Focus 580; The New Media Monopoly

Good morning this is Focus 580 our morning telephone talk show. My name is Jack Brighton glad you could listen today. In 1983 appeal as a prize winning journalist named Ben bagged Akiane wrote a book entitled The media monopoly and which explored the rapid consolidation of media ownership. At the time just 21 years ago 50 companies controlled most of the major media. The book was a wake up call on an issue few had actually noticed. Unfortunately we must have hit the snooze button because today the major media which includes television radio movie studios record companies newspapers magazines cable and satellite networks to name a shortlist is owned by only five giant media corporations. During this hour focus 580 will talk with Ben bag about his latest book entitled The new media monopoly a completely revised and updated edition with seven new chapters published like the first edition was by the Beacon Press in this book. Ben bad dickin updates a picture of the rapid consolidation of media. Ownership and explores the impact this has had on our politics and culture. We'll talk about that during

this hour. A bit more about our guest men back Dickie and he began his career as a newspaper reporter at the Springfield morning Union in Massachusetts then joined the Providence Journal as reporter foreign correspondent and eventually Washington bureau chief in 1970 he became the assistant managing editor for National News at The Washington Post where he was central to breaking the story of the Pentagon Papers. In 1976 he joined the faculty of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley where in 1905 he became dean. His books include in the midst of plenty the poor in America the information machines caged prisoners and their keepers and the. For mentioned the media monopoly and a book we spoke with him about the couple you actually about five years ago double vision reflections on my heritage life and profession also published by Beacon Press among bank then back begins awards are the George Foster people award and the people surprise and he continues to write on media issues

and politics. And we're glad to have him with us this morning. If you would like to join our conversation all you have to do is pick up the telephone. We welcome your participation in this conversation. The number around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line if you're listening anywhere around the Midwest or if you're listening on the Internet anywhere in the continental U.S. That number is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 thought 5. Again locally 3 3 3 W I L L toll free elsewhere. 800 1:58 w oil well and been bagged again joins us this morning by telephone. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks so much for being with us. It's a pleasure to be on. Well I'm glad to talk with you again. I'd like to start with an observation that you make at the beginning of the book about how we all really live in two worlds the world of flesh and blood in front of our faces and the world we access through media. It's not something we think about much is it. Well yes and I think I think it's so common radio television

movies all of the electronic media that we sort of take it for granted as a. Part of our life. But in fact it is too large really. Mom is of course the life for thousands of years of family friends playmates and human interaction. And we've learned how to deal with that we know when someone is angry we know when someone is hostile. We know when someone is friendly and we learn how to deal with that. Everyone grows up with that learning that knowledge and inheriting some of that knowledge. The media in terms of civilization is relatively new and especially modern media which just burst upon us until now. There are times in which it's very hard to distinguish between the artificial media which is controlled usually commercially

overwhelmingly commercially and for obviously profit and advertising and some public broadcasting which is. Outside source but still unfortunately has a minority of listeners. So we are we are dependent upon the artificial media which are cruel contrived by the business people and naturally because every business has to stay alive and make a profit. But these this is not an ordinary business. It's not a shoelace ings it's not a nuts and bolts. It's a it's the kind of product which model for children growing up they see in the movies they see it on television which is a kind of model for the whole population. They see things happening there. They create fashions. And when you get every medium

which is under the control of one company newspapers magazines radio television books movies you have a complete world run by one company and has enormous power both and shaping values national values and in political power when the. 94 Congress convened so-called gingers Congress. They called an executive for corporations and said What do you want. And they told him and they gave it to them and what is that 1996 act to do is stop specifying categories of public service which local stations are supposed to care for. The result has been that these local stations are now part of an enormous chains with

information broadcast coming from thousands of miles away. Very little to do with the local community. And frequently canned. I wuz angry and surprised to learn that the biggest For example the biggest radio chain in the country is Clear Channel. They have 12 hundreds of stations. They have only 200 employees because of course they are canned They're automated and the only thing that interrupts the canned music is Rush Limbaugh and Don Imus. It's become so that American radio has become a right wing propaganda machine. When you add to that Fox Television and Radio which is explicitly right wing and the other stations which are not going to criticize corporations except rarely that is in

