The Megamedia are the Message

It was no coincidence. Just as the most sweeping telecommunications reform legislation in sixty years was clearing the last hurdles in Congress, the Disney folk let it drop that they would dine on Capital Cities/ABC, and Westinghouse said they aimed to scarf down CBS. "An utterly great transaction," trumpeted Barry Diller of the Disney concordat. "It's a great deal for both parties," declared Rupert Murdoch. "A great merger," decided Warner Brothers chairman Robert Daly. "The right thing has been done for the shareholders of both companies," announced Warren Buffett. (But what about the rest of us, a few dazed observers wondered.) The Westinghouse/ CBS pact won lesser raves, but mostly because the one-time Tiffany Network (now dubbed the Woolworth Web) is a ratings also-ran (versus the surging, No. 1 ABC) and had been eviscerated by the policies of outgoing proprietor Laurence Tisch. And because Westinghouse was a lackluster suitor compared to the dashing Disney.

That thundering double salvo from the guns of early August was triggered by expectations of a new day dawning in which government, once and for all, will stand aside and not meddle in the profit strategies of America's media conglomerates. The telecommunications bill, to be negotiated between House and Senate this fall, contains provisions that remove all limits on the number of radio stations a single company could own; increase the number of TV households a single broadcaster could serve; and allow entrepreneurs to own newspapers, radio stations, telephone companies, and cable systems all in the same market. President Clinton has vowed to veto the bill "in the best interests of the public and our economic well-being" if it weren't significantly revised -- on grounds that it smothered diversity and would permit unwelcome concentrations of media firepower "in every community."

Virtually lost amid all the speculation, jubilation, and lamentation: What vision do Disney and Westinghouse harbor for the news departments now so firmly in their grasp? At the two press conferences announcing the buyouts, neither Disney boss Michael Eisner nor Westinghouse suzerain Michael Jordan thought to offer a reassuring word that the journalists in their employ would enjoy a sturdy firewall protecting them from the preferences and petulances of the corporate parent. Nor did Eisner and Jordan pay the customary state visits to their network newsrooms (as had Barry Diller and Larry Tisch before them) to reassure the troops. (During a teleconference with ABC employees, Eisner did declare, with customary elegance:"I wouldn't screw around with the news, especially ABC News." And belatedly, on August 9, Jordan paid a flying courtesy call to the CBS News precincts.)

But a Disney executive told The Wall Street Journal Eisner is a "warrior . . . . If he doesn't feel like you're with his program, there's a problem." Attention Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel. Also take heed: the seven Capital Cities/ABC newspapers (including The Kansas City Star, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader), plus Los Angeles magazine, Women's Wear Daily, and Institutional Investor. New York Post columnist John Cassidy wrote: "To put it kindly, Disney is not renowned for its commitment to freedom of speech."

Clearly, the fear of ownership of news organizations by mega-corporations (including those that traffic in government contracts) is nothing new (viz. NBC News and GE.) But the Disney and Westinghouse ventures ratchet the concerns up to a new level, especially since the end of big-time merger mania is nowhere in sight. Andrew Barrett, an FCC commissioner, predicted a few weeks ago that by the year 2000 "we'll probably see ten to twelve companies controlling everything we see, hear, and convey in entertainment, voice, and data." "A passion for good old-fashioned journalism could hardly find a more discouraging atmosphere within which to try to survive," wrote Nieman Foundation curator Bill Kovach in The New York Times (August 3). Andrew Jay Schwartzman, director of the Media Access Project, added:"The unprecedented cynicism and distrust of American journalism is not alleviated by these consolidations."

Not everybody is so pessimistic. 60 Minutes boss Don Hewitt claims that in twenty-seven years no employer has ever tried to influence him. Pressure from on high is something "that's simply not on my mind. Maybe it should be, but it isn't."

A growing number of theorists like Al Snyder, senior fellow at the Annenberg Washington Program, feel that Disney, Westinghouse, and all other present and future conglomerates need to issue a formal, industry-wide public declaration of their news divisions' independence -- a document that would contain language reassuring both the public and the press that journalists are a hundred percent insulated from the interests of their owners; that corporate chieftains will never attempt either to advance or quash a particular story; and that news broadcasts will never be used for cross-promotion and exploitation. "It's something they need to turn their attention to very quickly," Snyder says.

Without such a covenant, television journalists are vulnerable, even if they don't know it. Just after the Disney buyout, Barbara Walters recalled that ABC News aired a special last spring from the Disney World movie studio in Florida. "Now, I couldn't do it," she declared.

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