For Ted Turner, media consolidation becomes a key issue

From AdAge: "Mr. Turner was the keynote speaker of the opening session of the American National Association of Television Program Executives annual conference. The media mogul... accused big media corporations of maintaining cozy relations with government. "It's very disturbing when we're at war," he said... The founder of CNN said, "I think there should be a little less Hollywood news and a little more hard news. That would be good for our democracy." He lamented that there was little opportunity for independent voices when "90% of the cable companies are owned by the broadcast networks."

I think Turner is right on one point: the American community of media thinkers is today focused on participatory journalism and citizen media as an answer to mergers and concentrations. But this position could also be interpreted as a renunciation: it is impossible to avoid more and more consolidation in the media industry. But at least, citizens can blog and chat!

In other words, Turner tries to defend the existing "Fourth Estate" when others want to invent an hypothetical "Fifth Estate". The problem is that this new Fifth Estate prefers struggling with "mainstream media" and forgets to fact-check the three other Estates. "Dommage" as we say in French!

Source: AdAge (registration required)