60 minutes you get then a very powerful social and also political force. It effects legislation as if it had affects the country's politics during this period the country's politics have shifted to the far right. So that what used to be considered the extreme right is now at the center and what used to be considered liberal is wary hanging on the edge by its fingernails and what was then left a liberal has fallen off the edge. Well it does not reflect what the American people say their political values are. The best research the Pew Research and so forth shows that most Americans are moderate in their politics. They either center right leaning or center left leaning Center right leaning his

slightly more than center left. But they are not radically divided broadcasting however is totally out of sync with so that we're not seeing a reflection of our lives in our own broadcasting system which incidentally has seemed to be lost that the American public owns the airwaves not the broadcast and we aren't getting what represents how vastly different ethnicity region. We get homogenized information that is designed to be as inexpensive as possible and has powerfully controlled the central point. Well let me I'm sorry I was going to ask you go ahead. Yeah I was going to ask you to talk a little bit more about this issue because there seems to be some debate some people you know say that the media don't drive our politics but simply reflect our politics. And you argue that in fact over the past 50 years the media have very

much driven us in a very conservative direction politically that as you just stated doesn't reflect the mood of the country. When I ask you to amplify on how how that. Has happened. Well it happened because we have gone through a 20 year old church of deregulation. The initial argument for deregulating all kinds of things everything from the Federal Communications Commission to the Securities Exchange Commission is that corporations said loan out regulations are simply creating a lot of red tape. They hold back business. They hamper companies from serving their customers and so forth. So we deregulated and where and for example in the case of FCC Where do you suppose the Enron and the Tyco the most respected banks in the country playing very funny accounting games

at the expense of their depositors and stockholders. Because these regulations were designed to prevent and in broadcasting the chairman of the present Federal Communications Commission Mr. Paul says he thinks there are so many channels now that there is no need for broadcast regulations. Well that's true there are many more channels than ever before. The problem is that they call almost all owned by the same company. The same big five or six companies and so that what gets on is decided by the number of people I put in my book I was trying to describe how you could illustrate how few people control what the American people know or don't know or see and don't see from moved to movies

to recordings and everything else. It's the executives of those five companies could fit into a phone booth and that's that's much too great a power to AP How by so few people. Well let's talk about who those. People in the phone booth are there. You name them and there are five companies that are at the top. Most of them or are three of them are or are American companies and who are not. Can you talk about who they are. You know the biggest in the world is Time Warner the biggest in a number of companies and their reach. And I'm talking about every medium. The next News Corp. Rupert Murdoch who is explicitly right wing has all right wing commentators and is very powerful and uses his broadcasting power to get what he wants out of

Congress for 50 years. He was permitted to break the law. Protesting law which is that the basic corporation had a broadcasting station and system has to be based in the United States and for 50 years while he was building his power he kept his station his company News Corporation based in Austria where the taxes will go and only in the last couple of years has he moved that space to the United States. So this is another big one as Murdoch does need is yet another one of the big five and Disney of course has. Dominant in every medium and is a good example of what they all do. They use one of their media to promote other Civic Media but I would explain that in a moment. Sure. Another big one is Bertelsmann which is a German corporation which

which is about the fourth largest media company in the United States. They have 80 to pick companies book houses random call and so forth. They control magazines like family weekly and parents. A big record company RCA are shaped Victor Victor Windham Hill and then you have a lot of very close to those General Electric which of course controls NBC and all of that flows. And so those five with a close section in General Electric. Viacom didn't mention which is a form of CBS. So those those companies have all the media and what they look for since they have all media powerful and all the media. They look for recyclable material. Let me describe that. If they own

a big magazine chain they will have a magazine story that will be made into a book. The book will be promoted on their radio talk shows that will then be come a movie. The movie studio they own the star of the movie will be interviewed and the talk shows will be promoted in the other media and so that each hand washes the other they use. It is a mutual aid society among all of the different media and it becomes very hard for an independent voice to be heard in this closed circle. And that is one of the major problems. It also means that when they go to Washington they are so powerful. Politicians are laws to offend them when they want something

they usually get it. If we try to put public service duties on them and it must be remembered we the American people own the airwaves where they make their money and they are supposed to preserve the public interest. Now the Communications Law wisely doesn't mandate what their programs must do. And I think that's proper. But what it does say they should serve the public interest and should have respect for nude and public a permission access to their stations by local people. It doesn't say what the news has to do. So the news can be right wing and the commanders probably can't stop what they did use until the mid-eighties with something called the Fairness Doctrine and all that said was if in

exercising their broadcasting company broadcasting company seriously criticizes an individual or an organization that individual or organization will have the right of applause the broadcasters the National Association of Broadcasters went to Congress and said look we want civic discussions we want each city that we're going to have people come in and argue pro and con of what the public issues are in that city. This Fairness Doctrine is really so onerous we means we you know he speak speak about any of these issues because we've spent all our time answering having people answer just repeal that and we'll increase civic discussions. So the government repealed it.

