people to take action may no longer be viewable or in the worst case scenario, have nothing to write about.

Thank you for putting this together, please contact me if anything I write at the site is erroneous, or if theres any other way I can help.

I leave you with this

"Such a small percentage try to make the world a better place, leaving the work to a scarce few. If those that did next to nothing did just a tiny bit, the world could be a better place for all." - me 7/7/07"

How dangerous can consolidation be, heres a snip from a report on Murdoch's adventures in China, which explains the European media holdings, From The Guardian.co.uk

But I am sure it is true that anticipatory compliance is Murdoch's most powerful weapon. I doubt he needed to tell all 247 of his editors to support the invasion of Iraq, but they did. He might not even have had to lean on Tony Blair to ensure - as Blair's former spin doctor Lance Price reveals - that no British minister said "anything positive about the euro". Power is sustained not by force but by fear, as everyone seeks to interpret the wishes of his master and to meet them even before he asks.

The Senate Commerce Committee has taken the first step in Vetoing the Dec.18th. FCC ruling. From the Freepress Action Network Blog post "Senate Commerce Committee Did the Right Thing" by jtorres (4/24/08)

The Senate Commerce Committee did the right thing today by unanimously voting out of committee a "resolution of disapproval" sponsored by Sen. Bryon Dorgan (D.N.D.) that would overturn the FCC’s Dec. 18 decision to relax the longstanding limits on how much media one company can own in your town.

It’s the first step toward an official Congressional “veto” of the FCC’s new rule, which permits one company to own both a major daily newspaper and a broadcast outlet in the same market.

Dorgan, as well as Democratic and Republican leaders, had warned FCC Chairman Kevin Martin last December not to lift the 30-year ban that forbids "newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership."

But the Murdoch empire still has NY Newsday (as well as Yahoo) on its to buy list, you can help fight the sale of Newsday by donating to FreePress, from the E-Mail:

Dear Joseph, Chip in to Stop Murdoch and Big Media Before Time Runs Out! This morning, the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously approved the "resolution of disapproval" we've been fighting for. It's the first step toward an official congressional "veto" of the Federal Communications Commission's new rules that gut media ownership limits. This vote couldn't have come at a more important moment. Just this week, Rupert Murdoch announced plans to buy his third New York newspaper — Newsday. (Murdoch already owns the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal and two television stations in this one media market!) We can stop this runaway media consolidation by passing the resolution of disapproval in the full House and Senate. To do that, we need your help right now. Donate to Stop Rupert Murdoch and Big Media. Time is of the essence. Senate rules require a floor vote on the veto within the next few weeks. So your immediate contribution is critical. With your support today, the Free Press Action Fund will: Line up more senators to support the resolution. We’ve already secured 25 co-sponsors, and we need to exert serious pressure to get the rest. (Murdoch’s greedy grab for Newsday will help, but you can be sure he’ll be fighting us every step of the way.) Counteract Big Media’s misinformation campaign. Huge newspaper conglomerates like Murdoch’s News Corp. and Tribune Co. are spending heavily to convince Congress that the FCC rules don't go far enough. They want to swallow up even more local media. Setting the record straight. If we can raise enough funding today, part of your contribution will pay for ads to get the attention of Washington decision-makers. Reach out to our hundreds of thousands of media reform activists -- and allied groups throughout the country to make sure they flood the Senate with letters, phone calls and e-mails. Help get this job done -- donate now! Since the FCC plan was announced in December, more than 250,000 activists have called on Congress to block it. Today's vote is the result — proof that when we pull together behind a clear strategic goal, we get results, even though industry lobbyists outspend us in Washington more than 200-to-1. The time to stop Murdoch and Big Media is now. I urge you to make your contribution right away. Gratefully, Alexandra Russell Program Director Free Press Action Fund www.freepress.net P.S. The clock is ticking. We must win full Senate approval of the FCC veto within the next few weeks. That means we must start right now. Please chip in today to win this essential victory for media reform!

Big thanks to the fine people at laborcommunicators Google group for bringing a lot of this to my attention