And in the next six months civic discussion has dropped 30 percent and they've been dropping ever since now. You very seldom on a big market here any debate about big local issues. So what we have with these companies is political power as well as social broadcast power. I want to ask you to talk a little bit more about the corporations that own the media and how their own. Ownership affects what gets covered in the news companies that own the media. Of course they own much more than just the media. So there is self interest extend into many areas. The media should be thoroughly covering. But as we saw in the Enron case of Enron and Global Crossing and Tyco and some of the others the you know the story that maybe should have been told two three four five however many years before that you know suddenly became a surprise that all this stuff was happening. Well yes in broadcasting let's just take one General Electric which is a close

6 to the big five. It owns NBC General Electric producers nuclear reactors produces electric generating stations. It is a major weapons supplier for the Department of Defense. You will not have to hear every three hours debate on the pros and cons of nuclear power. Fairness just for Pentagon contracts to cope. Corporations because these companies are in that business as well. In the case of General Electric. Nor with the others which are not in big manufacturing districts in that Time Warners and Viacom and News Corp. You will not find on their programs. Criticism or discussion of the dangers of concentrated power over unmoved what people will hear or not hear on the

news programs. So really in the hands of a very small group which even decides what news will hear. Now there are new choices. Thank goodness but they are minority ones. Most people according to all the surveys depend on network news and local news for finding out what's going on in their communities and in the country. Local television news in the United States is a kind of national joke or two screens in most places. There are exceptions but mostly it's. The latest murder in the community the latest bloody accident. And then happy talk. And then mostly weather and sports. You don't hear very serious local news. The idea is to have it

all fun all entertainment. They've even created what for someone who grew up in journalists is repelled by the term infotainment that is handling nudes as entertainment. Well news is not entertainment. It is sometimes amusing sometimes it is at a time when events occur which have a basic humor about them but not for the most part. People want to hear serious things about the problems that affect them personally. And you don't hear much of it. You don't hear information and discussions about what the average family has to deal with. You hear the problems of the very rich and the sponsors want you there. The young who are going to buy sneakers push tennis shoes and so forth. And

or 18 to 35 family formation and they buy furniture and things of that sort and they fashion their programs around. So the journalistic selection of nudes which is most important as a priority and I'm going on from there along with a human interest story. And on the local level is unfortunately a kind of national joke or disgrace or way depending on how high your journalistic standards are network news except for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. the Fox Network is generally much more disciplined. CBS NBC and ABC they come out of a past period where news was considered sacred. You had a professional staff. They picked what was the most important things. And there's a great deal of momentum to that. They are not like the

local news which goes only for blood and guts but local news is a serious problem. It's in specially difficult problem a troublesome problem in the United States because unlike any other industrial democracy we leave central functions to each community which in other countries national bureaucracies for example. Each community controls its own schools and almost every other industrial country. That's a national bureaucracy. England France Germany Italy and so forth. So people need to know a noose about their school boards and their curricula. If their kids are going to be subject to but they don't get a whole lot of that very few local stations in the major markets cover meetings of the school board.

Even when there's something very contentious to be decided. We control our own policing. We control most of us taxes locally. We control land use locally. Those are not the subjects that we learn about. What happens is most of the citizens are confronted with a fait accompli. These things are decided by a small group of people without warning and without having a public procedure. So that there are exceptions to that in their community. When the cat's out and the community wants a hearing but for the majority a small bureaucracy does it without coverage by the news of because the news wants spectacle and every TV almost every TV studio there produce a tope we want a motion. We want to cram all we want.

And the reason they want is a dubious invention I think in and American television watching the remote control. When the average viewer of television turns on the set. Whatever happened to come on the screen. May fix his attention and the people who put ocean produce programs know that show they want a high probability. The first time the television set catch on something tension building dramatic strikes them so they won't go surfing. Yeah. Because everybody fears the mute button or the channel button. And God save us the awesome but right. And so that changed the dynamics of broadcasting where you had to fix the viewer right

away where you get a series of very dramatic things one right after that. This does not make for quiet intelligent discussion of local issues. We're worried about our midpoint I'm sorry to interrupt but I wanted to make sure to reintroduce our guest for those who may have joined us since the introduction. We're talking with Ben back Dickie and he's a. It's a prize winning journalist of many years. Former dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at University California Berkeley and he's author of a number of books among them the latest the new media monopoly complete revised and updated edition with seven new chapters published by the Beacon Press. We have a couple callers to talk with so I'd like to include them in our conversation. Why don't we do that. And we have someone first in Chicago on line number four. Good morning. Yes I was have a couple questions. First of all you know in light of you know the you

know control of the media with large corporations how do you account for the liberal bias that you find you know most of the networks and newspapers you know you would think it would just be the opposite there'd be a conservative bias but it seems that it seems all one sided you know like even with the news of you know from Iraq could be what the TV news can miss and I just wonder how do you account for that that's going on with with you know all this corporate control as long as I've been a journalist which is more years than I'd like to count the conservatives have said that there is little liberal bias. I'm I've been a journalist. And I can tell you that the threshold for getting liberal ideas into the newspapers on the air on television when commercial broadcasting has a higher threshold than news which is conservative pretty much driven Rouge come from they come from people with

titles. People who are CEO of companies who are the heads of big organizations the chairs of legislative committees they come from the higher authorities. How often do you hear quoted in equal words a labor union leader a consumer's group even a national prominent Consumer's Group. How often do you hear that. Almost never. So that the idea here of a liberal bias is I think your fixation among conservatives who believe that there is the only truth that there is. It is ordained to be the correct thing for the country. Now that's not unusual for a political group but they happen to be consistent with the feelings of most of the powerful corporate owners.

There are very few socialists and liberals. People who run large corporations large corporations want lowest possible taxes and no taxes at all. They want minimal government regulation. They don't want consumer groups testing their products and announcing it. They're very conservative. So of course the conservatives any time you say in public radio or any that does not reflect the corporate point of view is a liberal bias. Well I think you must be watching different the different media and what then because you can't even listen on the entertainment programs you see it put into scenes you know half of these sitcoms and movies are really reality plain in my opinion liberal morality play so you must be watching a different kind of media that I'm watching. Well I wonder if you're also talking like you said the entertainment channels as opposed to the news coverage

and the cons of coverage. People learn about the world from is that you think asking the caller is you know when you when it comes to news do you see. Well I see it permeate the whole broadcasting. The only exception would be you know in talk radio it's almost like a refuge for conservatives I think the talk radio is kind of the other way but I think it doesn't have the general impact as a network network media do and the newspapers so but I do you think in a talk radio you might say Well that is kind of towards the conservative end. But I'd say that in the general media the one with the general coverage like the TVs even local TVs. I just can't mistily liberal bias and it even goes into the moral issues and you see it on the programs I'm just like you know MTV and those types of things in an in a in a network programming night just you just can't miss it liberal politically and news wise and liberal moral wise just you know I can't miss it. Well I think you know I think that's true in some of the new media that if they

merge MTV for example is a kind of began this kind of protest medium and it comes out and occasionally with a very popular entertainer is who obviously is liberal in their view. And I think some of that is true but it has to come out in this indirect way that's come out in Doonesbury in the comic strips and that kind of thing. And which criticism of power becomes a side voice that comes from the wings that is not on the main stage but it's there. And I think the Internet has had an influence on expanding the number of political voices. And so I agree I think that there are now outlets that do that but they do not match the power of the other side on the standard wide

spectrum of commercial broadcasting that is seen by most people. If you look at the audiences you will see that most people really depend on the standard big broadcasts. But if you want to find opposite views you can printed. And broadcast but they you have to look for them much more carefully. All the others other standard broadcasts so I agree with you there are voices now and I think they're increasing. Well I think they have an impact because people are excited by hearing them. Yeah. One of the shows that I hear people talking a lot about is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Have you seen that. You know honestly no. Some people think that's that's one of the best new shows actually on television these days. It's a pretty amusing show. I do want to get on to other callers we have several people waiting so if it's OK with you let's let's talk with some other listeners. Next up

someone in her band one number one. On Good Morning. Yes good morning. I don't of course know what is in the mind of your previous caller but if he would be a liberal bias in the news to reflect what they are saying about the bad economy and the way the war is being mis conducted and he ran I supposedly he would think that yes that is a liberal bias. On the other hand I listen to and hear public radio Andy and BBC and I hear that the war is being dizzy estrus. He conducted in Iraq and I assume that the network news is it's even more so. Also

I must say I really disagree with the previous caller. I think that he just can't bear to see anybody criticizing Bush. And so he has bought. I think that there is a cynical view of corporate communications that there is a liberal bias. I really don't think that the people in the large corporate that the corporate communications series believe there is a liberal bias. I think they just use that phrase because it's so handy and so catchy I think they know exactly what they're doing. They're putting out news that reflects their own interests. I was sorry to see locally that we had a free paper that was distributed which of course depends on advertisement going to talk about what was going on you know in terms of entertainment and restaurants etc. but it also had a

few very lively I wouldn't go list of contributing. Columnist and they were just fascinating and they were interesting and they did have a liberal bias and I thought that was kind of good since you can't get a liberal bias in this town with our local newspaper and it folded I was I don't know why whether it's financial or whatever and I happen to talk to the people who's brought out something new. I won't even mention what the name of the new free weekly newspaper is but I called and said You know I read your first issue and I thought it was kind of blah. You know I really missed the commentary the political commentary the letters to the editor that was carried by the previous newspaper and the lady who answered the phone. And I do not know her name said Honestly to me. Well that was their problem. They had too much politics and and

advertisers don't want to advertise it when you have political commentary. And I thought it very interesting. Thank you. You know ma'am for that honest report. And so I know that the only liberal paper in this town is the public eye which is put out by the Independent Media Center here in town. But I don't think there is much. Dependent media except maybe in little conclaves like like Champaign Urbana at him as a kind of intellectual leaning. I would say it's certainly not an intellectual community because certain intellectual leanings so and I do I do regret even MacNeil-Lehrer I feel that all they do is report what the officials in the administration are saying. I don't know I don't even hear anything

of a contradictory nature. And even if they have something that's a little bit a little bit critical of the current Republican administration and that person then they come out and say So-and-so does not speak for public radio. You know if it is somehow public radio would be contaminated by a liberal thought. Well thank you for letting me go on. I do agree with this that it is a very sad state that corporate communications and it's not just corporate communications. It's conservative corporate. Communication style. Thank you for letting me share my opinion. OK well hang tough. All right thanks. Well Mr. Begg dickin there's a lot that the caller said that you should feel free to comment upon but I wanted to sort of ask you talk in particular about the coverage of the war in Iraq and the coverage that we get in the United States you know

I'm pretty aware of the international coverage. It's almost like there's two different wars going on the coverage in the U.S. is so different from the way it is were being reported elsewhere around the world. Yes that's true but before I go I think that's important. But let me say one thing about the previous callers. I think if you change the term liberal bias to a liberal point of view you begin to see that anything that is not conservative is considered a bias where it's generally a different point of view and I think that's important. Important point in the use of language on the Iraq war. I think that's the new version on the hall. In the beginning I had failed the American public in the fall of 2000 Jewish the elections were approaching. What was the headline from the papers. Growing unemployment growing

indebtedness among middle class people. Big tax cuts for the rich. But more desperation. The lower income level. Those are the headlines. More companies found corrupt more companies laying off by the term Tarzan's 100 times and then on October 21 the president announced that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and represented a imminent threat to the United States. That was the end of those headlines about domestic problems. That was the end of the probability that the Democrats would take the Senate because there were only one vote short. And that became a war. We became a war economy and a war Neuve stablish meant it was a totally artificial move we had.

Iraq did used to have. Place of mass destruction which we showed him in 1980 so we could fight the Iranians and they were all used. And we knew that some of the bird did a very on the Senate floor did an inventory of all of us. But of course the networks treated the commercial networks as the aging orator having his pitiful turn on the floor and didn't give the details of what he said so that the American people suddenly were shocked to believe that Iraq represented al-Qaida which of course it was hated every horse hated by its secular state that had weapons of mass destruction. They did not have them. And we have so we we we we turned Iraq into rubble with horrific bombing. We are very good at precision bombing heavy bombing but

shockingly we had no plan for what happens after we invade and everything is rubble. So that it was it was late when the major media examined what the whole Iraq war suddenly meant in terms of domestic politics and in world politics. We now have more of the Muslim world that hates us than ever before. We have done exactly the wrong things. We have lied about it lied at the highest levels of the government. We went against what we knew to be true at least and which aren't illusions agencies knew to be true. The Pentagon dismissed the regular agents and intelligence agencies and formed their own intelligence which turned out to be. Immensely flawed lo these who are intellectuals of high

training totally misled themselves and the American people and we now have a mess that is not going to be solved very easily if we leave in June 30. There will be civil war. There's already a small civil war going on it will become a much greater one. The Kurds are very suspicious of the Shiite majority the Shiites are split. We are finding it necessary to reappoint Saddam Hussein's leaders in order to bring order. It is an ironic picture of a massive govern model governmental error and cynicism. And it is only lately I have most of the media begun to catch up with how disastrous this has been. New York Times I must say began

earlier than most. But we are now confronted with a disaster and we were not prepared ahead of time to recognize those people who were Nation airs because in general as I said before we take the word of the highest authorities as the basis of our news and as we know the authorities are not always right. And when you hold out most of the power you and your errors tend to go on corrected. And I think that's what happened in Iraq. OK we have several callers and maybe just about six minutes left will try to get as many as we can we'll go next to a listener in where we're going next. The listener on line number two I believe in Urbana. Good morning you're on focus 580. Good morning. It seems that the last two callers have basically agreed with your idea

that the majority of people get the majority of their information from tightly can tightly held I suppose the sources and still want to debate with you. Other sources because we may have an unusual situation in our small community. So keeping on that theme I wondered whether you have a sense of how many people are being reached. Those who want to go searching for alternate sources of information. What fraction proportion by such outlets as the self described in the independent media outlets. Individual reports on the nearly chaotic Internet. What sort of fraction of people are actually looking for alternatives and being served by alternatives. I'll hang up and listen to your discussion. Thank you. Well I think that there are from the beginning there were course some forces on the Internet MoveOn for example turn hundreds of thousands of people marching against the war.

And that was an interest strictly by the Internet. But I think that increasingly there is just spear among a widening number of ordinary Americans that this is not only costly it's killing Americans it's killing more Iraqis. And we have no prospect of a democracy in Iraq which has not had one for very long time and that we're stuck. We say we're going to get out but we can't get out. If it's a civil war going on and where we initially insulted the United Nations said they were irrelevant. We now are saying they must go in. And but the United Nations doesn't have the resources because the member nations have to give it a lot of money after donate a lot of troops and much more

powerful powerful even have available now. So I think that the United States. In the eyes of much of the world is seen easer as a hostile force or as an incompetent force. And that's it for an American. For me it's terribly sad. Military service during World War 2 there was certitude there was no question about the need for we were to act. This is very very different and very verse. We have another caller waiting on line there were four in Chicago let's speak with them. Good morning Ron focus 580. I'm not sure if you covered this before because I came in late but I'm really distressed about the liberal media's attack on Ralph Nader. I could not understand for the life of me why they were against him running if there was data that show that he did not take votes away from Al Gore that he

took votes away from George Bush. There was also data that showed many other reasons why Gore lost. But despite that argument the simple fact that in America we need more parties rather than less. And it is just focusing every. Think on getting rid of Bush and they've ignored how our Congress has betrayed us and they've ignored the fact that 45 percent of the voting public are voting in the elections and I mean it seems like there were other issues that they could have campaigned on the fact that we need more voter registration the fact that we need to reform Congress. But to be against Ralph Nader running I felt shocked him betrayed and I began to think what is the problem with these people. I don't understand that. Well I think most of the objection to me that I hear is the fear. This shrewd parent the Bush electoral success because

in the 2000 election was about seemed to be the case in Florida or New Mexico and the purser's Nader was very popular and his vote may have made the difference. So that I think that there are there is such a fear among people who are not already committed to Mr. Bush that he will succeed. If there are votes that are drained off from the anti-Bush vote and I think that explains why there is it's so many questions have been raised about Ralph Nader running again because he could be a margin of difference that may or may not be true. I think he is an independent voice in force I think he has one of the greater benefactors for good

government and good construction or good consumer control in the United States. But I think that it becomes controversial because the fear that it may represent a margin which will permit Bush to be reelected among people who don't want him reelected. I'm sorry to say that we are out of time and there is much more that we could we could discuss if we had more. Well I will suggest to folks if you'd like to read more on the topic. The book is the new media monopoly a completely revised and updated edition with seven new chapters. It's now available in paperback from the Beacon Press and this is a book that was originally published in 1903 it's been through what this is the seventh edition is that correct. At 7:07 almost totally real. No that's right and there's a lot of good stuff in there so if you like to read more than you should take a look the author is been our guest. Ben bag dick in his last name is spelled b a g d i k i ate an N to you Mr. Bagian thank you so much for talking with

us. Thank you know it's an enjoyable program.